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smark04
The Time if Fulfilled
Text:
Mark 1:13
Date: St. Mark, Evangelist Day 
4/25/04 3dsmax 6 serial
Though
the 50 th anniversary of St. Mark's Lutheran congregation of West
Bloomfield, Michigan is still 14 months ahead of us, with our Name
Day, St. Mark, Evangelist Day falling on a Sunday this year it seemed
appropriate to extend our celebration by beginning it now. I talked
to Pastor Grafe, the founding pastor of St. Mark's, and asked him
what, if any, special significance there was in naming this congregation
after the second Evangelist. He said he mentioned St. Mark only
because “Mark” was the name of their oldest son. Everyone simply
agreed and that was that. Nevertheless, as the Word of God has something
important to say to any and every situation, time and person, so
the Word of God appointed for the commemoration of St. Mark has
something important and appropriate to say to us as we think of
the history, the purpose and the future of our congregation dedicated
to the remembrance of this Evangelist. That Word is in St. Mark's
description of the theme of the preaching of Jesus from the beginning
of his Gospel, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is
at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” [Mark 1:15 (ESV)].
There
have been a lot of changes in the fifty years since St. Mark Lutheran
congregation was first established. In 1955 I was a five-year-old
kindergarten student in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In 1955 gas for
your car cost ten cents per gallon! Since that would be equivalent
to only sixty-four cents in today's money, there are, apparently,
other issues to account for the nearly two dollars per gallon we're
seeing today. In 1955, schoolteachers and students were still getting
used to the recent change from “one nation, indivisible” to “one
nation, under God, indivisible” in the pledge of allegiance. It
was changed only a year before “as a means of advancing religion
at a time when the nation was engaged in a battle against the doctrines
of atheistic communism.” Who would have thought, only fifty years
later, not only that the old Soviet Union would be gone, but that
there would be American citizens now taking offense at even the
mention of the Divine in the pledge or anywhere in the public square?
We
will be remembering and recalling many, many things that have changed
over the years, but one thing that has not changed is the message
of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom
of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
St.
Mark's is the shortest Gospel. From the earliest days of the Church
it was acknowledged that this Gospel was written by the young “John
Mark,” not an apostle himself, but a disciple and helper of the
disciple Barnabas and the Apostles Paul and Peter. In fact, the
material of his Gospel comes from the witness and preaching primarily
of Simon Peter. He was writing to the Christian Church in Italy
during a time of intense persecution with the intent of giving encouragement
and hope as the Christians were being threatened with death if they
would not renounce and deny their faith in Jesus Christ. We may
not be threatened with death, but today we find ourselves entering
a time that is, on the one hand, increasingly interested in things
“spiritual” but, on the other hand, suspect and even critical of
the exclusive claims of Christianity. It is a more subtle sort of
persecution, but then since when hasn't the devil used subtlety?
“The
beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” for St.
Mark begins with the coming of John the Baptist in the wilderness
proclaiming “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”
There is not a “Christmas section” to Mark's Gospel. Leave that
to Matthew and, later, to Luke. For now the important thing is repentance
and faith in the forgiveness of sins. Mark even rushes through Jesus'
temptation in the wilderness in two, short sentences in order to
get right to the preaching and works of Jesus and, ultimately, to
the account of the Passion of the Christ and his resurrection as
the center and source of faith and hope for his audience of persecuted
believers.
When
Jesus proclaims, “the time is fulfilled,” he is announcing God's
decisive action in sending forth his Son at this particular moment
in history. It was all based on God's promises beginning all the
way back with Abraham and even further back to the Garden of Eden
itself. Through the years details were added, and then, after the
prophet Malachi, three hundred years of absolute prophetic silence.
In the midst of that long, silent night, “when the fullness of time
had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman” [Galatians 4:4
(ESV)] named Mary, in the little town of David called Bethlehem.
That silence would only be broken thirty years later by John the
Baptist in the wilderness.
St.
Mark congregation, likewise, stands to say that God has acted and
continues to act in our world and place and time. Though there be
times of great enthusiasm, and other times when it seems like not
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