This coming Sunday is the 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time. “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand.” (Mk 1:15) This phrase is only in Mark. The word for time is kairos; it is used in 11:13 and 12:2 to refer to the “time of harvest” – an image that usually refers to the time of judgment. It is also used in Mark 13 when the writer refers to the kairos of the great judgment: “The Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.”  Yet this is something “unfulfilling” about the moment. 

There is a part of us that wants an “epiphany” with the Kingdom fully and clearly present; there is a part of us that wants the Kingdom to conquer all – here and now – right now. Yet the world we have always known still seems very much intact. Instead of a Kingdom epiphany, the second act opens with Jesus wandering by the sea, bidding some common laborers to accompany him on a mission.  Still, here in Mark’s gospel we know “when” the time is. It is now that the Kingdom is being fulfilled – and yet we pray “Your kingdom come….” I appreciate Martin Luther’s explanation: “God’s kingdom comes on its own without our prayer, but we ask in this prayer that it may also come to us.”

The Gospel of God – Jesus has come “proclaiming the Gospel of God” (v.14). What is meant by “the gospel of God” is defined by the summary of Jesus’ proclamation in v.15.  All of the elements in this one verse clarifies God’s decisive action in sending forth his Son at this particular moment in history. The emphasis upon the fullness of time grounds Jesus’ proclamation securely in the history of revelation and redemption. It focuses attention upon the God who acts, whose past election and redemption of Israel provided the pledge of his activity in the future. Jesus declares that the critical moment has come: God begins to act in a new and decisive way, bringing his promise of ultimate redemption to the point of fulfillment. By sovereign decision God makes this point in time the critical one in which all the moments of promise and fulfillment in the past find their significance in one awesome moment.

Image credit: The Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew, Duccio di Buoninsegna, National Gallery of Art Washington DC PD-US