Every year, companies spend billions of dollars on advertising. It is estimated that in 2024 alone, the US will spend approximately 332 billion dollars. A good portion of this budget, no doubt, will go to creating and promoting slogans. There is an art to creating these memorable hooks, the statements and jingles that stick in our brains. Companies know that if they distill their product or message into a short, pithy statement or song, people will be more likely to buy their product or invest in their experience. Just think about “Just do it” for Nike shoes or the claim that Disneyland is “The Happiest Place on Earth.”
If you had to come up with a slogan for Christian faith, what would you come up with? How would you distill the gospel into some tight, creative statement? People have thought of this, and myriads of websites offer their suggestions. Some of the most popular are “Let go and Let God,” “Fear ends where faith begins,” and “Jesus-your get out of hell free card!”
But none of these things do the trick, do they? In some way, they all fail to adequately sum up the heart of our faith or the message of Jesus.
Instead of thinking of creative slogans and soundbites, we would do well to look at how Jesus encapsulated his message. Jesus was not just a miracle worker or healer but also a teacher and preacher. Jesus came “proclaiming the good news of God” (Mark 1:14). This proclamation of the gospel has three main components.
The Time has Been Fulfilled
Jesus came announcing that the time of the Messiah had begun. “The time has been Fulfilled,” Jesus says (Mark 1:14). It can be easy to miss the nuance of such a statement. The Greek language has two separate words for “time .” Chronos refers to the passage of linear time. It is time ruled by calendars and clocks, hours, and minutes. Kairos, the form Jesus uses, speaks more to the appointed time of God’s activity. Kairos is particularly related to the sending of the Messiah, the time of salvation. Later, Paul writes, “When the appointed time had come, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship” (Galatian 4:4-5). When Jesus speaks of the time’s fulfillment, he particularly references the appointed time of redemption and the dawning of the messianic age.
Israel had been waiting for the Messiah for centuries. They understood this event as marking the close of the present age and the beginning of the next. Just like we might say that the sunrise becomes the definitive change between night and day, the coming of the Messiah was to mark a substantive change in life.
The fulfillment of time brings a message of hope and encouragement. Jesus was announcing that it was the time for God to step into the world and act in their midst. It was the time when God’s promises were revealed in all power and fullness, and it was the time when salvation would break upon the people and where forgiveness and grace would reign.
No more waiting. No more spiritual wandering. The day of the Lord had come.
The Kingdom of God is at Hand
Christ’s message about the fulfillment of time is connected to his assertion that the kingdom of God had broken into the world. When Jesus began his preaching ministry, his message was, “The time has come, and the Kingdom of God has come near” (Mark 1:14). This message is the same in the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Mark.
The coming of the Kingdom of God was central to Jesus’ teaching and preaching. Occasionally, people offer that the heart of Christ’s teaching was the golden rule: “Do to others as you would have them do to you” (Matthew 7:12). Others suggest that Jesus message can be summed up in the call to “love one another” (John 13:34). While the themes of love and righteous living are present in Christ’s teaching, these statements are mere subcomponents of the central theme of Christ’s preaching. The fact is, Jesus talked about the Kingdom of God more than any other topic. Fundamentally, Jesus came proclaiming the good news that God’s kingdom had broken into the world and was active around us.
Still, this begs the question: What is God’s Kingdom? Importantly, the Kingdom of God is not a thing to hold. It is not a castle or a place. God’s kingdom is God’s activity, manifest in human life. This is exactly what we pray for in the Lord’s prayer. When we pray, “Thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth” (Matthew 6:10), we ask that our lives on earth cohere with God’s purposes. Because God’s activity has come to earth uniquely in Jesus Christ and is present with us today in the Holy Spirit, we are invited to experience all that defines God’s blessed rule.
Repent and believe.
Jesus stands amongst the people and says, “Now is the time. Everything you have been waiting for is present for you. Repent and believe in the good news.” Repentance is obviously a loaded word. We have images of red-faced street preachers who scream scripture into people’s faces and talk more about hell than they do about heaven. But repentance simply means to change your mind – or to turn around.
Think of it like this: Imagine that you are on your way to church on Sunday morning. If you find yourself approaching the next town over, then you need to repent, literally. You will need to turn around and head the other way. This is what Repentance means, and it is what Jesus is getting at when he calls people to this action. Repentance is an invitation to turn into the good things Jesus Christ offers us. Because, after all, if it is true that the full manifestation of God’s kingdom has come upon the earth, isn’t this a reality that we want to turn into? If Jesus stands in our midst and offers forgiveness of sins and a love that casts out any fear over divine punishment, isn’t this something we want to turn to and embrace?
Jesus calls us to believe this good news. To turn into it, accept it, and base our life on it. Believing the gospel isn’t just about intellectual assent or answering biblical trivia questions correctly. Believing the gospel is about deciding that my life going forward will involve Jesus. Believing in Jesus is the act by which we turn to Jesus each day and embrace him. When we turn to Jesus and dare to believe that our lives can be touched by his, we uncover the rich things of God’s kingdom made manifest in our lives.
The gospel that Jesus proclaimed and incarnated is not time-bound. It didn’t fade away by the centuries. It is as relevant and as powerful for us today as it was to the people when Jesus walked. And so, today, the message comes: “The time is at hand, the kingdom is here, turn into it and believe this good news.”
Photo Credit: ©GettyImages/Aiden Franklin
