Sermon for Third Sunday after the Epiphany
January 25, 2015, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas
Sermon Text: Mark 1:14-20
Sermon Theme: “What’s the Best Way to Fish?”
(Sources: Anderson’s Preaching Workbook, Cycle B: original ideas; Emphasis Online Commentaries; Emphasis Online Illustrations; Wikipedia Online.)
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
There’s a Peanuts comic strip in which Linus is listening carefully as his sister, Lucy, boasts about her religious faith and her potential as an evangelist. She says to Linus, “I could be a terrific evangelist. Do you know that kid who sits behind me in school? I convinced him that my faith is better than his faith.”
Linus asks, “How did you do that?”
Lucy replies, “I hit him with my lunch box.”
Not exactly what Jesus means by “fishing for men” in today’s sermon text.
In Jewish culture, whenever students attached themselves to a particular rabbi, that is, teacher, they would study the Law of God. Now Jesus, the rabbi in our text, is a different sort of rabbi, in that He is the fulfillment of the Law, and, having been sent by the Father for a purpose, He needed to proclaim far and wide, that fulfillment. Thus He actively went out seeking and choosing the men who would help Him in this task.
Jesus proclaims in the text, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” The Greek language has two concepts of “time”: one is “chronos,” that is, time as duration; and the other is “kairos”
, time pregnant with meaning, that is time filled with meaning, purpose and opportunity. The time Jesus is speaking of implies both concepts.
A survey was taken of Americans over 90 years of age. They were asked, “If you had your life to live over again, what would you do differently?” Their answers were, “I would reflect more, I would risk more, and I would invest in more things that would outlive me.” Peter, Andrew, James, and John all invested in a cause that would outlive them on this earth, and found it was eternally worth it. Continue reading