The Kingdom of God has Come

I. Introduction:

Wednesday night, many of us gathered here for our Ash Wednesday Service. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent. At that service I introduced our Lenten Sermon Series entitled, “Covenant Living.” We started off by saying that God has invited all of us to enter into a covenant relationship with him and has demonstrated this desire by first of all loving us even while we were yet sinners. This covenant that God has established is one in to which God has remained faithful and in which God has been fully present. We, on the other hand, cannot say the same thing of ourselves.

As odd as it may seem, that is one thing that makes our text for today so amazing. In this story we are reminded of several things about the way in which God works in our lives, even in spite of the fact that we fail time and again to fulfill our commitment to live up faithfully to God’s Covenant with us.

II. God constantly takes us by surprise.

This was the case in the moment of Jesus’ baptism and it is the case even today. Consider what we know about the religious climate in Jesus’ day. At the time of Jesus, the Jews believed in two totally separate ages: the present age of sinfulness ruled by Satan and the age to come when God would destroy evil once for all. But in Jesus, the future age of God’s Kingdom has already invaded this present age. Although the Kingdom is present now in Jesus and guaranteed by the Spirit, it is still future and will not be completely realized until Christ returns and finally banishes evil and, as verse 15 tells us, Jesus’ kingdom is not a national one, it is a spiritual one. The only way to belong to it is through the forgiveness of sins of which I will say more in just a bit.

Now, take all of that into consideration and look at what a radical thing Jesus’ baptism really was. John was baptising those who were confessing and repenting of their sins. So the first radical thing we see in this text is that Jesus presented himself to John alongside all of those who were repenting of their sins. We see how radical this was when we look at Matthew chapter 3. There John tells Jesus at the point in which he presents himself to John, “I need to be baptised by you and not the other way around.” Obviously, there is no better word than radical for the who knew no sin to present himself as one who needed to repent.

The second radical thing that we see in this text is the fact that the Holy Spirit is manifested in the form of a dove, an ordinary bird. You would think that this kind of revelation would have come in some spectacular way. Instead, the Holy Spirit came in the form of a bird which could have been seen at any time during any normal day.

Finally, it seems a little strange that God would look down upon Jesus, really before anything of significance had been done by Jesus in his ministry, and pronounce that Jesus is His Beloved Son, in whom He is well pleased. However, each of these things occured because it was necessary. You see, three things that were necessary in Jewish tradition to signify the inauguration of God’s eschatological kingdom: the heavens were opened above him, the Spirit descended upon him, and the heavenly voice spoke to him.

If you had been in the crowd that day, what would have been the most incredulous thing to you about this story? Would it have been that the Holy Spirit became a bird? Perhaps it may have been the fact that Jesus threw his reputation aside to get dunked alongside sinners. Maybe it would have been the fact that God looked down upon the ministry of Jesus, almost before it began and gave a rousing endorsement?

Let me ask the question differently: what do we find most impossible to believe for our own lives? That God appears by means so familiar, we often miss him? That our baptisms bind us to all of humanity -- not in theory, but in the flesh -- such that you and I are kin, responsible for each other in ways we fail too often to honor? Or that we are God's Beloved -- not because we've done anything to earn it, but because our Father insists on blessing us with His approval? You see, herein in lies the surprise for us today, not just in Jesus’ baptism but in ours as well. God acknowledged Jesus as His Son, not because Jesus had done anything to deserve that acknowledgement but simply because God identified him that way. The same is true of us all. In his birth, as in his baptism, as in his death, Jesus experienced the human experience. At our baptism, we become the sons and daughters of God, not because we deserve it but because God claims us as such. So, why does baptism matter? Why was it important for Jesus to baptised? Simply because we are who God says we are. The identity declared at baptism, however, is only a word until it is revealed with convincing power in the unfolding story of our lives.

Truly, this is Covenant Living and the Kingdom of God has come because the creator of the Universe has claimed us as His own. This brings us to an amazing realization.

III. We are both inadequate and capable of being used by God

In a very real sense, we share a great deal with John the baptist today for certainly we are unworthy of that which God offers us in Christ Jesus. In many ways, this is exactly what the Apostle Paul meant when he said in , “For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.” That is why Paul could also write in , “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

You see, that presents us with this self-contradictory statement. We are both inadequate and capable of being used by God because it all begins and ends with God which leads us to the fact that . . .

IV. Faithful discipleship is about doing God’s Will more than it is about feeling good.

After His baptism and the temptations, Jesus began preaching the Gospel. He said three things that are very powerful. He said, “The Kingdom has come, Repent and Believe the Gospel.” This speaks to the point that I made earlier about the fact that the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry is both a current event as well as a future event. It speaks of the Kingdom which has come and which is coming all at the same time.

Now before you write that off a me talking in riddles, stay with me a moment. The word for time here is kairos. We’ve heard this before. We know that in the Bible, particularly in the Gospels, there are two kinds of time. There is chronos time and there is kairos. Chronos is what we would regard as usual time. Its the time that is represented by our wrist watch. Chronos is the kind of time that measures how long this service is. Within Chronos time however, there is Kairos time. This is the time that interrupts Chronos time. It is a particular moment in time. As an example, the birth of child is kairos time because it is a moment that changes things.

The word for time in this text is not Chronos but rather it is Kairos. In other words, this is not just recognition of the passage of time as we my recognize a birthday or anniversary. It is Kairos which means that this is a significant moment. It is a moment in which a decision is to be made. We have all had Kairos moments in our lives, whether we acknowledge them or not. As a matter of fact this very moment is a Kairos moment. It is a moment in which the Kingdom of God interrupts our normal routine and confronts us with a decision point. It is a moment which proclaims, “Time is up. It’s time to make a decision.”

As is the case with every Kairos moment, the decision must be made around two things. Repent, which means to turn away from something and Believe, which means to turn to something. In this case, the subject in question is the Gospel, the good news about a God who offers you new life and calls us to serve him faithfully. It’s not about our own warm fuzzies. It’s about faithfully serving the God of the Universe.

This week, I’ve been asked several times as to why we did the emphasis on Spiritual Gifts last week. Some people were greatly excited about the opportunity to do this and others were quite offended by the process. The answer to the question really is found in the lesson for today. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not so much about us feeling good about our relationship with God as it is our faithfulness to serving God. Everyone who is a part of this church has a place of ministry within the Body of Christ. You see, if HUMC is going to truly be a Beacon of Hope for Today’s Families, its going to take us all to accomplish it.

Now, the fact is, Kairos moments are not unlike any moment of decision. We can choose to ignore things and change nothing. We can continue on the course our lives are own and not change a thing. Or, we can choose to engage in Covenant Living and serve God with every fiber of our being. It may be that you make that decision every day of your life. If so, I praise God for it. However, perhaps you need to know today that you are a child of God and God has a place for you in the work of the Kingdom. If that is the case, then hear the words of Jesus just once more, “The Kingdom of God has come. Repent and believe the Gospel.”

V. Faithful discipleship is about doing God’s Will more than it is about feeling good.

According to Christian historian John Dominic Crossan, Jesus' baptism story was an "acute embarrassment" for the early Church, too, but for reasons very different from our modern ones. What scandalized the gospel writers was not the miraculous, but the ordinary. Doves and voices? All well and good -- but the Messiah placing himself under the tutelage of a rabble-rouser like John? God's incarnate Son receiving a baptism of repentance? Perfect, untouchable Jesus? What was he doing in that murky water, aligning himself with the great unwashed? And why did God the Father choose that sordid moment to part the clouds and call his Son beloved?

I suppose every age has its signature difficulties with faith. When we're not busy flattening miracle into mirage, we're busy instead turning sacrament into scandal. After all, what's most incredulous about this story? That the Holy Spirit became a bird? That Jesus threw his reputation aside to get dunked alongside sinners? Or that God looked down at the very start of his Son's ministry and called him Beloved -- well before Jesus had accomplished a thing worth praising?

--Debie Thomas, "Thin place, deep water," Journey With Jesus, January 1, 2017. journeywithjesus.net. Retrieved August 15, 2017.