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MARK’S GOSPEL – GOD IS HERE!

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GOD IS HERE!

At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, 13 and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.
14 After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
Jesus Calls His First Disciples Mark 1:12-1

How could Jesus be so sure of His message, “God is here?” He had seen it, felt it, heard it, tasted it, experienced it in the worst possible environment. He has been cushioned and cocooned in the Father’s presence for forty days; heat, cold, hunger, thirst, rocks, cliffs, scorpions, snakes, spiders, prowling wild beasts – any one of these could have taken Him out – and He had to trust, lean on, hold on to the Father until He was perfectly at peace in the midst of all this. He had to move from enduring to embracing and enjoying His wilderness experience because it meant total reliance on the Father.

This was Jesus’ first “Gethsemane” experience and it prepared Him to run the gauntlet of life out there in the jungle of humanity. He had to learn to recognise and rebuff every alien voice until only the Father’s voice was clearly recognisable. “Although He was a son, He learned obedience from what He suffered…” (Hebrews 5:8).

Jesus was not proclaiming a theory: He was declaring a personal, powerful, practical reality. “God is here!” He was offering to His people the renewal of the experience as a “here and now” God. For 400 years they thought He had left them. Jesus wasn’t saying, “God is back.” He was saying, “God is here.” He was rekindling the awareness in them that God was always there, with them; but they had lost that awareness.

How can I offer that same awareness to people out there? And more so, to God’s people who struggle in their own “wilderness” experiences? First – I have to know it for myself, not just an intellectual assent to what is written in the Word, but a knowing that comes from leaning and listening to the one who is closer than my breath, the one who envelops me, surrounds me, saturates me and undergirds me until I am more sure and more secure in Him that in my own environment. I need my own wilderness. 6

THE GOSPEL OF MARK – THE TIME HAS COME

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THE TIME HAS COME

At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, 13 and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.
14 After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
Mark 1:12-15

The evidence of Jesus’ absolute confidence in the Father’s love is startling. He was not fazed by the horrific experience He has just come through – forty days in an environment so hostile that no human being ever ventured there, at least not for an extended stay.  And, on top of that, a lone human being at the mercy of an angelic spirit who was unseen, elusive, and bent on destroying Him. On His own, He could not have survived. He had to lean hard on the Holy Spirit, His companion and comforter.

According to Luke, Jesus was FILLED with the Spirit prior to His wilderness experience but returned in the POWER of the Spirit. What made the difference? Forty days of leaning hard on God; forty days of moving from human to divine energy; forty days of the kingdom pressing in on His spirit, thinning the veil between flesh and spirit. What was it that so soaked into His being that it spilled out of His mouth when He opened it? “God is here!”

What was the impact of His announcement on the people? “After 400 years of hearing nothing from God, left to battle it out on our own, abandoned, misused, oppressed, is God really here?   Jesus, you must be joking. How can we believe you?” Jesus said, “I’ll show you.” and He did. Suddenly things began to happen that made them sit up and take notice, things God had promised long ago would happen, that would accompany His Messiah’s coming.

“God is here!” What difference would that make to the people around us if we were to announce it to them boldly? What difference would it make to the people in the church? Do we really, really believe that God is here, now? What difference does it make to you and me? Does it allay fear and anxiety and give us courage and confidence to face life head on? Yes! A thousand times, yes! The fact that God is here makes all the difference in the world. We have a freedom and a peace that carries us up above circumstances and steadies us all the time.