It's breaking in!

So we decided to slowly preach our way through Mark’s Gospel. We’ve called it Mark’s Gospel: To Believe Is Human.
Check out the series at http://www.redeemerschurch.com/dlgMediaPlayer.aspx?id=880

Having blogged yesterday about rereading what we already know, today was discovering new stuff.

For example – why does Mark have an evil spirit be the first one to announce who Jesus is?
Is it to do with Mark wanting us to see a deeper reality than what’s on the surface of our lives.

But the bigger learn was the way that Mark introduces us to Jesus.

Three back to back, boom boom stories in Mark 1, and each one speaks directly into the most common fears of 1st century Jews.

1. Demon possession – their explanation for any bad things that happened in their lives.
2. Fever – if you got sick in Jesus’ day you normally died from it.
3. Isolation – being moved to the margins of society, shunned, untouchable.

There’s so much in the history and the sociology in how Jesus is introduced, but one thing oozes out of the opening trilogy - Jesus immediately impacted every fear and anxiety people felt.
This is the Kingdom of God arriving!!
It is about real life, real people and their real fears.
The Kingdom of God is something very tangible.

This is why it is such Good News.
Live it rather than only believe it.
Day in day out let the Kingdom of God break through.