Rev. Stacey Nalean-Carlson
I don’t have a mind for numbers—I remember names, but not dates—so I often find myself trying to piece together when something happened by remembering what else took place around that same time.
How long, for example, have we had Lucy, the dog?
Well, we got her shortly after I returned from the Youth Gathering in Houston, “and it was the same day as my little league All Star game,” my son pipes in, and slowly, but surely, we figure out that in July of this year Lucy will have been with us for four years.
The author of the gospel of Mark strikes me as operating in a similar kind of way. He doesn’t tell us the exact date when Jesus came to Galilee, but he does give us the context for this entry into Jesus’ public ministry. It was “after John was arrested.”
In the very midst of what had to have been fevered anger and tremendous sorrow…good news!
In the very midst of relentless oppression and raging injustice…good news!
“The time is fulfilled,” Jesus proclaims. “The kingdom of God has come near.”
How can the time be fulfilled, Jesus, when the time is so ridiculously hard, when we’re still suffering, when injustice continues to damage the oppressed and the oppressor?
How can it be, Jesus, that the kingdom of God has come near, that the time has been fulfilled, that our prayers have been heard?
In Amanda Gorman’s incredibly powerful inaugural poem, “The Hill We Climb,” she proclaims: “Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true. That even as we grieved, we grew. That even as we hurt, we hoped. That even as we tired, we tried. That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious. Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.”
Even as we grieved, Jesus came to Galilee. Even as we hurt, Jesus proclaimed the good news of God. Even as we tired, the kingdom of God came near in the Word of God made flesh.
How can it be that we insist on hope? How can it be that we repent, turning our backs on the forces that defy God? How can it be that we believe the good news?
Jesus is here. The dream of God is alive. After every other word fails us, this Word remains.
Let us pray. Abiding God, call to us through the laughter of our children, the words of our poets, the songs of our musicians, the prayers of our elders. In the very midst of sin and death, draw near with good news. Turn us again and again to you. Amen.
