Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
With the dust of
the wilderness practically still clinging to his clothes after defeating satan
in the wilderness, Jesus enters Galilee, going into the region of Nazareth and
Capernaum. The words of Isaiah spoken centuries earlier, which were read in this
morning’s Old Testament lesson, are coming to life as Jesus Christ, the Light
of the world, begins to shine in the darkness. His ministry begins and the
first thing Jesus does is he begins to preach. A continuation of what began
with John the Baptizer, Jesus preaches, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at
hand,” (v. 17). Jesus picks up where the Baptizer left off, both in content and
in his audience, the people of Israel. “On them, a light has dawned,” (v. 16).
We usually think
of repentance as confession of sins, acknowledging our guilt over and against
the Law of God, turning form one’s life of sinfulness to faithfulness. That’s
how we usually use it; it’s what you hear from this pulpit, God’s Word for his
people, calling the faithful to turn from our sins and trust the Good News of
Jesus for our forgiveness and salvation. This is good and proper understanding.
But Jesus’ preaching of repentance is deeper. He doesn’t mean merely confessing
and turning from sins, but a call for conversion, a complete change of heart,
from lostness and unbelief, returning to the promises of God, spoken through
the prophets – which included John – which are all about to be fulfilled in
Christ for the salvation of the world. It’s as if Jesus is saying, “Stop
doubting, stop being lost, stop wandering, stop being separated from the
promises of God for you! You are his people! Stop doubting and trust in what is
happening among you!” And, then Jesus declares, “the kingdom of heaven is at hand,”
(v. 17).
I suspect when we
hear the word “kingdom,” we think of it as a noun: the Kingdom of England, for
example, or the fictional Kingdom of Narnia. Instead of thinking of kingdom as
a place, a “locatedness,” if you will, with an address and zip code, think of it
as a verb: “reigning,” as in, “the reigning of God is at hand.” God is
reigning, God is acting, God is doing, God is breaking into history in the
person and work of Jesus, His Son, our Savior. The reigning of God is at hand.
Jesus ministry is beginning; his preaching is beginning; his miraculous
evidentiary work is beginning; the restoration of creation is beginning. The
kingdom, the work of God in and through Jesus, is beginning to be seen. Jesus
is beginning to reveal himself as the perfect fulfillment of God’s plan of
salvation. John preached that it was coming, and now the kingdom is here, in
Jesus. Jesus’ preaching declares it: the kingdom, the reigning of God, is no
longer coming – it is now here. A past-tense promise of the prophets leads to a
present-tense beginning of fulfillment in Jesus.
With Jesus
beginning his preaching and teaching ministry, he also begins to assemble those
who will be part of the reigning work that must happen. While walking by the
Sea of Galilee, Matthew notes that Jesus saw Simon Peter and his brother,
Andrew. The call to discipleship was simple and it was direct: “Follow me, and
I will make you fishers of me.” Likely, Jesus used similar words in calling
James and John as well: “follow me.”
All four men
respond immediately, leaving their nets behind. In James and John’s case, they
also left their father behind. All four follow Jesus. Don’t overthink this.
Don’t become so concerned with the “how” and “why” the four followed. It’s OK
to be curious – “How could they have left everything behind?” “Why did they
just pick up, leave everything, and start following?” – but don’t get entangled
in the questions. Instead, understand that Jesus’ calling is as powerful as his
preaching. His calling, his words, provide the faith the men need to respond.
No person becomes a follower of Jesus by him- or herself, and this was true of
Peter and company. Rather, see this as the power of Jesus’ words in the hearts
and lives of those who hear his preaching of repentance and his call to follow.
Jesus called and invited; they followed. Even if it is with a simple faith,
even if it lacks a fullness of understanding, their response is because the
Holy Spirit is at work in the calling to repentance and the proclamation of the
reigning of Jesus. The four heed the call of repentance, turning from disbelief
and unbelief toward the one whose kingdom is coming and whose reigning is
beginning and they follow.
Their calling is
unique: they will be fishers of men. Peter and Andrew, James and John are the
first four of what will become a small cadre of men who will be identified as
Jesus’ disciples, his students, and they will follow – literally, follow –
after him from Capernaum, across Israel and Judea, and eventually to Jerusalem
and the cross. Later, Jesus will send them out in mission to the church. They
will continue the preaching of the reigning of God in the church. What began
with the Baptizer, what continued in Jesus, will be given to them. They will be
eyewitnesses to the world of Jesus’ reigning, culminating at the throne of the
cross. That will be the message they will carry to the end of the world,
generation to generation, as the church preaches the reigning of Christ and his
promised return.
Maybe that’s why
this is a rather difficult text for us to understand in our 21st
century context when we try to see ourselves over and against the calling of
Peter, Andrew, James and John. Their calling, their vocation as fishers of men
was so unique and so – to use the term – “eventful,” especially being in the
presence of Jesus himself. They got to see Jesus healing the sick, drive out
demons, and restore creation’s disorder, a foretaste of what will come in the
last days! It’s tempting to consider our lives, by comparison, as rather
“blah.”
A few weeks ago,
at a Christmas party, I was talking with a Christian man who dared to be
wonderfully vulnerable and honest. He knew I was a pastor, and he said, “You
know what the hardest part of being a modern-day disciple is?” I figured he was
going to say something about having to cow-tow to company policy to not play
Christian Advent and Christmas music while at work, or being chastised for
saying, “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays,” or simply daring to
speak the name of Jesus boldly and plainly. I was a little surprised when,
instead of any of those things, he said, “It’s that the Christian life is so
ordinary for most of us.”
His comment
resonated with me. What does the Christian life look like as we get into 2026?
Probably a lot like what it looked like as we ended 2025, if we’re honest,
which was much like 2024’s life. We come to the Lord’s house on a Sunday where
we hear his Word for us, receive the Lord’s Supper, and encourage each other in
Christian hope and love. We spend some time together in Sunday school and Bible
study. It’s a blessed hour or two of respite and refreshment apart from the
rest of the world and its increasing pressures. But, when the Benediction is
spoken over us, it seems like we are expected to go back to our regular
routine. We leave this holy place, perhaps going out to eat on the way home, or
stopping at the grocery store to pick a few things up for the week. We get home
and finish homework or projects for work, do a little laundry, catch a quick
nap, watch a game on television, and get ready to enter the rat-race of the
week. Tomorrow morning, when the alarm goes off, it’s up and at them: get the
kids up and off to school, get to the carpool on time, go to work and do what
you are to do. Go home, make dinner, and get the kids bathed and in bed, just
to spend a little time with your spouse before you, too, call it a day. In
between you have doctors appointments, meetings, ball games; you have to drop
the car at the mechanic and pick up clothes from the cleaners; you have to call
your accountant and you wait for a call back from your doctor. It’ll be
more-or-less the same thing this week as it was last week as it was the week
before.
In the middle of
that ordinary-ness, it feels like it would be nice to have Jesus walk by,
interrupt the ordinary and mundane, and simply call out and say, “Follow me.”
Jesus does – just
not the way you might want or expect. He begins with this message: “Repent, for
the kingdom is at hand.” Not “repent,” as he said in ancient Capernaum, “turn
from your unbelief.” Simply, repent, turn, from this way of thinking and follow
Jesus in the ordinariness of your life as a child of God, rejoicing in each day
as its own gift to follow him.
You have an even
more sure and certain word than Andrew and Peter, John and James. They were
following Jesus based on a simple invitation and, perhaps, an inkling that this
Jesus was something special. You have an entire Scripture – Old and New
Testament – that reveals God’s plan of salvation promised and fulfilled in
Jesus at the cross. You have the very words of Peter and Andrew, James and John
and the entire apostolic witness that points you to Jesus, calling you to
follow. You are as close as that invitation and that promise, renewed and
recalled every time you make the sign of the cross on your forehead or heart as
was placed over you at the font, when water was poured over you in the name of
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. He comes to you in the
reading and preaching of the Word of God, calling you to repentance and
proclaiming your sins forgiven in his name. Christ comes to you as both the
host who invites you to his table, and as the very meal itself as his body and
blood are shared with you in, with and under bread and wine. In these ordinary
elements, in the ordinary preaching and teaching, in the ordinariness of
gathering as the body of Christ, Jesus comes and calls you to follow him.
To be sure, your
calling and your following will look much different than it did for Peter and
Andrew, James and John. The most obvious difference is you are not called to
leave everything behind to follow him. Their calling as fishers of men who
follow Jesus will take them from Capernaum, across Israel and Judea, and
eventually to the very foot of the cross of Jesus. They will see him suffer and
die. Most will flee, running and hiding, fearing for their lives. It will take
Jesus’ appearance on Easter Sunday evening, declaring “Peace,” his ascending
into heaven, his Pentecost delivering of the Holy Spirit to send them out into
the world, no longer as disciples, “students,” but as apostles, “sent ones.”
You are called to
follow him in your vocation, the place where God places you, to serve your
neighbor in Jesus’ name. You have multiple vocations and they often overlap:
parent and child, for example, or employer and employee. Most of you will not
be called to be professional church workers or oversea missionaries. Most of us
will live the ordinary life of discipleship in our ordinary ways. This is even
true of pastors and the ordinariness of parish ministry!
Ordinary doesn’t
mean “less than.” God uses the ordinary – remember? He used the “ordinary” Mary
and Joseph to be parents for his Son. He used “ordinary” human flesh into which
Jesus entered. He used the “ordinary” cross to rescue the world. God calls you to ordinary faithfulness and
faithful ordinariness in those places and in those times – not just in this
place on a Sunday morning. You are always a Baptized child of God; you are
always in a state of following; you are always in a place of serving. When you
change your baby’s diaper, you are serving as a disciple of Jesus. When you
submit the quarterly report to your boss, you are serving as a disciple of
Jesus. When you complete your math and English homework, you are serving as a
disciple of Jesus. In that work, in those moments, Christ is reigning and the
kingdom comes through you.
Don't confuse ordinary-ness for lack of opportunity and miss those moments. Perhaps, in those
areas of vocation, in your ordinary conversation, you will have the opportunity
to be a fisher of men, speaking boldly and clearly of God and his grace and
mercy in Christ Jesus. Perhaps not. Perhaps your greatest witness will be in
your ordinary, gentle service for others. St. Francis of Assisi famously said,
“Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.” Live each day as a
disciple of Jesus, celebrating the ordinariness of the calling you live as a
disciple of Jesus, knowing that even in these ordinary days, Christ is reigning
in and through you.
(I am humbly proud to say this sermon was published in the Advent - Epiphany issue of Concordia Pulpit Journal, Vol. 36, Part 1, p.33-36; (c) 2005 Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, MO.)
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