Lent #9: Discipline 2 of 7 – Repentance.

Repent and Believe in the Gospel

(Mark 1:15)

That’s how we encounter Jesus in the Gospel of Mark: “Jesus came proclaiming the gospel.” And then we hear his first words: “Repent and believe in the gospel”; or, almost his first. There’s a few words proceeding: “The time has come. The kingdom of God is near.” And, a few words after: “Come and follow me.” The gospel is in the middle of it all: “kingdom,” “repent,” “believe,” “gospel,” “follow.”  

“Gospel,” comes from the Greek word “euaggelion”: the eu means “good” or “beautiful”, and the aggelia means “message”—our word “angel” comes from aggelia meaning “messenger”. The eu in front of aggelia assures us that God’s message to us is “good”. It’s “good news”. I notice that’s how it’s mostly translated; but there’s something special about our old English word “gospel’ that I can’t give up. It means, like the Greek, the “good spell”—the good story. I like that. It’s the story that puts a spell on you. It marks you.

All that mumbling to remind us that repentance, within the sphere of Christ, is always good news. In God’s “No” to our contrivances; comes God’s “Yes” to our repentance—our change of mind to follow Jesus towards the kingdom of God. We were once going one way, until Jesus showed up; and then, we turned (repented) and went another way—the way of following Jesus. It’s not an easy way, but it’s good—it’s gospel.