Sermon preached by Rev. Wesley King on Sunday, January 25, 2026
Oh God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts who are gathered be acceptable in your sight. Amen.
In other translations, verse 17 is actually written as: “Repent, for the kingdom of God is nigh.” Repent. That’s not a word that we really say or use a lot in Disciples circles. We don’t really talk about repentance very often. And that’s probably for a good reason. A lot of people find their way to our tradition, to the Disciples of Christ, by way of other traditions that might harp on sin or the depravity of humanity, the need for repentance in order to get right with God. And a lot of that theology has done a lot of harm and damage to folks over many decades.
And yet Jesus calls us to repent in this passage. So what do we do with that? As I read earlier in the Common English translation, Jesus says instead, “Change your hearts and lives, because here comes the kingdom of heaven.”
This passage today begins on a note of danger. One commentator said, “John the Baptist, who is Jesus’s beloved friend and cousin, has been arrested. And so Jesus withdraws to Galilee, but not to hide, but instead to give comfort to some of those that were the most vulnerable among them.” Because at this time, Galilee is occupied by the Roman Empire, and one of their most prophetic voices and prophetic leaders has been taken from them.
Earlier this week, we remembered the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his life and legacy. And so I’m thinking about what his movement must have felt like in that moment when he was taken from them. What did the other leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference or the labor unions or these clergy groups feel? Fear during this time?
But then Jesus proclaims these prophetic words from the prophet Isaiah who said, “The people who have lived in darkness have seen a great light, and a light has come upon those who lived in the region and in the shadow of death; a light has dawned.”
Ancient readers would have recognized these as prophetic call stories. So here is Jesus, following this horrific event, going to those whom he loved and whom he cared for and giving them this word of inspiration — that the darkness, the turmoil, all of this that they had been facing, would not be the final chapter in their story. And then he says, “Change your hearts and lives, because here comes the kingdom of heaven.”
This week, I’ve been following — as many of you have probably as well — the turmoil happening in Minneapolis. Several clergy friends of mine actually have traveled to the city to try and be a witness to the atrocities happening there and to diminish the harm happening. Perhaps you might have seen a little 5-year-old boy named Liam Ramos who was detained by ICE just a few days ago. They used him as bait in order to detain his father. They caught them as his father was walking Liam home from school.
And in the picture that’s being shared on news outlets and social media, you can see this scared little boy wearing a Spider-Man backpack, a little blue bunny toboggan over his head, and this fear in his eyes as he’s being held outside what looks like to be an ICE van. According to several news outlets, another adult who had been living in their home had been outside during this incident and had begged the agents to let the 5-year-old stay with them, but the agents refused and transported both Liam and his father to a Texas detention center.
The family’s lawyer stated that the family did everything they were supposed to do in accordance with how the rules have been set out. They did not come here illegally. They were not criminals, and yet they were taken from their community.
Christians — those following the Christ who himself was a refugee to the nation of Egypt, as we heard in Matthew earlier a few Sundays ago — we’ve been called to proclaim good news to the captives. We’ve been called to proclaim that those who have walked in darkness have seen a great light. And here we’ve been called to repent, for the kingdom of heaven is nigh.
Now, oftentimes when we read this passage, we like to jump to the part about making disciples — creating “fishers of men,” as it says later in this passage — and that’s all well and good. But one commentator that I read said that Jesus’s call to repentance is actually one of the most important pieces of this passage. Stanley Saunders notes that when John the Baptist says that the kingdom is near, by implication he means it’s near but not yet here. So whereas John is setting expectations, Jesus is calling us into participation.
Later in the passage, it speaks of Jesus’ ministry of going out and healing, and that both works toward and embodies this realization of God’s kingdom. So what if, when Jesus says to repent or to change our hearts and lives, he isn’t just talking to the oppressive powers of that day or of this day, but he’s saying that to his own followers who have lost sight of the kingdom of God that is right in front of them?
So what if instead we might say: “Repent of the mindset that nothing can be done. Repent of the idea that evil will always win. Repent of the notion that we don’t have the power to make change. Repent of the belief that ‘that’s just how it is.’ Repent of the feeling that your voice doesn’t matter.”
I know that we’re probably snowed or iced in in this moment. I know that we’re probably stuck behind our phones or iPads, our laptops, our TVs. We’re doom-scrolling. We’re taking in all of this turmoil that’s happening in our world. But I think that this passage is meant to be heard today. It’s meant to be a reminder from God not to give up hope.
We just finished this Advent series on fear. And yes, fear is real. We must acknowledge it. And it likely will never go away. But what we can’t do is let fear rule our lives. We can’t let fear dictate. We can’t let fear act. We can’t let fear write policy or enforce rules. We can’t let fear win in the end.
“The people who once lived in darkness have seen a great light. And a light has come to those who lived in the region and in the shadow of death; a light has dawned to them.” Amidst the turmoil of this life, of this news cycle, I think this is a reminder from God that we have the power to change our world. We have the power to create the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven that Jesus talks about — bringing it to earth now. Not something that we just wait until the next life to experience, but something that we have the ability to cultivate now.
May it be so, and may we make it so. Amen.