21 January 2024 Mark 1:14-20
“Immediately” is one of Mark’s favorite words. He uses it all the time.
“Immediately” means Now. “Immediately” means the past is dead and the future is not here yet. The only time you actually have is Now. “Immediately” means there are decisions that need to be made Now. There is no other time to make them. If you’re living in any other time, depending on any other time, you are living in and depending on La-La Land.
“Immediately they left their nets and followed Him.” This may sound like gauzy idealism, but it is actually the most stark realism. If you are living for any of the goods of this world, then here is a pretty stark fact: this world, this universe is slowly running out of energy. There is a day coming when all the fuel the universe has will be used up, and then everything will be very dark, and very cold. No light, no warmth, no life. That is what scientists mean when they talk about the heat death of the universe. It is coming, and nothing can stop it. That is the end of any goods of the world you may be living for. Here is another pretty stark fact. Your life will end, too, and far sooner – it may be 50 years, it may be 20 years, it may be this afternoon. And then all the goods of this world are gone for you.
It is not wise, therefore, to live for any of the goods of this world. Not if there is another choice. What is going to happen to all those goods is a fact. Everyone knows it.
But there is another choice. “Immediately they left their nets and followed Him.” If Jesus and the gospel are not true, then the faith is a lie, we are still in our sins, and heat death wins. If Jesus and the gospel are true, then the four fishermen who left their nets and immediately followed Him are the most realistic people in the world.
Some may not be sure about this, but only mostly sure. They are willing to go some of the way toward Jesus, maybe even most of the way, but hold on to some of the goods of this world. They are willing to give their thoughts to Jesus, but not their financial life, or their sex life, or their social life.
You don’t get Jesus that way. And you can’t hold on to your financial life, your sex life, or your social life. We already know about death and heat death. We already know where they are all going.
It’s like holding onto a piece of the Titanic with one hand and Jesus with the other. You’re not preserving the Titanic, but going down with it. It’s like getting married on the one hand, and trying to preserve an old relationship on the other. You’re not preserving the old relationship at all, but you are poisoning the marriage.
Any holding on to the goods of this world is doomed. It’s a fact. Everyone knows it. You can’t have part of Jesus, and He won’t have part of you.
C.S. Lewis, in the classic Mere Christianity famously discussed people who want only part of Jesus. They want the “good man and great moral teacher,” but they don’t want Jesus the Lord. “That is the one thing we must not say,” Lewis wrote. “A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse…. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to” (Mere Christianity, p. 52)
You can’t have part of Jesus, and He won’t have part of you.
“Immediately they left their nets and followed Him.”
“Immediately” means Now.
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