Think Again! The First Sentence of Jesus Christ

When Jesus formally began his public teaching, he spoke one sentence that summarized his good news about the new way to experience life on earth.

Matthew 4:17 records it:

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

We are conditioned to think we know what this sentence means. In church and out of church, we lay a well-worn interpretation onto it. Namely, “Repent” means “Shape up!” and “for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” means “or else you won’t go to heaven when you die!”

Is it any wonder that people are wary of Jesus when they believe that he began his ministry with a threat?

He began his ministry with an invitation instead. He began with a disclosure about how rich and pan-dimensional God’s creation actually is.

Look at the sentence again. Jesus doesn’t say anything about death with these words. He says the kingdom of heaven is “at hand”—that is, right here. Many of the listeners hearing this were nowhere close to the end of their years. The kingdom of heaven is much nearer than physical death.

Jesus also doesn’t say at this point to “shape up,” or to start obeying some heavy set of obligations. “Repent” is the English word that was chosen by a translator. The original writer wrote metanoeo, the literal sense of which includes “think differently,” or “think a new way afterward.”

In other words, the good news of Jesus Christ, the first and most fundamental sentence he chose to teach, could be summarized this way:

The realm that is bigger and better than this one is present right here and right now, and your own life can take hold of this kingdom if only you will think a different way.

I never wanted religion. I thought it was a pointless waste of time, or a scheme to manipulate credulous people. At the sound of “Jesus,” I would try to change the subject.

Then the day came when I discovered that religion is what I had all along. The world that we are trained to accept places heavy obligations upon us. It manipulates credulous people.

Jesus does talk about “shaping up” in the gospels, but not always in the way you might expect. Hearts will be set free, and transformation will come from within.

He also talks about death in the gospels, but not always in the way you might expect. Some people are dead now, even though they are still breathing and still showing up for work. When he says to “let the dead bury their own dead” (Matthew 8:22), he reveals that there is a living death from which we can awaken. In fact, when Jesus explains in John 3:16 that God gave his son so that “whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life,” there is no suggestion that we must wait for physical death in order to find out what he means.

Eternal life can start right now.

The kingdom of heaven is at work all around. God wants each of us to choose him with a willing heart. Somehow, that is part of the plan. But when we do, we begin to see what we never saw, because we never would have accepted it before.

Something bigger than the world is going on. It is a mystery, but it does not have to be invisible. All through our human world, there is this movement afoot—an insurgency of love. Sometimes it is aided by the church and sometimes it is confounded by it, but nevertheless it keeps on succeeding at rescuing the lost, receiving the broken, lifting up the afflicted, and teaching folks of all nations and circumstances that there is a better, freer, more joyful way to experience earthly life.

Related post:
Now What? The Second Sentence of Jesus Christ