Mark 1:15, Metanoeite

A Loosening, a Turning, a Step into the Unknown

‘Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.’ (Mark 1:17)

Sometimes words are just words. Sometimes they find the power to open up new ways of experiencing the world. We are in need of new thoughts, which means inhabiting old words in new ways.

In my last post, I offered ‘rejuvenation’ as an old word for a new time. Today, I’m thinking about Christianity—not as a worn and weighty tradition, but as something that might still breathe, still move. Specifically, I’m drawn to one of Jesus’ first recorded words: metanoeite — ‘you must think differently after’ is its literal translation.

Metanoeite has a deeply controversial history. Mostly because at the moment the New Testament was translated into Vulgate Latin by Jerome in the fourth century, metanoeite started on its journey to become the English word ‘repent.’

That is a very different term. Jesus’ first imperative is badly in need of rejuvenation, partly because it means rejuvenation, which need not always be repentance.

Repentance begins with clarity. Mark’s metanoeite does not. Instead, it calls for casting off without full understanding.

Metanoeite (μετανοεῖτε)

The first recorded words of Jesus in the earliest Gospel: ‘The time (kairos) has been fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has drawn near. Metanoeite and believe in the good news’ (Mark 1:15).

Before any teachings, before any parables, before any miracles, Jesus declares that time itself (kairos) has changed, and our first response to this kairos is metanoeite.

For centuries, metanoeite (μετανοεῖτε) has been narrowly translated as ‘repent’.

The temporal rhythm is different from Mark’s word. Repentance starts with a moment of clarity and adjusts future behavior accordingly.

Is that Mark’s message?

No. At the moment of its Christian origin — in the first spoken words of Jesus in the earliest gospel — metanoeite does not start as a moment of clarity.

It starts as a loosening of what is, a casting off into what might be. It calls for movement toward meaning not yet grasped.

‘Follow me’

Immediately after the call to metanoeite, Jesus calls Simon (Peter) and Andrew. ‘Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men’. (1:17)

No clarity. No contrition. No new rituals. No new law.

Just ‘Deute opiso mou’, literally ‘Come after me’.

Before this moment, fishing is just fishing: a cycle of casting and hauling, days and seasons defined by the hope of a good catch. After he speaks, fishing becomes a metaphor that cannot possibly have a clear meaning.

If metanoeite in Mark were primarily about realizing past error, we might expect Jesus to explain why Simon and Andrew were mistaken or why they needed to change.

But there is no clear ‘You were wrong, and now you must change because you realize the truth.’ Instead, ‘Something is happening, so change your mind and let go of your expectations’.

The call is to step into something that does not yet fully make sense here and now. The new meaning will not be grasped from where they stand.

They must move.

The history of Christianity unfolds in this movement into a metaphor, into the imperative metanoeite, after time (kairos) has changed.

It is still unfolding. It must keep moving.

The Road Ahead

Jesus does not explain what it means to be fishers of men. He does not give them a doctrine. He does not even say that he is the Messiah.

He only calls them onto the road.

The road is the passage into the metaphor—the movement into a promise without clarity. Reality will be reshaped as they walk.

Clarity may come; it may not. But it does not start the journey. Mark’s gospel is the only one with a healing miracle that takes multiple tries. (8:22-26)

Movement does not bring clarity. The disciples follow, but they do not understand. They watch, but they do not see. They listen, but they do not hear.

Mark knows that his message is a difficult one. As promised, the Messiah has in fact come—and no one recognized him. Worse. They treated him as a criminal.

Misunderstanding will become Mark’s major theme. It had to be because this is the story of a Messiah given and missed.

God Himself, the one who has spoken so clearly up to now, has been misunderstood.

Misunderstanding

They have left their nets, but they have not left behind the weight of what the Messiah is supposed to be.

‘Why are you arguing about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Have your hearts been hardened?’ (Mark 8:17)

The Messiah was supposed to bring clarity—to set history right, to restore the chosen people, to fulfill what had been promised.

The more they walk, the further they seem from knowing where they are going.

‘Though you have eyes, don’t you see? And though you have ears, can’t you hear?’ (Mark 8:18)

No one carries the weight of expectation more than Peter. ‘Who do you say that I am?’ ‘You are the Christ’. (Mark 8:29)

A moment of clarity. He is the first to name Jesus as Messiah, but he will deny him three times.

He expects a ruler, not a sacrifice. ‘So Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.’ (Mark 8:32)

Clarity of understanding will come first from a Roman soldier overseeing the crucifixion. ‘Surely this man was the Son of God.’ (Mark 15:39)

The ones closest to Jesus remain far from him. The ones furthest from him may see more clearly than those following him on the road.

And what of us?

We still cling to Peter’s old vision. When we say ‘Messiah’, even in jest, we mean one who brings clarity, who sets history in order, who secures a future we can understand.

This is not Mark’s Messiah.

Paidíon

They have followed him this far. They have seen his works. They have heard his words. And still, they argue about power.

‘What were you arguing about on the road?’ (9:33)

‘And still they were silent with one another for they had been discussing which one of them was greatest’ (9:34)

He does not rebuke them. He does not tell them not to seek it. He does something stranger. He places a paidíon (παιδίον), a child, into their midst.

The paidíon is not a blank slate. The paidíon has arrived into a world heavy with meaning. The weight of expectation is there—it was there before birth, shaping the world into which the child has been thrown.

But it has not yet hardened into the weight of the child’s own expectation, only the expectation of others working its way into the child’s identity.

The paidíon is the image of the reversal Jesus has just spoken. ‘The last shall be first, and the first shall be last’ (9:36).

Not simply humility. Not simply innocence. Not even a moral correction. The paidíon represents our having been thrown into cultural expectations, but before they have taken root.

The paidíon is an image of our selves as we unfold in time.

Is Jesus saying that the paidíon must be rejuvenated within each of us? Later (18:3-4) he will tell them that they must ‘become like children’.

Is this metanoia? Not necessarily a repentance. Not even a clear understanding that causes a change of mind. Rather, a loosening of expectations. A recovery of the moment before certainty closes in. A step into possibility before truth is revealed.

We have followed Simon and Andrew into a metaphor that has yet to be clarified.