“This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:15).
God, who is beyond time and space, who is infinite, has a plan and a proper time and place to implement his plan. God invites. He does not impose. God invites us to participate in his plan, but he also gives us the freedom to refuse and walk away.
God called Jonah to preach repentance to the people of Nineveh and Jonah refused because he believed that they would repent, and that God would forgive them. Jonah walked in the opposite direction. That did not go so well. The ship embarked upon was caught in a terrible storm and the people threw him overboard to save themselves. Jonah spent three days in the belly of a great fish. While there, he repented to God, agreed to fulfill his vow to do God’s will. The great fish spit him back out on land and in the direction that God wanted him to go in the first place.
Jonah got the point, did as he was called to do, and the whole city was saved from the impending wrath of God. The people were saved because they repented. They turned back to God and away from their sinful ways. Jonah was not happy about it and God gave him another lesson.
Uncomfortable with the heat of the sun, God “provided a gourd plant” which gave Jonah relief. The next morning a worm ate the plant and Jonah was subjected to the hot east wind and the beating of the sun, so complained to God to take his life. God then asked Jonah, “Do you have a right to be angry over the gourd plant” (Jonah 4:9). Jonah said he did and then God pointed out how Jonah was upset over the loss of one gourd plant that came to be in one day and was lost in the next. How much would God mourn the loss of “more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons” (Jonah 4:11)?
God feels the same way about each one of us. He does not want any of us to be lost. He loves us more than we can imagine, more than we can ever mess up or sin, and he does not define us by our worst moments. God also wants us to know that this life that we have is a beautiful gift, but this is not it. All that exists besides God is finite and material and will not last. We are not to hold on too tightly to the things of this world because as St. Paul shared, “For the world in its present form is passing away” (I Corinthians 7:31).
This is not something to be down about because God sent his Son to become the first born of the new creation. He sent him at a particular time a place and Jesus came to let us know that there is something even better awaiting us – eternal life with his Father.
How do we get to share this wonderful gift? We do what Jonah and Saul who became Paul did. We follow the invitation of Jesus that I started this homily with. “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:15).
This is the time. God dwells in the eternal present. This moment is the time for us to recognize that Jesus is with us. He is the kingdom of God present in our midst, in my typing and your reading these words. We just need to make a choice, are we going to refuse his invitation and walk away or accept his invitation to repent and surrender our lives to him?
To repent means to turn back, to reorient, to realign our lives to the will of God our loving Father. When we do so we are no longer alone. God who has always been present with us is accessible because Jesus gave his life that we might have life and have access to his Father. When we decide to turn back to him, we will experience and receive his help and enter into and continue to develop a relationship with him. Turning back to God does not mean our lives will become perfect or that our struggles, trials, and traumas will just evaporate. Turning back to God does mean that we will have his help, strength, guidance, and support.
Repentance is a lifelong journey of allowing Jesus to reveal to us that which we need to let go of, that we have placed before God, or put first instead of God, and have the humility to begin to let go. As we begin to let go, Jesus will reveal more to let go. Step by step, choice by choice, we will become less, and Jesus will become more in our lives. As we become more consistent in choosing each day and each present moment to say, “Yes,” to the will of God, we will grow closer to him and experience more joy, peace, and love in our lives.
Photo: Step by step, Jesus will guide us through this life and into heaven. My view coming back from my Rosary walk each night, St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary, Boynton Beach, FL.
Spiritual Stepping Stones 