Deacon Dennis Egan

Just like Palestine after the arrest of John the Baptist, we live in a world that has dramatically changed.  We just heard the opening words of Jesus’ public ministry, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is had hand.”  

Perhaps these words sound familiar.  Well, they are exactly the same words John preached.  It seems like Jesus is a continuation of John the Baptist.  In one sense that is true.  Jesus does pick up where John left off.  

However, Jesus gives a whole new meaning to John’s words.  John was the last and greatest prophet, but he can only tell people about the kingdom.  Jesus, on the other hand, is God.  He not only announces the kingdom, he brings it about in his ministry.  With Jesus, a whole new view of life enters human history, and the world will never be the same again.  

We live in a moment of history when we can appreciate this changed situation.  We also find ourselves at a time when things have changed quite drastically.  I’m not saying that any of us face the possibility, at least in the immediate future, of being arrested or imprisoned for our faith.  

Still, things are different than they were even ten, or twenty, years ago.  For example, people used to take it for granted that marriage means the union between one man and one woman.  Today, an aggressive segment of our society wants to redefine marriage.  

Part of their strategy involves intimidating Christians by accusing us of teaching hate.  In one case, they brought a lawsuit against the bishop for teaching that homosexual acts are morally wrong and that they can have a negative effect on our society.  Beyond that, one bishop, ministers, priests, and Christian parents have faced a range of legal actions for defending traditional teachings on human sexuality.  We are living in a different world.  

As followers of Jesus, we cannot stand on the sidelines and wring our hands.  Jesus did not allow John’s arrest to intimidate him.  He picked up the prophet’s message, “Repent.”  You and I have received that same message.  

Now I don’t recommend going out on the sidewalk and telling people to repent.  The first person you and I need to address is the one we see in the mirror each morning.  

We have absorbed some of our society’s laxed views.  In St. Paul’s words, “We have emptied the cross of its meaning.”  We would like to skip that Good Friday stuff and get right Easter.  However, without Good Friday, there can be no Easter.  

We have become a society that admires the strong, the famous, and the powerful, and we find the weak to be a nuisance.  That attitude can poison us just as it did in the Old Testament when the people of Israel ignored the weak and the poor.

In his book, Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict tells us, “Jesus is proclaiming God and that he is able to act concretely in the world and in history ans is even now so acting.  Jesus is telling us, ‘God exists, and God really is God,’ which means that He holds in his hands the threads of the world.  The most complex tapestry is made up of thousands and thousands of threads.  Every one of them is needed to complete the tapestry.”

What Pope Benedict is saying is that if God holds the threads of the world in his hands, we have nothing to fear because he will also hold the fabric of our lives together.  The kingdom of God is at hand.  Early Christians calmly faced torture and death because they knew that God has the final word.  

At this very moment in Atheistic and Islamic countries, Christians are facing persecution.  What about us?  Opposition to us is growing, but it is still minor by comparison.  The danger we face is not so much to our bodies, but to our souls and the souls of our children.  That danger has increases in recent years.  But even though the situation has changed, the solution remains the same, “Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”

Just as he did for the people of Galilee, Jesus invites us to turn from darkness to light by faithfully following him.  These words of Jesus warn us against sleeping our lives away against spiritual laziness.

 Like the headlines about a disaster on the front page of a newspaper, the words and actions of Jesus can be shocking and often unsettling.  Our Lord makes it clear that we cannot afford to be confused about where we are heading.  We must realize that our words and actions of every moment of each day will have eternal significance.  

This is incompatible with the Gospel, but Christianity is not about escaping as much punishment as possible in the hands of an angry God.  Simply by strict observance of the rules, Christianity is about a relationship more important than all others.  Our faith should be our very life, more precious than all other things.  

We should pray that our lives will be a gift that we return to the Lord in ever greater generosity as we follow our call to holiness.

When we realize that the stakes are internal, then the words of Christ will not be lost upon us.  And we will take his words and teachings to heart as they really are, spirit and life.

Four-year-old Jill, a budding theologian, asked her mother, “God is bigger than us and lives in us, right?”  Her mom agreed.  Then Jill blurted out, “Well, then, if God is bigger than us and lives in us, shouldn’t he show through?”  Just like Jill, God does live in us.  Our faith is also one of reaching out proclaiming Christ to others, inviting others to share the life of Christ, letting God show through.  “Come after me and I will make you fishers of men.”  

Preaching, teaching, and proclaiming the wonderful news about the kingdom is not just for the apostles, the pope, bishops, priests, and deacons.  It is for all the baptized.  Our life, first given in baptism, by its nature, seeks to share itself with others.  Faith will not satisfy, will not grow, or bring more life, if we are content to keep it inside.  Through faith seeks generously to be shared with all of the people we meet.  And we share our faith and become fishers of men.  Our faith lives will overflow in joy, and we will surely grow dwelling up to internal life.