This is the Critical Time

This is the time of fulfillment. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel. (Mark 1:15) or Now is the time you have been waiting for. God’s Kingdom is breaking into history. Change your mindset and your way of seeing. Believe the Good News.

Jesus follows up on the mission of John the Baptist, whom Herod has imprisoned, adding a sense of urgency to the message. This is the moment! God is acting in accord with the divine promises to bring about what God (and we) most truly and deeply desire. What does this compelling invitation require of us?

This is the critical time – the only time we have. We need to be here in this present moment, awake and ready to respond to whatever God asks of us. We can’t afford to become lost, trying to redo the past or striving to preview the future before it even arrives – pretending that we can penetrate the veil of the fearful unknown that has not yet come to be and somehow undo it. Both worry and fear drive us out of the present moment, which makes our life more difficult. This being here, now takes practice and discipline.

The fullness of what God wants for the wellbeing of all people, all creation, is waiting for us to claim. God is inviting us out of the quagmire of sinfulness into the divine Kingdom. The biggest and most inclusive dream of humanity, and that for which our hearts long, is ours to embrace. Why would we continue to cling to our own tiny illusions, when such an incredible treasure is directly in our path? We need to act. We need to choose God’s way.

Whatever stands between us and God’s desires for us needs to be taken down. Whatever within us that holds us back from wholeheartedly welcoming the fullness of life that God offers needs to be released. Repent is not, first of all, about removing all the little (and big?) sins in our life. Repent (Greek metanoia) is a radical interior transformation, a complete change of mind and heart: putting aside our favorite, familiar, comfortable patterns of seeing and judging everything. God, through Jesus, calls us to let go of our way in order to let ourselves be led by God’s Spirit. If we repent in this sense, the pull of that which separates us from God (i.e. sin) fades.

Perhaps the big sin we cling to is partial or conditional belief. We wonder if God is truly all and only good. Doubts can arise, especially in trying times, about how trustworthy God is. We want so much what seems to be unimaginably good, yet we can so easily talk ourselves out of accepting the possibility that such goodness exists – especially in the face of so much pain, suffering, evil. The Good News is that God is goodness itself. The Good News is that God is Love. (1 John 4:16)  And the love of God is for all. Believe the Good News. It’s for you.

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