“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  Tied with these words of Christ is the story of how Peter, Andrew, James, and John dropped everything, literally everything, to follow the Lord. 

 

And this leads to a deeper question of what it means to repent. To repent of something means we know it is wrong and we need to make a change, we need to leave something behind that is ultimately harmful in our lives. 

 

What couldn’t we leave behind in order to follow the Lord? And I am not just talking about stuff, although certainly our stuff has a big effect on us, but all of the attachments to sin in our life, and even the big emotions that underlie them, such as fear, powerlessness, hopelessness, rejection and abandonment.  

 

These are often core wounds we have grown used to managing, but they lead us to sin, and they need to be taken care of, they need to be repented of and rooted out through the loving presence of Jesus Christ.

 

This week I have been thinking about how fear, our fears, lead us often to sin.  I told the middle school students that the opposite of love isn’t hate, it is fear.  Think about it for a bit, the opposite of love is fear.  

 

Consider our second reading about divisions and rivalries.  What is a rivalry except a fear of a loss of something that we want, of something that we feel we want or need or deserve ourselves?  Divisions and rivalries are rooted in fear.

 

This was certainly true with Jesus and those who put Him to death, they were afraid of Him and those who followed Him, but also it is true in modern times, think of Martin Luther King Jr., for example, he was also put to death because people were afraid of him and what his followers would do to the social construct.  What fears must we repent of?

 

Powerlessness is another one that we often feel, a lack of control leads us to sin. We all know that when we try to control life, even our own life, things never work out as we plan. Only when we repent of our attachment to control can God's plans come about.  This means we have to increase our trust and surrender all of our concerns to Him.

 

Hopelessness, Rejection and Abandonment are three other core wounds that can often go together, especially when we are hurt and we don’t feel the presence of God in our lives, which of course causes us to sin.

 

An interesting thing about today’s readings is we heard about “the land of Zebulun

and the land of Naphtali” - these are seemingly insignificant places, but Jesus chooses to start His ministry there for a very specific purpose: these were two of the first places that Assyria attacked and took off into exile.  This broke the Twelve Tribes of Israel apart, they were the first places to be seemingly abandoned, rejected, and fell into hopelessness.  

 

When Jesus came to restore the Kingdom, He did so by visiting this devastated land, “the people who sit in darkness have seen a great light, on those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death light has arisen.” The Jews at the time would have understood that the Messiah had to start there, to rebuild the Kingdom meant to gather the Twelve Tribes together, and Jesus did this by gathering Twelve Apostles.  

 

It is symbolic, but it helped them to recognize Jesus as God, they understood what was happening and that God was present in their midst. 

That, and the healings, it says, “He went around all of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and curing every disease and illness among the people.” They knew that only God could heal a leper, and when Jesus did that they recognized Him as God.

 

Jesus wants us to recognize Him as God as well.  He wants to visit us. This is why I have been having this Healing Mission the last few years and why I want to have a regular healing ministry here at Nativity, when someone receives a healing, it is more about knowing God has not abandoned or rejected us than the healing, it is about restoring our hope in Him.

 

What feelings motivate us to sin?  What keeps us from following Jesus more closely? This is something worth praying about and reflecting on.

 

Whatever that is, that is what we need to repent of, that is what we need to change. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” 

 

But this passage is not really a demand; rather, it is an invitation to take things on faith. God loves us, but we have to take that first step in faith, so ask God for what you need to follow Jesus today.