The Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand

(Matt. 4:12-17) (Sunday after Theophany; Pentecost 34)

We’ve been considering the meanings of the events of the various Feasts that have been taking place. At the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us; the Son of God has joined His Divinity to our humanity. At the Theophany, He is revealed as the God-man, when the man Jesus is acknowledged as the Son of God by the voice of God the Father, and the descent of God the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. His Divinity is embodied in our humanity: true for Him; and also true for us who have been baptized into His death, and raised to new life in Him, with the power of the Holy Spirit given to us in chrismation, to make it possible for us to bring the life of Christ into reality in and through our own life.

Now, we behold the start of His earthly ministry, as He calls us to repentance, because the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The kingdom of heaven is the place – if we can speak in these terms – where God is found. God is found in us, who are made in His image, and after His likeness. God is found in us, who have been baptized and chrismated into the life of Christ. But if we continue to live a worldly life, following the desires of our flesh, we cannot see that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, within us. We must begin to live the life of virtue – the life of Christ – in order to recognize what is happening. Do you understand the potential that exists in you, to be like Christ? If you do not understand this, you cannot realize this, you cannot bring it into being. It takes a conscious effort on our part to achieve the reality of the life of Christ in us. Yet, even as we persist in ignorance and sin, the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

When we recognize the heavenly, the angelic, life we are meant to live, and how far short we fall from measuring up, we are led to repentance. We confess our failure, and our mistakes, and our surrendering of ourselves to our passions, and the demands of the flesh. We ask for forgiveness, and the ability to do what is right, and pleasing to God; and for the grace and strength to live the life of Christ in and of ourselves. We repent, so as to come closer to the kingdom of heaven.

And as we do these things, we find that we, too, have a ministry to fulfill, in addition to laboring to save our souls. We, as did our Lord Jesus, are to proclaim that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and call those around us to repent, and to begin to live the heavenly life. In word, and in deed, by prayer, and fasting, by giving alms, and by struggling to replace our passions with the virtues, we are meant to bring the great light of the Gospel to those who still dwell in darkness and the shadow of death. We were delivered from just such a state; and we can also be the agents, the servants of God, who act to set many others free: free from bondage to sin and death; free from the sense of helpless despair that comes from dwelling in the darkness that comes as our continuing in sin overwhelms our souls. We were once trapped in the darkness of our errors and ungodly desires and actions. The great Light of the Gospel came and sought us out, and set us free; and we must do all we can to be filled with that light, and bring that light to those still trapped, that they, too, may be set free, and join with us in drawing closer to God.

Brothers and sisters: we who embody the divine life of Christ, we who have been baptized into Him, have the opportunity as well to share in His ministry of deliverance, reconciliation, and cleansing. Let us set forth on the journey to be transformed more and more into His likeness, and become bearers of the Gospel light: to the glory of God, and to the salvation of souls.