THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, YEAR B
Jonah 3:1-5,10; P 25
1Cor 7:29-31; Mk 1:14-20
REPENT AND BELIEVE THE GOSPEL
When people get accustomed to hearing the same thing over and over again, it ceases to captivate them any longer. This is particularly true when what is presented is not challenging enough and does not really answer the deeper yearnings of man. When this happens such a message becomes one of the many options opened to man.
Today, the gospel is presented in a way that it no longer has real effect on our present generation. In some circles it is presented as the gospel of prosperity. The gospel is seen as the source of all material prosperity and riches. It is also presented as the gospel of power. It is the power of the believer to overcome the forces of darkness. Sometimes, sadly, people are made to see these forces of darkness where they do not exist. What is the significance of the gospel of prosperity to one who comes from a fairly good home? What about if one has no fear of demonic oppression?
In our gospel reading for today, Jesus begins his ministry when John the Baptist was arrested. He goes out declaring “repent and believe in the gospel”. This is the gospel we wish to reflect upon. The gospel Jesus preached, lived and invites us to.
It is God’s message. The gospel is primarily God’s story of love and mercy which makes him come after us even when we rejected his goodness. He created man and gave him everything he had created. There was only one prohibition “You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden,(Gen 3:3) adherence to this prohibition was meant to be an act of love and obedience on our part. But we failed. This act of disobedience brought the loss of fellowship with God and the peace within us. Man becomes so restless, tormented by his own desires and choices. But that is not the end of the story. The good news is that God continually weaves himself into human history and affairs and this finds its apogee in Jesus’ coming.
Scripture says, “In the past, He spoke in partial and in various ways to our ancestors through the prophets but in these last days he spoke to us through his son…” (Heb :1:1-3). God has never given up on humanity and he will not give up on you.
It is a message about Jesus. The gospel is not a message about the Church, though it is a product of the actions of Jesus. It is not about humanity, though with him, we are able to understand ourselves and our relationship with God. In his letter to the Romans, Paul talks about “preaching the gospel of Christ” (Rom 15:19) in the places he visited. The gospel is about Jesus; about who he is and what he has done. When Jesus called the people to believe in the gospel, it was as if he was saying, “look at me and see what I am about to do” and believe it. The gospel is about Jesus, the eternal son of God, who has come to save us. It is a message about Jesus who was sinless, but was “made to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2Cor 5:21). This is the good news: Jesus the son of God has come to die for you and me. We must not fall to the mistake of seeing the gospel as merely literature to analyse. It is about a God, coming down as man (Jesus) and how he has changed our lives.
It is a message of salvation. In speaking to the people gathered In Jerusalem, Peter noted that “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven by which men might be saved” (Acts 4:12). The very idea of salvation implies that there is some kind of danger. The salvation Jesus brings is freedom from the bondage of sin. These days, sin has been categorised with actions that are wrong and “not that bad”. But that is not what sin is about. Sin is when we fall short of the standard and the glory of God (Rom 3:23). The glory of God is revealed in Jesus and all of us fall short of it because he was like us in all things except sin (Heb 4:15). According to Jesus, sin enslaves us and destroys our lives. (Jn 8:34). But Jesus has died for us so that we might be free. He takes our place. This is what we call self-substitution of God.
When I became a Mass Server during my teens, I heard about one saint called Maximillian Kolbe. On 31st July 1941, in the Auschwitz death camp, ten men were selected to be killed as a deterrent for a prisoner who had escaped. One of the men had a wife and children and so was greatly disturbed and crying. Then Maximillian came forward and said, “I am a Catholic Priest; I have no family I would like to die instead of that man”. His offer was accepted and he died instead of the man. This is what Jesus did and does for and I. He took our place and died for us. Jesus died in your place.
Paul says, “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom 5:8). By this action of Jesus, we are saved from the consequence of sin. He brings us back into fellowship with God.
Jesus saves us from alienation. When Adam and Eve sinned, they were not only cast out of the garden; their relationship with God was also affected. They were alienated and isolated from God “in whom we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Life without God is completely empty and without meaning. No matter how you pursue it, what you make out of it, without God it is empty. This is evident in the number of suicides we see these days even with those we thought had made it in life. This is what the Gospel of Jesus dying on the cross for us addresses. Scripture tells us that when Jesus died “And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom” (Matt.27:51). The symbol of our alienation from God is broken and dealt with by his death. Now we can pursue the purpose of our lives which is primarily a relationship with God.
This is the good news. Anything less than this or more than this is not the gospel and must be rejected.
God bless you
By Fr. Delight Arnold Carbonu
