In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.
The Forerunner had been arrested. Herod the tetrarch had taken his brother’s wife, Herodias, for himself and the Prophet had said, “It is not lawful for you to have her.” (Matthew 14:4) So the Lord moves to the north, to Galilee of the Gentiles, to preach the same Gospel as His kinsman, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” He had waited for the Forerunner’s arrest so there would not be a division among the people—one saying “I am for John,” while another “I am for Jesus” (cf. First Corinthians 1:12)—but there is one Gospel of repentance.
And Christ comes to me and says to me, “Repent.” And I want to reply to Him, “Me⁈ Repent for what?” For I am sat in darkness and have become comfortable in my misery, I am sat in darkness and am fearful of the Light, I am sat in darkness and cannot even see the sin which I perpetrate and spread like a disease. The sin which I deposit and leave on me, on my surroundings and on my neighbours—coughing, spluttering, regurgitating—is invisible to me.
Yet Christ comes before me and the Great Light, brighter than the sun, illuminates me and my surroundings. And I see, perhaps for the first time, the effects of my actions on me, on my surroundings and on my neighbours. And it is disgusting. I want to hide, to return to the darkness, to revert to my former state: but if I do that I will do so with the vision I have seen haunting me, oppressing me, ridiculing me; it would be a regression to an existence not a life.
“Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” He calls me to repentance but does not ask me to do it alone. The God of Heaven and of Earth, the Creator of the Cosmos, is there beside me, supports me in my turning towards Him, helps me clean up the sin which I have caused. And Christ calls others to do the same, to repent alongside me, that we may be a Church of Hope, a Church of Light, a Church of Repentance.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, our sin is disgusting. And we may want the Light removed, we may want to return to our former state, we may want to ignore the sin: but if we want to be truly alive we must face it and deal with it. Deal with it by restoring to those whom we have wronged what we have taken, deal with it by our service and hospitality to others, deal with it through the Church drawing us closer to God through the services and mysteries. Let us—Today!—repent and turn again to the living God, let us reject the evil which we spread, let us, even here in a world surrounded by sin,
become children of God, … believe in His name:
[and be] born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
— John 1:12–13
Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
To our crucified and risen God and Saviour Jesus Christ, the Great Light Who calls us all to repentance, be all glory, honour and worship, together with His unoriginate Father and the All-holy, Good and Life-giving Spirit. Amen.
Brethren, grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it is said, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.” (in saying, “He ascended, ” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is he who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) And his gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
— Ephesians 4:7–13
At that time, when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee; and leaving Nazareth he went and dwelt in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, toward the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.” From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”
— Matthew 4:12–17