First Reading: Jon 3:1-5, 10
We are in the third Sunday
of ordinary Time. In last Sunday Gospel we saw how the disciples of John the
Baptist – Andrew and the other – became disciples of Jesus by going down to
stay with Jesus. Their live-in experience with Jesus pushes Andrew to bring his
brother Simon Peter to Jesus. In today’s Gospel Jesus calls four disciples,
rather brothers from two families: Simon and Andrew, James and John. Although
the narration in the gospel of Mark seems to suggest that these four men left
everything at once at the call of a stranger prophet and followed Him, the
comparative reading with the Gospel of John reveals that these four men already
knew Jesus (Jn 1:35-42). For quite sometime they have gone after John the
Baptist and Jesus subsequently. Now when Jesus comes to the region of Galilee
to begin His public mission, these four men must have been among the first
audience of Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom of God. These four men already
deep inside their heart had some thirst for God. Besides being fishermen they
go to hear John the Baptist, they go and stay with Jesus, all these suggest
that they were in search of greater things.
The first preaching of Jesus
is to repent and believe in the Gospel, because the Kingdom of God has arrived
with His coming (Mk 1:15). Repent means not only making amends for past wrong
doings but shifting of one’s focus, changing of one’s perspectives and taking a
new direction to walk forward. When Jesus calls the disciple to follow Him,
they leave their nets and follow him (Mk 1:18-20). Leaving their nets is a sign
that they have shifted their focus from engaging in fishing job to engage in a
mission of God. We cannot follow Jesus with our past perspectives. Our encounter
with Jesus transforms our preconceived ideas. This we see in the life of Prophet
Jonah too. At first, Jonah declines the call of God to prophecy in Nineveh. Jonah
repents for this disobedience in the belly of the fish (Jon 2:3-10). His
conversion results in the proclamation of the message of repentance in Nineveh.
Jonah is surprised by the response of the Ninevehites to the God of Israel. This
is what happens in the life of every minister of God. When one does the mission
of God without any prejudice there s/he sees miraculous things happening.
The central message of today’s
gospel is to repent and believe in the Gospel. This reading sets a tone for the
season of lent. From today on we can start planning for the season of lent. We need
to consider things which we are holding on to. To follow Jesus in the season of
lent we need to leave our boats and nets. We have time to carry out necessary preparation
for lent. God sees the efforts of Ninevehits and gives up the disaster that He
had said he would do to them (Jon 3:10). In the same way, God likes to see our
efforts to walk with Him in the season of lent.
The disciples make definite
decision to become fishers of men. They start following Jesus without turning
back. They had to face pitfalls and failures in their commitment to be
Apostles. The great dispute that lead to the summoning of the first council of
Jerusalem shows the limitation and human nature of the apostles. But they are
in no way a discouragement for them to leave God given mission to them. They march
forward with renewed energy. Their source of strength lies in their conviction
born out of their repentance. They turned themselves away from their own perspectives
and focused on Jesus. True repentance is needed to be firm in the life that begins
subsequently. May we start introspecting about the nets and boats that we hold
on to.
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