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01/25/2009
ReadingsJonah 3:1-5, 10
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
Mark 1:14-20
The dawning of a new age with the coming of Jesus Christ is one of the major themes of the New Testament. All of history is now separated into two eons – the time before the advent of the Lord and the new age he inaugurates, a delineation reflected in our modern calendar. All the events and people of the old age – the Patriarchs, the Law, the Prophets, even the great Greek philosophers – prepared the world for the coming of the Word made man, whose life, death and resurrection propelled the world into a new age.
Jesus’ first words in the Gospel of Mark are: “This is the time of fulfillment” (Mark 1:15). The age of waiting has ended and now the final days are upon the human race; her God has left eternity and penetrated time, transforming it into a new reality. No longer is man weighed down by sin and death; by the work of Christ these enemies have been defeated. But there is a response required by man to make this new age alive within his own life, a response Christ sums up in one word: “Repent” (Mark 1:15). Rejection of the old life of sin is essential for acceptance of new life in Christ. St. Paul describes how to live in this new time:
"I tell you, brothers, the time is running out. From now on, let those having wives act as not having them, those weeping as not weeping, those rejoicing as not rejoicing, those buying as not owning, those using the world as not using it fully. For the world in its present form is passing away." (1 Corinthians 7:29-31)
Disciples of Christ are merely pilgrims on this earth – it is not our permanent home. The home we were made for is beyond time, it is the everlasting “now” of heaven. We should not become too comfortable in this world because we know that the time is coming in which we will enter our true heavenly home. The things of this world – money, possessions, power – are so much rubbish compared to the glory which awaits the follower of Christ.
Yet with the coming of Christ that “now” has already begun here on earth; the life of the Church is the antechamber of the “now” of eternity. Most nearly do we touch that eternity in the liturgical celebration of Christ’s redemptive work, the Mass, during which the liturgy celebrated here is joined to the eternal worship of heaven. During the Mass space and time are transcended and each participant is able mystically to enter the “kingdom of God” promised by Jesus (cf. Mark 1:15), a kingdom that reigns over the new age of Christ.
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