Devotional Thoughts for the first Sunday after Denaha - 13th Jan 2013

Reading: From the Gospel according to St. Matthew 4: 12-22

Dear and Respected Brethren,

Today’s reading gives us a brief report of the beginning of the Public Mission of our Lord and Savior. Upon hearing about the imprisonment of St. John the Baptist, our Lord settled in Capernaum, which is upon the Sea coast in the borders of Zebulon and Nephthalim. He started the series of sermons with the exhortation: “Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand”. Our Lord spoke so to the people who sat in the darkness and it was like a bright light for them to meet Him and to listen His heavenly verses. They were in the shadow of death and it was a miraculous ray of hope and comfort for them. In the first message of our Lord there were two points.

1) Repent.

Those who heard Lord Jesus realized what was meant by Repentance. The Eastern Church Fathers define repentance as the freedom from selfishness. One who is selfish, he or she will be in darkness. At the time of the Public Mission of our Lord, among the people a large majority were under the bondage of selfishness. They submitted themselves to the exhortation of Lord Jesus. They repented and believed Him. Hence the salvation became a reality for many of them. They got freedom from the bondage and custody of sin, death and Satan. Verse 16 witnesses the great truth. “The people who sat in darkness saw great light and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.” We have never thought of the experiences of being in darkness, though we are in darkness many times. Let us think what the experiences of being in darkness are.

a) One, who is in darkness, will be far away from his or her Lord God. He or she cannot see God.

b) He or she cannot see who is near him or her. He or she cannot accept help or render help to the nearby people. In short life in darkness will be totally miserable and full of tensions and fearful thoughts.

Lord Jesus appeared to such in darkness as a bright light of hope and joy.

2) The Kingdom of God is at hand.

What is the Kingdom of God? It is the experience of being with God and the heavenly inhabitants. It is an experience rather than a place of existence. God incarnated to reinstate man in God. The first man and woman in the history of humanity were in the Kingdom of God, enjoying the life with God and in God. Adam and Eve remained so until they got the selfishness in their lives. Selfishness forced them and guided them to disobey God. And hence they committed sin. (Let us remember that all sins are deeds, words and thoughts without God- the real love) Our Savior incarnated and lived as a perfect man to reinstate mankind from the time of Adam and Eve in God and in His Kingdom. While reciting the Lord’s Prayer we repeat every time: Thy Kingdom come, they will be done on earth as it is in heaven. The implementation of the will of God is the symbol of the Kingdom of God. There won’t be any sort of selfishness in the Kingdom of God. God’s Kingdom is totally free from selfishness.

Our Good Lord God liberated us from the bondage of sin and Satan through His sacrifice on the Cross. He entrusted us to pray the Lord’s Prayer. We do recite the same every now and then, while having our canonical prayers or when we do attend either one of the sacraments. How many of us do recite the Lord’s Prayer seriously, by knowing the meaning and implications of the words therein? How many of us do recite it with a mind of meditation? In many of our Parishes, as soon as the priests start “Our Father which art in heaven, the congregation would complete the prayer in a competitive spirit to finish the prayer as soon as possible. It is done in a style that no one is bothered to recite the prayer without a stop after each sentence in the prayer. Let us pray the Lord’s Prayer with enough and more patience and meditation.

Let us all have a life of true repentance. Unless we keep true repentance, we could not enter His Kingdom and we cannot become part and parcel of His Gospel. We should not forget the truth that we cannot believe the Gospel if we are in darkness and shadow of death. Let us seek freedom from the darkness and shadow of death. Let us rejoice in the redemption freely granted to us by our Lord God.

May God bless us all

Jose Kurian Puliyeril

Kottayam