This Sunday, we have three announcements in one:
1 – There is a Kingdom: new heavens and a new earth, a new world pressing to come into being.
The two prophets (first readings and gospel) do not say what the Kingdom is, but where. Softly they reveal: “near.” God is near; he is here.
His journey lands here, at the core of life, not at the margins. So it becomes intimate when the prophet whispers, “he will baptize you in the Holy Spirit,” he will immerse you within the breath and the sea of God. In every fiber of you, enveloped, soaked, infused with the very life of God.
2 – Convert: Set your life on the road, not by force but by grace. Life doesn’t change by given decree but by beauty when your heart longs for a higher quality of spiritual life because there “comes one who is greater than I.”
3 – “God is coming.” Not maybe. He comes like a seed that becomes a tree, like a morning line of light, which seems inconspicuous but is victorious, swallowing the darkness of night. Day by day, continuously, God comes.
Christians do not wish because we have hope. I prefer the Kingdom because of an act of faith. God committed himself with scandalous love for us that goes all the way to the wood of a manger and a cross
