The Kingdom of Heaven Is at Hand - Sermon for the Sunday after Theophany (2025)

“Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” With these words our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ begins His public ministry.  “Repent” is the word the Church gives us at the beginning of the year.  This Gospel is placed here not just because it takes place chronologically after Christ’s baptism (which we are still celebrating), but also because it signals the approach of Lent. 

Perhaps not regrettably, the image of a fire and brimstone street preacher has started to fade into oblivion.  But I remember encountering one in college and he fit the stereotype.  He made his rounds to our school every year to heckle sinners.  Even though I only heard him a few times, it was enough to cement in my mind the preaching of repentance with threats of damnation and everlasting hellfire.  It took years before realizing Christ is not saying “Repent, for the Kingdom of Hell is at hand”.  No, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.  Christ call to us His lost sheep is not a threat, it in an invitation.

“Repent” He says—because Heaven is coming and He doesn’t want us to miss it.

“Repent” because the Glory of God is about to shine forth, and He wants us to open our eyes to behold it.

“Repent” because the joys of Paradise, eternal beatitude, and the communion of the countless multitude of saints is nigh at hand.

I’d like to turn our attention to what Christ says elsewhere in the Gospels.  “ And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with carousing, and drunkenness, and cares of this life”.  Elder Haralambos, a disciple of St. Joseph the Hesychast, was astonished when he realized that Christ puts being caught up with the cares of this life on par with drunkenness and carousing.  How often do we just blow past those words when we read them or when we hear them?  They truly are astonishing.  Especially for us modern American in particular, who have this vice in spades and perhaps are only faintly aware that it might be a sin.

We’re so used to the busyness of our lives that worry, pre-occupation and anxiety about whatever conflict or unfinished business or concern we’re in the middle of is the air we breathe.  And yet where is Christ in all of this?  So often we find ourselves weighed down by projects we’re working on (whether at work or at home or our hobbies).  Perhaps after we finish that, we find some emergency or crisis pop up that radically alters our life.  Maybe a serious illness strikes a loved one or we encounter a serious set-back that derails our plans.  It’s very tempting for us to use these as excuses for why we can’t take our spiritual life as seriously as we would like right now.  We’re waiting for the problems to clear up, for the set-backs to be recovered, for an imaginary convenience in the future and then we’ll really try harder.  But the problem is never our health or lack thereof, or our wealth or lack thereof, or occupations, or lack thereof, or projects or personal conflicts.  Elder Epiphanius says “There do not exist many or few, nor small or great problems.  The only problem is the absence of Christ from our life”.  The only problem is the absence of Christ from our life.

“Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand”.  Christ is always inviting us to turn to Him.  To invite Him into our life, our problems, our pre-occupations.  And we invite Christ into our lives, into our problems and worries primarily by doing our work diligently, preparing as we should and handling problems as they come about. And then most importantly, setting them aside once we’re done with work and have to go home or back to our cells.  And especially setting them aside when it’s time for prayer and especially during church.  This is the hard part that feels impossible because we don’t like having unfinished business, we don’t like being in the middle of a seemingly unsolvable problem.  We don’t like the unease that comes from being in the midst of an on-going crisis that shows no end in sight.  But by learning to cast all our cares upon the Lord as St. Peter tells us is how we show our trust in God. 

By allowing ourselves to be weighed down with earthly cares, we distract ourselves from Christ, Who is truly the only real solution to our problems.  Christ is the one who gives us the energy to handle our problems, and He is the one who enlightens us to solve them and He is the one who gives us patience to endure them.  But by holding on to our worries, by going over and over in our heads our plans and back up plans and what-ifs, we’re basically saying that we don’t believe God is all-powerful, all-loving, and all-wise.  That God either doesn’t know about our problems or that He can’t or won’t help us.  That God doesn’t really love us and that we’re alone and if we don’t figure something out, it we don’t fix this, we’re lost.  Everything depends on us.

And it’s all lies.  It’s all lies.  Of course, we’ll all nod our heads in agreement.  “Yes God is all-powerful, all-loving, and all-wise”.  But our trust in God is not a mental assent to propositions about what He is like.  Our trust in God is shown when we let go of our thoughts (at least for a little bit!).  By casting aside our cares, it’s our way of acknowledging that God actually knows the situation we are in, He actually cares about us—infinitely—and that He will actually help us.  But He can’t do that if we don’t turn to Him.  He can’t effectively help us if we’re only staring at our problems and listening to our own thoughts about them.

But if we don’t make a consistent effort now to repent, to turn to Christ and at least give Him the time we have for prayer at home and at Church, it will never magically happen.  The saints fought with blood, sweat, and tears for prayer.  They did not arrive at prayer because all their problems went away, because all their personal conflicts were resolved, because all their material needs were taken care of, and they were always in good health.  Rather, it is precisely because of hardships in any and all forms that the saints found prayer.  They chose to turn away from their worries and anxieties and to look at Christ instead.

Many of the modern saints, including St. Paisius and Elder Thaddeus say the same thing about our cares.  So much conflict is created in the home because we take our problems with us.  We hold onto our worries and anxieties and infect our brothers with them.  We are tense and less loving and either generate strife or stoke the flames of someone else’s. All this shows that our attention is not on Christ, and we lost our contact with Him.  Rather, when we finish our tasks, or when we step aside from whatever emergency we’re handling, we turn to Christ in prayer, ask Him to help us and also ask Him to help us to let go of our thoughts about it.  Then we turn our attention to whatever is next, to whomever we’re with.  And when we fail and get caught up in the endless chain of worries, we repent again and ask God to help us.  And when we fail again and get caught up again in the endless chain of worries, we repent again and again and ask God to help us again.  And He will.  Even if our problems don’t get better, even if they get worse, even if something unimaginably horrible follows what we were just drowning in, at least now we’re learning to look at Christ.  And if we’re looking at Him, then we’ve begun to repent.  Amen.