THE GOOD NEWS: GOD IS OUR FATHER

by Ron Saunders

Mark 1: 14-20

Jesus speaks some truly wonderful words to each one of us in today's Gospel. They are words that call us to a change of mind and to a change of heart. In the older translation used at Sunday liturgies, the words were, "Reform your lives and believe the good news!" In the translation used in Sunday liturgies now, the words are, "Repent and believe the good news."

Both expressions, "reform your lives" and "repent," have the same fundamental meaning. Fr. Michael Leek thinks the best way to express this meaning is in the words, "Think again." Think again about why we are here. Think again about the experiences of God that have touched our lives. Think again about the deepest longings and desires of our hearts. Think again about reordering the priorities of our lives. (1)

What will motivate us to rethink and change our lives? Belief in the Good News has the power to move us. And what teaching of Jesus is at the heart of the Good News. It is the teaching of Jesus that God is our Father, our Abba, our tender hearted Daddy.

The ultimate purpose of the Bible is not to console us or to teach us wisdom. The ultimate purpose of the Bible is to bring us back to God. The Father who created us wants us back in the intimate relationship of a father with his child. The Bible is His love letter to each one of us. To learn about His love, however, we must open and read it. And when we open and read God's love letter, we discover that the Father is a Shepherd who seeks out, rescues, and saves the lost. We discover that He is a prodigal Father who runs down a country road to embrace his wayward son and to welcome him to a banquet. As we read and ponder the Father's love letter, over and over again we hear Him say, "Come home, daughter. Come home, son. Come back to the Father who made you and saves you in His beloved Son, Jesus." (2)

Fr. Robert DeGrandis tells a moving story about a girl named Doris who discovered that God is truly and indeed her Father. She had an experience that did indeed cause her to think again, to repent, to reform her life, to turn herself around.

Here is the story Fr. DeGrandis tells about Doris.

Doris underwent a profound conversion of heart. The good news that God is her loving Father and that she is His beloved daughter became her personal good news. In Jesus Christ the Father is saving her and preparing her for eternal happiness with Him.

When Jesus preaches to us today, "Repent and believe the good news," He has one earnest desire. He wants each of us to come to know God as our loving Father. He wants each of us to know that we are His beloved son, His beloved daughter. He wants each of us to know that our destiny is to be in a relationship of love with this loving, tender hearted Father forever.

That good news has the power to turn our lives around.

REFERENCES

(1) Michael Leek, OSB, Homily for the 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B, Celebration.

(2) Sherwood E. Wirt, Jesus, Man of Joy, Animating Illustration in Homiletics, Vol. 12, #1, January 23, 2000, "Angling Without an Angle," p. 33

(3) Robert DeGrandis, Healing through the Mass, pp. 24-25, as found on Fr. Tommy Lane's webside

(Comments to Ron at rsaunders@connriver.net )