My Dear Brothers and Sisters,
In our experience of life, when we sin, we feel a distance from the Lord. Like the Prophet Jonah, we try to get as far away from God as we can. But like Jonah, we run into God no matter where we go. Like Psalm 139 questioned: “Where can I go from your Spirit? From your presence, where can I flee? If I go up to the heavens, You are there; if I sink to the nether world, You are present there!” Nevertheless, if we insist on it, the Lord will let us finally escape from Him. This place of escape is called hell, or eternal damnation, where we can separate ourselves from God forever.
When we run away from God by sinning, the Lord will try to flesh us out of our hiding place. As He did with Adam and Eve in the Genesis, the Lord will call to us: “Where are you?” If we turn back to Him, He will meet us much more than halfway. Indeed, our Heavenly Father will run out to meet us, throw His arms around our neck and kiss us as in the parable of prodigal son.
However, the Lord will not force Himself on any of us. We must repent. Like in today’s Gospel, when Peter distanced himself from Jesus by going back into the fishing business and rejecting Jesus’ call to be a fisher of men, Jesus reached out to Peter and give him another chance, another catch. Peter took this opportunity and immediately said, “Yes” to Jesus. Then he met Jesus in the miraculous catch of fish. He repented and jumped back into the mercy of Jesus: “Jump down into water and put on clothes to meet Jesus.”
Thus, in God’s love for us, Jesus will travel all time and space to be close to us. Through repentance, we must cover a few yards to get to Jesus. In this Easter season, we should ask ourselves this question: “How close are we to Jesus?” If we have distanced ourselves from Him, let us repent and jump into God’s mercy, where Jesus will meet us.
Happy Easter Season to you all.
With love,
Fr. Thuong Hoai Nguyen, Pastor