Venerable-Martyr Stephen the New (c. 764); The Holy Martyr Irenarchus (284-305)
Nativity Fast.
Read
2 Thessalonians 2:13-3:5; Luke 13:1-9
Today’s gospel continues Jesus’ teaching on repentance from yesterday’s reading and adds a sense of urgency. Though a group of listeners ask him about a recent crime of Pilate, Jesus refuses to be distracted from his call to repentance, and incorporates that tragic story into his teaching; his response to their question shows that the guilt of the people killed by Pilate, or about Pilate’s own guilt, are entirely secondary. What’s important is his listeners’ reaction to his words, which means their repentance. It’s as if Jesus is saying, “I’m talking to you about your need for repentance. If you don’t respond to this call to repent, your death, whenever it comes, will be a much bigger disaster than those Galileans’ death in the temple.”
Like the deaths of these men, or those who died in the collapse of the tower of Siloam, our deaths are equally unpredictable; without repentance now, our deaths, whenever they come, will be disasters with eternal consequences. In the parable of the fig tree, there is a sign of God’s mercy (and mercy is, after all, the assured result of true repentance): the gardener asks his master to “leave it alone for one more year” so that he can fertilize it. But God’s delay will not last forever. A merciful invitation (“You have a year; seize the opportunity!”) is given us, and at a good time too: prayer, fasting, and good works are the fruits of repentance that this season calls for. But we need to make use of the time we’ve got.