Friends in Christ, today we gather to reflect together on the mercy God shows to His people. From the book of Exodus we read that God saw the suffering of His people who had become slaves in Egypt. He listened to their cry for mercy and He pitied them. So He appeared to Moses in the desert by way of the burning bush and sent Moses to be the instrument by which He would set His people free. In his mercy, God does not leave His suffering people to their fate. He always creates the possibility of liberating them.

To Israel of old God used Moses. In our own time however, when we were bound hand and foot by cords/strings of sin, God sent His own Son Jesus Christ to lead us out of our slavery to sin so that we may not perish.

On coming into the world Jesus called us to repentance in order that we may enjoy the mercy of God the Father.

Dear friends in Christ, on this Sunday the gospel text makes it abundantly clear that for anyone who wishes to save his/her life and enjoy peace in the presence of God, that person necessarily has to repent. The text seeks to draw our attention to the fact that God’s mercy has no limits. In His mercy God is so patient with us. He offers us many opportunities to repent and amend our lives. For those among us that make use of this opportunity, God surrounds them with His favor like a shield.

When our conscience reproves and draws our attention to a substandard representation of ourselves in any aspect of our life, it is time to take a second look at our deeds, thoughts and words (that is if we have a living conscience. Some among us have killed our conscience by disabling the warning signs).

To illustrate the mercy of God and the role the Son of God plays in human salvation, Jesus told the parable of the fig tree.

He said the tree failed to bear fruits for three successive years. And for that the owner of the garden told the gardener to cut it down. That barren fig tree represents you and I. the owner of the vineyard is God the Father and the caretaker is Jesus. When God’s anger flare up against us because we fail to bear the desired fruits, it is Jesus who intervenes for us. It is this same Jesus who tells us in no uncertain terms when He said, “…If you do not repent, you will all perish…” at the conclusion of the parable all that Jesus want us to understand is, He is here to lead us out of our slavery to sin. If we fail to heed His call to repentance and continue to live in the darkness of sin (if we fail to bear fruits after we have used up the manure we shall be cut down) we shall all perish.

To bear true fruits that befit repentance, we must start to love and to forgive as soon as something goes wrong. There is no better time to repent and amend our lives than this current year. It is an extraordinary year of mercy. And as Jesus promised His apostles, “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” (John 20:23). And again he said in Matthew 16:19 “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

Let us therefore heed Jesus’ call and repent so that we may bear the desired spiritual fruits that will lead to the salvation of the whole world.