Monday in the First Week of Ordinary Time, January 12, 2026

Mark 1, 14-20

After John had been arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the Gospel of God: “This is the time of fulfillment. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel.”  As he passed by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting their nets into the sea; they were fishermen. Jesus said to them, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Then they left their nets and followed him. He walked along a little farther and saw James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John. They too were in a boat mending their nets. Then he called them. So they left their father Zebedee in the boat along with the hired men and followed him.

“The time of fulfillment”.  When Jesus begins his public ministry in Mark’s Gospel, his first words are not instructions, warnings, or explanations. They are a declaration about time: “This is the time of fulfillment. The Kingdom of God is at hand.” In Greek the verb is πεπλήρωται — “has been fulfilled” — but the imagination behind it is unmistakably Hebrew. Time here is not a neutral sequence of moments ticking forward. It is something that has been growing, ripening, quietly preparing itself for what God is about to do.

In the biblical world, time “matures” the way fruit matures. It has weight, texture, readiness. Some moments are green and unready; others are heavy with meaning. When Jesus says “the time has been fulfilled,” he is not saying, “The schedule has been met.” He is saying: history itself has reached ripeness. This is why nothing in this passage feels hurried — even though everything changes.

John has been arrested. A door has closed. Yet Jesus does not react anxiously. He does not rush to Jerusalem or gather an army. He goes to Galilee and proclaims that the time is ready. What God has been shaping through centuries of promise, law, failure, waiting, and hope has now reached its fullness. And then, almost immediately, Jesus walks along the sea. This too belongs to the logic of fulfilled time. When the moment is ripe, ordinary places become charged with meaning. A shoreline becomes a threshold. Nets become symbols of an old life that has reached its limit. The call comes not in thunder, but in a sentence: “Come after me.”

Notice what happens next. Simon and Andrew do not ask for explanations. James and John do not request guarantees. They leave their nets, their boat, even their father. This is not impulsiveness. It is recognition. Something in them knows that this moment will not come again. When time is fulfilled, hesitation is the real danger.

This helps us understand repentance in a deeper way. Repentance is not merely sorrow for past sins. It is the willingness to step into the moment God has prepared. To cling to what is familiar when the time has matured is not caution; it is refusal.

The modern world teaches us to think of time as empty and interchangeable: another day, another week, another chance. The Gospel teaches the opposite. Some moments are decisive. Some hours carry eternity within them. Grace arrives not randomly, but when the time is fulfilled.

That is why Jesus’ proclamation is both gentle and urgent. He does not threaten; he announces. He does not coerce; he invites. But the invitation carries weight, because ripe fruit does not wait forever on the branch.

For us, this passage is quietly unsettling. It asks us whether we still believe that time has meaning — that God prepares moments, not just outcomes. It asks whether we can recognize when a season has reached its fullness, and whether we have the courage to leave our nets behind when it has.

The Kingdom of God is not only “at hand” in the sense of being near. It is at hand because the time is ready. Indeed, according to the Greek tense, it has approached. And when the time is fulfilled, the only faithful response is the one we see on that Galilean shore: to rise, to follow, and to trust that what we are leaving behind has already given us all it can.