This is the time of fulfillment.
The fulfillment of what? The fulfillment of the Messianic expectation in the first place. This was synonymous with the coming of the Kingdom of God. But what might not have been entirely and immediately clear was that this was not simply the solving of issues of political sovereignty from which Israel had long suffered and which persisted under the Roman occupation. The Kingdom Jesus came to bring was meant to fulfill something much deeper in the human heart. He came as God's 'Yes' to every promise he had ever made (see Second Corinthians 1:20). This included crushing the head of the serpent, making Israel a light of blessing for the nations, of God himself shepherding his people. It would have been easy to set the bar of one's expectations too low, desiring only that God addressed the immediate issue, and redressed the immediate wrongs. But true fulfillment, God knew, would have to be deeper than the mere symptoms. The freedom given would first be true interior freedom. The royal authority conveyed would first be spiritual power making us victorious over our true enemies of the principalities and powers and world rulers of this present darkness (see Ephesians 6:12). Hence, the fulfillment required an internal change before a visible change in the world could follow.
Repent, and believe in the Gospel.
The promise of this fulfillment was a powerful draw, even before people fully understood the implications. It already began to work by elevating the desires of those who would welcome it, raising them from mere day-to-day concerns of subsistence to a commitment and a dedication to the Kingdom itself as the most worthy, the most desirable pursuit.
“Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
Then they left their nets and followed him.
We ourselves tend to have a harder time leaving our nets than Simon and Andrew, James and John. Perhaps this is because we don't quite yet intuit just how perfectly the promised fulfillment really does correspond to the deepest desires of our hearts. If it seems to us that religion is merely a matter of external things that we should do we may miss the fact that in Jesus is found the one thing necessary, the place- the only place- where our hearts can truly rest.
Whenever Jesus passes by we are invited to recognize in him the potential fulfillment of all of our longings. The more we let ourselves perceive this, the stronger will be our motivation to follow him. It will no longer be something merely external, done as due diligence. Instead it will become, to an ever greater degree, a profound aspiration of our inmost being.
Let us learn to entrust to Jesus our circumstantial concerns, even though they be poignant and pressing, just as Hannah entrusted her petitions to the Lord, just as the first disciples left their nets to follow Jesus. When we seek first Jesus and his Kingdom we truly open ourselves to receive more than we can ask or imagine. We no longer limit ourselves by desires too limited and temporary to truly satisfy. We begin to taste what Jesus meant by the fulfillment at hand.
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