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This is the time of fulfillment.
The Kingdom of God is at hand.
The Kingdom of God was at hand because Jesus himself had come and begun his ministry. The Kingdom of God was, by definition, the place where God reigned. This Kingdom existed from all eternity in heaven but was now breaking through on earth. In the Our Father Jesus taught his disciples to pray that it would come as fully on earth as it was in heaven (see Matthew 6:10), such that God's will was as perfectly accomplished here as it is there. So there was a not yet to the Kingdom ideal. But in Jesus there was also an already, since God fully reigned in the heart of Jesus. Anyone who believed in him and got onboard with his mission was already beginning to live within the Kingdom of God, even surrounded by a fallen world. The whole premise of the promise of Jesus was that this reign of God in the world was the answer to all of promises of all of the ancient prophets, and the possibility of experiencing the true fulfillment intended by God for his creatures. To repent, then, was to live in conformity with this Kingdom. It was to think, speak, and act in a way governed by God's paradigm rather than previous merely human ideas.
This is the time of fulfillment.
It is still the time of fulfillment. We might not realize this, imagining that there was a narrow window during the life and ministry of Jesus on earth when this was true. But Jesus did not leave us orphans when he ascended. He sent the Holy Spirit to help us and now reigns over us from heaven. This means that ever since this initial proclamation the time of fulfillment is a reality which is ever new and available to those with faith. This is why Paul wrote, "now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation" (see Second Corinthians 6:2). Therefore, not just when Jesus spoke, or when Paul wrote, but even now in this moment the fulfillment of Kingdom life is available to us.
Jesus said to them,
“Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
The consequence of the inbreaking of the Kingdom into the world is that it totally relativizes normal human concerns. Even paradigms such as work and family take on a secondary importance compared to the expansion of the scope of the reign of the Kingdom of God on earth. After all, these things all find their own fulfillment only when properly ordered to the reign of God. And this means that sometimes they must take a backseat to the furthering of the establishment of that reign.
Then they left their nets and followed him.
If we truly understand what Jesus offers in his proclamation of the Kingdom we will experience the same lack of delay in following him as did these first disciples. Nothing the world offers will seem remotely worthy of preferring to the Kingdom. May Jesus help us to understand what he desires to do for this world and for us so that we would get over our own hesitation and go all in for him.
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