Repent or Perish- Luke 13-1-8
13 Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2 Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4 Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”
6 Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. 7 So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’
8 “‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. 9 If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’
The Calamities , epidemics, recessions which are beyond the wisdom of man because we do not have the answers or control or remedies for these disasters. When we do not have the answers in Worldly Dictionary , we must turn our attention to the moral dictionary. Bible gives us the account of moral values from the creation of the Universe till the current modern World.
If we refer to the Bible , the Calamities are addressed in many occasions in Old Testament and New Testament.
- Sodom & Gomorrah: Sodom & Gomorrah was wiped out of the Book of life due to the complete absence of moral values in human heart. If a human heart completely loses it’s substance of God’s love , then that body is no better than any other animal on this Earth. Abraham prays to the Lord to have mercy , several times but God could not see one righteous person in this land. People with complete absence of God’s love is very dangerous for the people of God and the Creation itself. These people are with evil ideologies can destroy the universe , so the Universe itself destroys these people through Natural Law.
- Prophet Jonah at Nineveh : The people of Nineveh lived in complete absence of God and God inspires Prophet Jonah to proclaim a warning : Forty days and Nineveh will be destroyed , People repent and do penance and God does not destroy Nineveh.
- Jesus On Calamity: Jewish people had a tradition which believed the calamities as a punishment . Jesus in Luke 13 says , unless and until if anyone of this age does not repent will perish just like the people of Galilee who were killed by Pilate and the eighteen people who died by falling of tower of Siloam.
From the beginning of the Creation God is giving us only one message to repent for our trespasses and follow the the Word of God. The whole universe created in the wisdom of God which we call Natural Law. If we follow this Law , morally we are right with God , but if we do not follow the Law , the Nature itself comes against us. For Example about health , we are suppose to eat good edible things in proportion as food for our body but if we try to consume something else in a inappropriate manner for our passion and satisfaction , our body does not accept the substance and stops functioning in that area. We call this as disease. We go against the Nature of our Body and fall in to sickness.
Any Calamity need not panic us in fear but we must fear our Salvation in this panic.God gives us various opportunities to become righteous person on this Earth by following the Gospel of truth and love but if we deny his mercy again and again , we short fall of his grace in our life. Our hearts get hardened to the mercy of God and finally we refuse the love of God and choose hatred , greed and lust of the World.
Calamities are not created or led by God but when a mass of People go against the Natural Law , the nature bounces back with calamities. These calamities can make or break a person , if a person comes to his senses and repents for his Wrongs of life and believe in the Gospel he will be saved but someone neglects the commandments of love and go on sinning against himself, his family, his neighbors and the Whole world , then he is surely is going perish. God always there with open arms but if he or she ridicule and make fun of our Lord without repentance , the evil takes control of them and destroys that person.
PRAYER REFLECTIONS 