From that time on, the voice arose
across the hills of Galilee,
a single sentence, sharp as light,
cutting the haze of ordinary days:
Repent, for heaven's kingdom comes,
so close you feel it on your skin.
The fishermen looked up from nets,
their hands still wet with silver scales,
and heard the words like distant thunder
rolling nearer through the quiet air.
They did not understand at first,
yet something in the tone undid them,
unraveled years of habit, pride,
and left them standing, empty, open.
Repent. The call is not a whip
but water poured on burning ground.
It does not drive the soul away
but draws it homeward through the ashes.
Turn, turn again, the Baptist cried
before the axe fell silent on him;
now Jesus walks the selfsame road
and speaks the selfsame urgent love.
The kingdom is not far, not throned
behind the curtains of the sky.
It walks in sandals through the dust,
it eats the bread of common tables,
it touches lepers, speaks to women,
and bids the children come unchided.
It overturns the marketplace
yet whispers peace to troubled hearts.
Repent. The word is like a door
that opens inward to the soul.
Behind it lies the cluttered room
of every secret, every wound,
the hoarded coins of self-regard,
the broken jars of old resentment.
But when the door is swung ajar
the light comes flooding, unashamed.
The kingdom presses at the threshold,
impatient as a rising dawn.
It waits for no one to be worthy;
it comes to make the unworthy whole.
It comes to tax collectors sitting
amid their ledgers and their shame,
to soldiers weary of their violence,
to widows counting empty hours.
Repent, and see the world remade.
The barren fig tree feels the sap
rise unexpected through its veins.
The desert hears a coming rain.
The prisoner dreams of open gates.
The mourner lifts a sudden face
and finds the tears already drying
beneath a kindness never earned.
From that time on, the call continues,
spoken in every human heart
that hungers for a truer country.
It echoes down the centuries
through catacombs and cathedrals,
through battlefields and quiet rooms
where someone kneels in honest sorrow
and rises changed, though nothing shows.
The kingdom is as near as breath,
as near as sorrow turned to hope.
It stands outside the door and knocks,
not with the fist of condemnation
but with the wounded hand of love
that bears the mark of nails forever.
Open, repent, and let it in—
the reign of heaven starts within.
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