This past Christmas season, which seems like a long time ago, one of our donors, very good person, a very generous person, sent to Mercy Home for Boys and Girls about 500 figures just like this. Now, I don’t know how good our cameras are, but let me describe what I’m holding up before you. It is a little rubber Jesus with his arms outstretched proclaiming the good news. I had so much fun with this during the Christmas season. I’d go up to our young people here at Mercy Home, the kids here entrusted to our care, and I’d hand them one of these and I said, “I want you to have Jesus for Christmas.” And I’d hand it to my co-workers, too. And I’d say, “Here, I want you to have Jesus for Christmas.” Isn’t that what this is all about? being disciples of the Lord, bringing the Lord to one another, inviting others to get involved with the life and the mystery and the love of God in our lives. Bringing Christ and the light of Christ to others is what it’s all about. In in the gospel today, we hear a very important statement, the most important perhaps in all of the gospel that the kingdom of God is at hand. That one sentence, that one line in the scripture is called the charurrima. It’s the key statement of the gospel that the kingdom is here and now. That Jesus has come into the world and into our lives. And then everything else follows from that that we are to bring the gospel. We are to bring the light of Christ. We are to bring and give Jesus to one another. And we best do that by the ways in which we care for one another. In the ways in which we pray for one another. In the ways in which we take care of those who are disadvantaged. the way we reach out to the poor and to those who are in need. By the ways in which we pray for the needs of the world, how important that is. The kingdom of God is at hand. And it is our responsibility as disciples to bring that message alive, to show people through our own lives and our actions that Jesus is alive in the world, alive in our hearts, and to go out and to proclaim that. Not just by what we say, by what we do.