John the Baptist...
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John the Baptist called his followers, calls us, to repentance! New Testament scholar Eduard Schweizer tells us that repentance is the surrender of all false securities (The Good News According to Matthew, pp. 49-50). It involves surrendering the self and all the "stuff" we've accumulated or want. We badly need repentance in our context, chararcterized as it is by insidious self-seeking and self-love. A study conducted as recently as 2011 showed that 30% of U.S. college students exhibited narcissistic characteristics. Out-of-wedlock births now amount to 48% of the total number of babies born in America.
Repentance, being in the presence of the coming Christ, represents a break with these trends. Famed modern theologian Karl Barth well described what is involved in how Christ changes us through repentance: He speaks of a "free detachment." It is, he says: "A detachment which is not in order that we may -- please ourselves" (The Epistle to the Romans, p. 524).
Barth proceeds to affirm and we know from our own experience that renouncing our own pleasures is a krisis. But it is a krisis, he claims, of freedom as well as detachment: "He [Christ] makes the strong to be strong to the glory of God. He also leads them again to the weak to the glory of God" (The Epistle to the Romans, p. 526).
Repentance, relying on God and not seeking ourselves, leads us to care for the weak and marginalized.
Repentance, being in the presence of the coming Christ, represents a break with these trends. Famed modern theologian Karl Barth well described what is involved in how Christ changes us through repentance: He speaks of a "free detachment." It is, he says: "A detachment which is not in order that we may -- please ourselves" (The Epistle to the Romans, p. 524).
Barth proceeds to affirm and we know from our own experience that renouncing our own pleasures is a krisis. But it is a krisis, he claims, of freedom as well as detachment: "He [Christ] makes the strong to be strong to the glory of God. He also leads them again to the weak to the glory of God" (The Epistle to the Romans, p. 526).
Repentance, relying on God and not seeking ourselves, leads us to care for the weak and marginalized.
