Repent!
Sermon
Living Between the Advents
Preaching Advent in Year B
Object:
A new beginning is a valuable thing. A fresh start is a great relief. On the second Sunday in Advent we hear the call to repent. The good news is that you can repent. You can have a fresh start. You have the chance for a new beginning.
When I was in seminary one of the television stations aired a brief devotional just before they played the National Anthem and signed off. (This was before the invention of infomercials and the arrival of all-night television.) One of my professors mentioned that the station was glad to use students and so I called them up. The next thing I knew I was down at the television station with my suit on preparing to film a week's worth of devotions. The first six went smoothly. On the seventh, though, I lost my rhythm and stumbled over some of the words. I asked in apologetic tones, "May I start that one over?" The young lady operating the camera said, "Sure, it's no problem." Then she said, "Do you ever watch our newscast?" "Yes," I replied. "Well," she said, "you know those editorials that our general manager does? We have to do those things at least ten times every week before he can get it right." I was grateful for the chance to start over that one time. I guess that maybe the general manager was ten times as grateful as I was. It's nice to be able just to rewind the tape and start over, erasing what we messed up and putting something better in its place.
I don't think that the image of rewinding a tape and starting over is an adequate metaphor for repentance. It works in some ways. When God forgives our sins, they are gone for good in the sense that we will not be judged for them. That does not mean, however, that it is all somehow easy and painless and trivial. It does not mean that we just say, "I'm sorry," and go on about our merry way. True repentance means much more than that.
Real repentance cannot happen unless God himself has paved the way. God is the instigator of repentance. John the Baptist came as the precursor to the Messiah. He was a player in the culmination of what God had been doing throughout the history of humankind. He preached repentance because his role was to prepare the way for the Savior. The people were able to hear and to respond to his message of repentance because he stood in the tradition of the great Old Testament prophets -- he looked like Elijah, he fulfilled the prophecies of Isaiah and Malachi, and he sounded like any number of prophets. We can repent because God has always been about the business of offering the opportunity for repentance.
For another thing, real repentance leads to real change. This truth is basic to the meaning of the word. The Greek word means to change the mind but behind it lies the Hebrew concept of turning around and going the other way. So to repent is to have not only your mind changed but also to have your life changed. How does such repentance come about?
First, we acknowledge and tell the truth about ourselves. The people who came to John were "confessing their sins" (Mark 1:5). Repentance can only take place when we are honest about the fact that we are sinners and we acknowledge that fact before God.
Second, we participate in what God is doing to forgive our sins. The people came submitting themselves for baptism. Now, the act of baptism does not, in and of itself, constitute forgiveness. It is very important, however, because it does communicate forgiveness. It says to us in a powerful way that we have been forgiven because we have participated in what God is doing to save us. This is even more meaningful to us than it would have been to those whom John baptized. Why? Because we live on this side of the death and burial and resurrection of Jesus and so we realize that we are, in our baptism, buried with Christ and raised to new life in him.
Third, we come to know the indwelling power of God. John said that he baptized folks with water, but that the coming one would baptize with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the very presence and power of God with us in our daily lives. Jesus Christ was Immanuel, "God with us," while he was on the earth, and the Holy Spirit is "God with us" in an ongoing way. The Spirit continuously communicates to us that we belong to God and teaches us what we need to know about God. The Spirit equips us and inspires us to live as forgiven people who are growing in sanctification even in this sin-besotted world. God is with us. The news can't get much better than that.
So who needs to repent? We all do. Some of us have never repented at all. If you have not acknowledged the fact that you are a sinner and have never turned to God and asked for his forgiveness, you need to repent. Those of us who are followers of Christ all fall under the heading of those who have a long way to go. We are still beset by our prejudices, by our habits, by our attitudes that reflect the mind of the world rather than the mind of Christ, by our addictions, by our shallow or faulty motives, by our judgmentalism, by our legalism, and by our lack of discipline. We need to repent.
But we need to tell the truth about our limitations. In John's day people repented when John told them that they needed to do so to prepare for the coming Messiah. Peter wrote to his audience that they needed to see the time before Christ returned as an opportunity to repent. "The Lord is coming, so repent." It is a compelling summons. But let's tell the truth about ourselves. During the holiday season we often find ourselves expecting guests. We know they're coming; we even know when they are coming. So what do we do? We get busy putting our house in order. We do everything we can to make it spic-and-span and impressive. It's all temporary, though. They know and we know that once the visit is over everything will go back to its normal state, which is probably somewhere between a little messy and totally chaotic.
Such is life, but such is not how repentance is supposed to be. It is not enough to say, "Jesus may come back at any minute and so I have to get my life straightened out." Such an approach is ineffective because once we stop thinking about it, or we get distracted by something else, things will just return to normal. It is not enough to spruce up just in case Jesus returns soon. Our repentance and our increasing holiness should be based on what is real and what is vital. What is real and vital is the fact that because Christ came, because he continues to come, and because he will come again, we have the chance for a new beginning. John Stendahl put that glorious good news this way: "To be at a beginning is to find that we are not prisoners of the past."1 Christ will do a new thing in you, perhaps starting with a brand new beginning today or perhaps building on what he has already done in your life. You needn't be a prisoner to what you have done or what you have been in the past. Instead you can accept God's offer of a chance to repent -- to be changed, to be transformed. You can, from this moment on, become more and more like Christ. You can constantly become more and more loving toward God and toward other people. Love will be central to what you will be becoming, because love is the one thing in life that never ends.2
___________
1. John Stendahl, "On Your Mark," Christian Century (November 20-December 3, 2002), p. 16.
2. Paul Tillich, The Shaking of the Foundations (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1948), p. 186.
When I was in seminary one of the television stations aired a brief devotional just before they played the National Anthem and signed off. (This was before the invention of infomercials and the arrival of all-night television.) One of my professors mentioned that the station was glad to use students and so I called them up. The next thing I knew I was down at the television station with my suit on preparing to film a week's worth of devotions. The first six went smoothly. On the seventh, though, I lost my rhythm and stumbled over some of the words. I asked in apologetic tones, "May I start that one over?" The young lady operating the camera said, "Sure, it's no problem." Then she said, "Do you ever watch our newscast?" "Yes," I replied. "Well," she said, "you know those editorials that our general manager does? We have to do those things at least ten times every week before he can get it right." I was grateful for the chance to start over that one time. I guess that maybe the general manager was ten times as grateful as I was. It's nice to be able just to rewind the tape and start over, erasing what we messed up and putting something better in its place.
I don't think that the image of rewinding a tape and starting over is an adequate metaphor for repentance. It works in some ways. When God forgives our sins, they are gone for good in the sense that we will not be judged for them. That does not mean, however, that it is all somehow easy and painless and trivial. It does not mean that we just say, "I'm sorry," and go on about our merry way. True repentance means much more than that.
Real repentance cannot happen unless God himself has paved the way. God is the instigator of repentance. John the Baptist came as the precursor to the Messiah. He was a player in the culmination of what God had been doing throughout the history of humankind. He preached repentance because his role was to prepare the way for the Savior. The people were able to hear and to respond to his message of repentance because he stood in the tradition of the great Old Testament prophets -- he looked like Elijah, he fulfilled the prophecies of Isaiah and Malachi, and he sounded like any number of prophets. We can repent because God has always been about the business of offering the opportunity for repentance.
For another thing, real repentance leads to real change. This truth is basic to the meaning of the word. The Greek word means to change the mind but behind it lies the Hebrew concept of turning around and going the other way. So to repent is to have not only your mind changed but also to have your life changed. How does such repentance come about?
First, we acknowledge and tell the truth about ourselves. The people who came to John were "confessing their sins" (Mark 1:5). Repentance can only take place when we are honest about the fact that we are sinners and we acknowledge that fact before God.
Second, we participate in what God is doing to forgive our sins. The people came submitting themselves for baptism. Now, the act of baptism does not, in and of itself, constitute forgiveness. It is very important, however, because it does communicate forgiveness. It says to us in a powerful way that we have been forgiven because we have participated in what God is doing to save us. This is even more meaningful to us than it would have been to those whom John baptized. Why? Because we live on this side of the death and burial and resurrection of Jesus and so we realize that we are, in our baptism, buried with Christ and raised to new life in him.
Third, we come to know the indwelling power of God. John said that he baptized folks with water, but that the coming one would baptize with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the very presence and power of God with us in our daily lives. Jesus Christ was Immanuel, "God with us," while he was on the earth, and the Holy Spirit is "God with us" in an ongoing way. The Spirit continuously communicates to us that we belong to God and teaches us what we need to know about God. The Spirit equips us and inspires us to live as forgiven people who are growing in sanctification even in this sin-besotted world. God is with us. The news can't get much better than that.
So who needs to repent? We all do. Some of us have never repented at all. If you have not acknowledged the fact that you are a sinner and have never turned to God and asked for his forgiveness, you need to repent. Those of us who are followers of Christ all fall under the heading of those who have a long way to go. We are still beset by our prejudices, by our habits, by our attitudes that reflect the mind of the world rather than the mind of Christ, by our addictions, by our shallow or faulty motives, by our judgmentalism, by our legalism, and by our lack of discipline. We need to repent.
But we need to tell the truth about our limitations. In John's day people repented when John told them that they needed to do so to prepare for the coming Messiah. Peter wrote to his audience that they needed to see the time before Christ returned as an opportunity to repent. "The Lord is coming, so repent." It is a compelling summons. But let's tell the truth about ourselves. During the holiday season we often find ourselves expecting guests. We know they're coming; we even know when they are coming. So what do we do? We get busy putting our house in order. We do everything we can to make it spic-and-span and impressive. It's all temporary, though. They know and we know that once the visit is over everything will go back to its normal state, which is probably somewhere between a little messy and totally chaotic.
Such is life, but such is not how repentance is supposed to be. It is not enough to say, "Jesus may come back at any minute and so I have to get my life straightened out." Such an approach is ineffective because once we stop thinking about it, or we get distracted by something else, things will just return to normal. It is not enough to spruce up just in case Jesus returns soon. Our repentance and our increasing holiness should be based on what is real and what is vital. What is real and vital is the fact that because Christ came, because he continues to come, and because he will come again, we have the chance for a new beginning. John Stendahl put that glorious good news this way: "To be at a beginning is to find that we are not prisoners of the past."1 Christ will do a new thing in you, perhaps starting with a brand new beginning today or perhaps building on what he has already done in your life. You needn't be a prisoner to what you have done or what you have been in the past. Instead you can accept God's offer of a chance to repent -- to be changed, to be transformed. You can, from this moment on, become more and more like Christ. You can constantly become more and more loving toward God and toward other people. Love will be central to what you will be becoming, because love is the one thing in life that never ends.2
___________
1. John Stendahl, "On Your Mark," Christian Century (November 20-December 3, 2002), p. 16.
2. Paul Tillich, The Shaking of the Foundations (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1948), p. 186.
