In following the Gospel of Mark’s opening, what I have called Mark’s Advent story, I have suggested that the story calls us to wait on God and listen for God; two disciplines we ought to practice during the Season of Advent.
But after a time
of waiting, however long it might be, and after listening for God through the
multiple and diverse ways God may speak, we are confronted with the choice of either
ignoring or acting. If we ignore the messenger and message of God, then we cannot
fully embrace the gospel of God. To enter God’s rule means that we must act in
response to both the messenger and message of God. Such actions are defined by
two simple, but interrelated terms: repent and believe.
Much like the
term sin, the idea of repentance is often pushed aside as unnecessary. Because
we are told we should never admit that we have failed, often intentionally and
horribly, there seems to be no need to admit our sin, and thus we believe that
there is no need for the successive action of repenting from our sin. But this
way of thinking is foreign to the gospel’s message.
Indeed, at the
very heart of the gospel is the idea, the command, and the action of repenting.
In fact, a careful reading of Mark’s prologue shows that the call to repent is
there from the beginning. the words, “Prepare the Way of the Lord,” spoken
through the prophet, is a declaration from Isaiah 40 that God will come to
God’s people and the people must respond by preparing their lives for the
visitation of God.
Such preparation involves recognizing
that we are finite humans who are in need of the love and grace of God. This
recognition is indicated through the act of turning from our self-serving lives
and turning to God and to others in service and love.
Mark follows this declaration with the
introduction of God’s messenger, John, who preaches a baptism of repentance and
to whom throngs of people come to confess their sins and be baptized in
preparation for God’s coming.
But John is only the forerunner to the one
who comes in the authority of God; the one who is proclaimed as the Beloved Son
by God. In the coming of Jesus, we see again that at the core of the gospel is
the idea of repentance. Jesus declares, “The rule of God is near. Repent and
believe in the good news.”
Thus, at the heart of Israel’s ancient
prophet’s preaching, the proclamation by the one sent as the messenger of God,
and Jesus’ announcement that God’s rule was near is a call to repent.
But two important questions come to mind
regarding the idea of repentance. What does it mean to repent and from what should
we repent?
We can find assistance in answering these
questions by looking at the Greek word behind this English rendering to garner
a definition of the word repent. Simply put, the word means to turn around or
to change one’s mind. But this dictionary meaning does not help us much.
We often think of repenting as telling
God that we are sorry we committed this or that sinful act and we will never do
it again. Yet, what we find is that we do those things again and again no
matter how serious we are in our repentance. But is repentance simply a turning
away from our private and favorite sins?
While we should continue to repent of
those individual habits that afflict us, the idea and practice of repentance is
much bigger.
Repentance is when we allow our lives to
be bent continually away from our self-interests and toward the will and
purposes of God, particularly as they relate to our intentions and actions
towards others. It is not a magical formula we use to get in right relationship
with God; it is a yielding of our lives to the will and purposes of God and
God’s just rule on earth.
And this helps us answer the question concerning
from what should we repent.
We are to repent from our sinful lives
of selfish living in which we have failed to love our neighbors and our
enemies, failed to practice justice and mercy, and failed to side with the weak
and vulnerable.
We are to repent from our neglect to
protect the most defenseless of our society, whether a child in poverty, a homeless
adult who hungers, a person facing loneliness and depression, or a school full
of innocent children who are gunned down.
We are to repent from allowing our
politics to become divisive, from allowing our culture to have a love affair
with violence, from allowing an ever intensifying disregard for human life, and
from allowing bigotry, racism, religious intolerance, sexism, and homophobia to
continue to exist.
But more than repenting from these evils
and many more, we are also to repent and turn toward the rule of God. In doing
so, we embrace a new life of love, justice, compassion, and mercy toward
everyone. This is the heart of the gospel and the hope of Advent and Christmas.
For Christians, the Season of Advent is
a time when we are once again reminded of the coming of God in the incarnation
of Jesus Christ. In our celebration of this coming, we relive the story of
God’s visitation with God’s people by preparing the way of the Lord in our own
lives by repenting of our self-serving actions that neglect the needs of
others, that degrade the humanity of others, and that wound the heart of God, and
by turning toward the rule of God.
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