“Repentance”
Luke 3:1-6
On the last day of Preschool, before Christmas Break, a group of young parents stood waiting to claim their kids.
As the children ran from their classrooms, they each carried in their hands a “surprise,” the brightly wrapped package which contained what they had been working on for the past week.
One small boy, trying to run, put on his coat and wave to his parents—all at the same time—slipped and fell.
The “surprise” flew from his hands, landed on the floor and broke with an obvious ceramic crash.
The poor kid started to cry.
His father, trying to downplay the incident and comfort his boy, patted him head and said, “That’s alright son. It doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter at all.”
But, the boy’s mother, was a bit wiser in this situation.
She swept her son into her arms and said, “Oh, but it does matter.
“It matters a whole lot.”
And she wept with her son.
As the Church, our Advent practices matter a lot…a whole awful lot.
Advent, in the Church, stands in tension with our culture.
And that is because our consumer society has displaced the Church Year or Calendar.
For many in the world, getting ready for Christmas has been reduced to hanging twinkling Christmas lights, listening to holiday music, and looking at the super-abundance of material things for the buying, all of which we hope will create in us a sense of magical, childlike wonder and goodwill.
I’m not trying to say this is bad, but it is very different from the kind of preparation John the Baptist calls us to.
The promises of God that are coming to fulfillment in Jesus Christ should compel us to confess our sins and repent.
John asks us to examine ourselves, rather than just bask in holiday wonder.
We should prepare our hearts rather than worry about material things to get or give.
You’ve got to love John the Baptist.
He’s almost like a comical figure, dressed in camel’s hair and eating locusts and wild honey…
…but his message is not comical; it is hard-hitting— “The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
What does it mean to repent?
Does it mean feeling sorry for our mistakes?
Is it a matter of trying to be a better person?
Is repentance something that we even need to do, if our lives are now hidden in Christ, our Savior?
True repentance means literally, to change one’s mind, turn around, reorient oneself.
John calls all people to turn to God and from sin, to seek God’s forgiveness, and thus, prepare and open our hearts for the coming of Jesus.
It’s a decision.
But, it’s not something we can achieve on our own.
It’s something God does in us through the power of His Holy Spirit.
It is God realigning us or aligning us to Christ.
It’s about God’s power to transform us into Christ’s image.
It’s about God giving us the desire for this transformation and the power to see it through.
And it takes a lifetime.
And so, yes, it does mean to feel sorry for our sins and mistakes.
It does mean wanting to be better persons.
And it does apply, even to those who are already Christians.
“For all have sinned and fallen short…”
And, “If we claim to be without sin we make God out to be a liar.”
What is going on in your life that needs to be thrown into the fire and burned?
What sin do you have that is keeping you from following Christ, or fully following Christ the way you know you should…
…or as God’s Spirit living in you desires?
Is it a judgmental spirit?
Is it a lack of empathy for those who are without—the homeless, the poor, the hungry?
Is it something you have done which has hurt your brother, your sister, your neighbor, God Himself?
Is it something you have not done…
…something God is calling you to do but you are holding out?
What is it?
We all have these things in our lives.
And it matters. It matters a whole lot!
Because sin keeps us locked up in its cell.
It holds us captive.
It keeps us from being all that we can be.
Anger, hatred, greed keep us from loving God and our neighbor as ourselves.
Sin stunts our growth in Christ.
It wastes the precious time God has given us to do the good works or live the kinds of lives God created in advance for us to live.
There is nothing wrong with crying over our sin--like the boy in that story cried over his broken gift…
…It is an important piece of the puzzle.
For it brings us to repentance, which brings us to Christ—Who gives us new life and a fresh start.
Now, if there were no Jesus.
If there were no forgiveness, no grace…
…and all there were was crying over our sinfulness…
…oh, we would be a sorry lot indeed.
But Jesus is here!
He has come!
He loves us more than we can imagine, and He died to forgive us, to save us from our sins and to set us free.
When I was in, oh, about 8th grade a friend of mine named Tom and I got into a really bad habit.
There was another boy living on an adjacent street, his name was Omar Obeid and his family was from Beirut.
Tom and I, before we could drive would spend a lot of time walking around our neighborhood.
The really bad habit we got into was stealing Omar’s mailbox when we passed his house and dumping it into the woods.
We thought of it as a funny prank…
…and that’s about it.
A week or so would go by, the Obeid’s would have bought and put up a new mailbox and…
…sure enough…
…Tom and I would walk by their house, pull it out of the ground and dump it in the woods.
I’m not sure how many times we did this, but it was enough.
One day, I happened to mention what we were doing to another kid in the neighborhood who, in turn, told Omar.
So, one afternoon Omar showed up at my front door and he was mad.
“Why, why did you do it?
Why?” Omar kept asking.
I had no good answer to his question.
A little later, Omar’s mother called my mother and my mom came to me in tears.
And her tears weren’t so much about the fact that we stole someone’s mailbox…
…it had to do with the affect it had on the Obeids.
Being from Beirut, they thought someone in the neighborhood hated them for their race.
They were afraid.
The stealing of the mailboxes wasn’t just some dumb, silly stunt to them.
They saw it as a threat to their well-being...to the well-being of their family.
They thought someone in the neighborhood hated them and was trying to scare them off.
They feared for their lives or at the very least, what might come next.
And this broke my mother’s heart.
When she explained it to me this way, it broke my heart as well—and I wept over my sin…
…it has taken me years to try and get-over what I participated in as a 14- year-old kid.
Anything we do to hurt another human being; to make someone else feel less-than…
…not as good as…
…vulnerable…
…cast aside…
…not liked or hated…
…fearful…
…that is the greatest sin of all.
For God is just the opposite.
God is love.
Jesus has come into this lost, broken and hurting world.
And John was his herald.
He was the announcer…
…he was one of the prophets, like Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Malachi before him…
…but he was the final one to announce the coming of the Messiah.
Get ready, God is coming to the rescue!
Prepare your hearts!
The time has come.
Examine yourselves.
Repent of your sins…
“Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.
Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth.
And all people will see God’s salvation.”…
…“I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”
Have you been baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire?
Have you been cleansed of your sins by Jesus Christ’s blood shed on the Cross?
Have your sins been burnt up like the chaff?
This is the good news of Advent and Christmas.
There is hope.
We can have peace with God—even in this life.
There is Someone Who is here to cry with us over our sins and broken lives…
…there is forgiveness and there is a new start.
…and there is Someone Who will ultimately wipe every tear from our eyes.
