Repentance Begins with Hope
Matthew 3:1-12
John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea
preaching repentance. “Repent, for
the Kingdom of God has come near.”
John (along with Mary) is one of the big figures of
Advent. Each, in their own way,
points us, leads us through Advent towards Christ’s coming.
John announces that one greater than he is coming and he
preaches repentance as a part of preparing for Christ’s coming. Today’s collect also refers to the role
of the prophets in preaching repentance as preparation. So repentance is not an isolated,
stand-alone thing. It is part of a
process of preparation.
I want to talk about repentance. And maybe reorient the way we think about it.
I think repentance is often seen as what you should do if
you feel guilty. Guilt is where
repentance starts. And I will say,
it is easy as a preacher to make people feel guilty. All of us are very aware of the things we’ve done wrong, the
many ways we’ve fallen short of the life we know God calls us to live. It’s easy for all of us to move quickly
to that place of guilt.
Or sometimes repentance is seen as a consequence of
fear. The prophets preach dire
consequences for those who do not repent.
In today’s Gospel John the Baptist talks about how the chaff will be
burned with unquenchable fire. Repent
or else. Repentance motivated by
fear.
But Advent (and the Advent readings, especially from Isaiah)
gives us a new, much better perspective on repentance.
In Advent, the seed, the source, the motivation for
repentance is HOPE, not guilt or fear.
Because God gives us hope, a vision, a promise of something better, we repent.
It’s helpful to remember that, theologically speaking,
repentance isn’t just about confession or saying your sorry. Those are pieces of it, but more
importantly , repentance means to reorient. To reorient the perspective and the direction of your
life. To turn away from and to
turn towards.
To turn away from our sins and all of what enslaves us in
this world and to turn towards the kingdom of God. Because God has given us hope that we may be citizens of the
Kingdom of God, we repent. We turn
away from the sin of this world and towards the promise of the Kingdom of God.
One commentator (HERE) described the qualities of this world, this
wilderness to which John came and in which we live, as characterized by: idolatry, violence, injustice,
exploitation, slavery, and scarcity.
On the other hand, the Kingdom of God is characterized by:
love, peace, justice, dignity, freedom, and abundance. Instead of idolatry, love; instead of
violence, peace; instead of injustice, justice; instead of exploitation,
dignity; instead of slavery, freedom; instead of scarcity, abundance.
If you are satisfied living wholly in this world, then you
don’t have to listen to the rest of this sermon or worry about repentance. If you have any bit of hope or yearning
for that better world, then repentance is the way to get there.
Isaiah gives us a poetic vision of God’s dream for the world,
a description of the nature of the Kingdom of God. It is a place where the meek will know equity and
righteousness will reign. Where “the
wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the
calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.” This is the Kingdom of God that is
promised. It is offered to us
fully at Christ’s second coming, but it is also made real in our lives, in
part, by the birth of Christ among us.
It is the hope that we can live as citizens in that world that leads us
to repentance, to turn away from our sins. Repentance is the bridge, the gift, the way from here to
there.
So, rather than starting with guilt or fear, start with hope. Start with hope. What do you yearn for in the kingdom of
God? What hope draws you towards
the love, peace, justice, dignity, freedom, and abundance of the Kingdom of
God. And what holds you back? What binds you to this world? That is the place for repentance.
Many of us need to repent of idolatry, the many gods of this
world we cling to for a false sense of security. Or maybe if you long for the abundance of God’s kingdom, you
need to turn away from squandering, wasting so much of what God has given you.
Advent repentance.
David Lose calls it a dream by which to set a course. Or maybe not a dream because dreams are
not true. A promise, a hope to set
the course of our lives by. God
has given us hope for the Kingdom of God and made that hope real in the incarnation
of Jesus.
If you hope for what God offers, if you want to experience
the Kingdom of God, repentance is the way to get there.
