The common satirical cartoon of the old robed man with the ‘Repent for the End is Near’ sign points to how much we humans disdain the message to repent. Repenting, changing our ways, is an affront to the lifestyle we have created and is a threat to our comfort zone. Yet, after 1,500 years of prophets, priests and kings to His people Israel, God sends two more speaking the Repentance message. First, spoken by the father of John who will be the baptist:
Repentance is to be a changing of the mind expressed through changed actions and requires a mindset that acknowledges our current ways are not in keeping with the course we desire to live. Zechariah, John the Baptist’s father, prophesies in the Holy Spirit that what is coming will require change, will be preparatory for anything to follow. When John begins this life-work, it is along this path:
For all of us, coming into agreement with God requires change. We are all selfish, driven by our own perception of what we need to make our life more comfortable or fulfilling. We are rebels against God if for no other reason than we want to put ourselves first rather than give Him supremacy over and in our lives. The call to repentance is a call to acknowledge our selfishness and seek the change that God desires to provide, the forgiveness of sins, and our turning away from that desire to habitually sin. In John’s practice, baptism was the public proclamation of the individual that they were acknowledging the sinfulness of their way, repenting with the commitment to change and agree with God going forward. But John wasn’t the only preacher of repentance:
Yes, Jesus also preached repentance and his disciples baptized as well. His message was fuller for it included belief in the message He was preaching beyond repenting of past ways. It is not enough to only repent of the past but repentance must also have a newness, the change path toward life in agreement with God in all of life’s elements. The ‘Kingdom of God’ which Jesus proclaimed as at hand is wherever or whoever the will of God Himself is being done. It is not as much a place as the practice of the presence of God fully agreeing with His will. Repentance is not only a place-in-time event but an ongoing practice to stay in that commitment of a changed mind so that we live agreeing with God in all things.
Yes, repentance and the commitment that it includes is a challenge but because it is to and in God, enabled and empowered by Him, it is possible to those who believe.