“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” St. Matthew 3:1-12
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Outside everything is a holiday. New York’s Christmas has been brewing since Halloween, and after Thanksgiving Day up went the decorations, with the business sections of the paper reporting how the commerce is doing. We all want the merchants to do well, of course.
Then you come into Saint Thomas Church, renowned for its Christmas music, its magnificent Christmas liturgies, and what do you get on this December 9th? Purple vestments, the Great Litany, of all things, crying out, “Have mercy upon us,” and asking for deliverance from “all evil and mischief, from sin, from the crafts and assaults of the Devil, from thy wrath, and from everlasting damnation.” Then a Gospel lesson about a daunting prophet, who says in so many words to the religious leaders, “What are you doing here, you brood of vipers?” What is this? The Grinch who stole Christmas?
No, this is what the Church has always done to prepare for Christmas. First of all, and it bears repeating, December 25th, not November 25th, is the first day, the very first day, of Christmas, which then has twelve days. [It is worth repeating as well that your cards and presents are not late until January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany. Further, speaking of commerce, a word on behalf of the consumer – the prices are better in Christmastide than in Advent.]
The Church is concerned to prepare us to receive the Gift of all Christmas Gifts, namely the Incarnation of the Son of God who took upon himself our flesh in order to reveal, in terms we can lay hold of, his deity, as well as to show us what full humanity is. To receive Jesus Christ into one’s life does not require running around but rather settling down. It does not require accumulating but rather making room. And for this task we have the great prophet John the Baptist, who was Jesus’ older cousin and forerunner and who says in today’s Gospel of St. Matthew, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Repentance is a big word in the Bible. It means to turn. In the Old Testament, even God is said to repent, I want to start there. God is unchangeable, and with him is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Yet God changes his relationship and attitude, in judgment upon sin, from pleasure to wrath; in mercy, from wrath to favor and blessing. In the words of the prophets, the Lord “repents him of the evil” he purposed as punishment when his people repent; he turns from the fierceness of his anger to forgiveness. Notice that God’s repentance is an exact reflection of man’s repentance; that is, of man being moved, one way or another, to turn back to God. The two are inextricably linked.
In the New Testament, to repent means to undergo a change of mind, a transformation. The Greek word for it is metanoia, which connotes almost a change of consciousness. Saint Paul, for example, says that to become genuine followers of Christ we must be “transformed through the renewal of our minds.” Thus the kingdom of God is an entirely new place to live in from the kingdom of this world. All the rules of thinking, speaking and acting require a change. It is all made clear by the difference in the rulers. Simply contrast Caesar with Christ. There is the difference. One’s throne is a seat of power. The other’s power flows from his hanging on a cross. Wondrously, the latter far outlasts the former.
Christ’s kingdom is the place, in the words of the prophet Isaiah, where true judgment is rendered that penetrates to the very soul and marrow of the bones; where the poor and the meek receive equity and fairness; where indeed the wicked are slain by the very breath of his mouth. In such a kingdom the wolf dwells in peace with the lamb, the leopard with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, led by a little child. The cow and the bear feed together, including their young, the lion will eat straw like the ox, and the sucking child will play over the hole of the asp while the weaned child will put his hand on the adder’s den. There will be no harm or destruction, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
For this peaceable, beautiful kingdom, Christ came and died. He purchased it with his own life. John the Baptist’s role is to prepare everyone for it. His rude awakening is very far from the Grinch who stole Christmas. His is an alarm bell, and he would have us avoid hell and choose heaven. The way is clear; it need only be chosen by people who, by God’s grace, are sober-minded and free.
There are a variety of ways to repent. The main thing is be in love and charity with our neighbor and to intend to lead a new life following God’s commandments. At the heart is the intention, the decision, which stems from the transformation of one’s mind in the movement towards God in Christ. Practically there are many ways to bring this to good effect.
The liturgy of the church includes forms of general confession in most every service, and rightly so. Two of the most powerful expressions of the Christian faith in English are the General Confessions for the Daily Offices of Morning and Evening Prayer and for the Holy Eucharist. There is also specific, sacramental confession of an individual to a priest, which the Church offers. There is reconciliation, one way or another, between people. There are those secret moments of conviction and repentance that occur in prayer and daily experience. It is all the same, a turning towards God, repentance, which prepares the way of the Lord, makes his paths straight, and opens our hearts to God’s grace and truth, to Christ and his kingdom.
May we all heed John the Baptist’s cry, repent and turn again to the Lord. Awake and hearken, for he brings glad tidings of the King of kings. Merry Christmas – from John the Baptist.
