Photo by 青 晨 on Unsplash

“In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’ This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, ‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’” (Matthew 3:1-3)

John the Baptist, Jesus’ cousin, prepared the way for him. He let the world know Jesus was coming. John baptized Jesus. John’s message preceded Jesus’ teachings. Both shared the same urgent message: Repent.

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near,” proclaimed John the Baptist. (Matthew 3:1).

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near,” proclaimed Jesus of Nazareth. (Matthew 4:17).

The disciples picked up and proclaimed the same message. When Jesus sent the twelve out in pairs to the villages, that was their charge: “So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent” (Mark 6:12).

There could hardly be a word that would turn people off more than “repent.” It is a word that has regurgitated forth from uneducated and unlearned preachers and evangelists attempting, in their own mental framework, to save souls or to score points. They have turned it into a distasteful word. Perhaps you have seen it on bumper stickers, billboards, websites, or from strangers who would like to intrude into your spiritual life. Yet John the Baptist and Jesus constructed it as a core of their teaching. What they meant has little or nothing to do with the misunderstanding of some modern interpretations which you may have encountered. Return to the original language of the Bible to understand what John the Baptist and Jesus preached.

But first, consider the role of the heart and the role of the mind in faithfulness to God. Some make religious faith all about feelings, and to the extreme, about emotionalism. Both the mind and the heart are important, but emotionalism alone can lead far astray from Jesus’ intent. So can intellectualism alone. Both the heart and the mind must be interwoven. In a way, to repent is more an action of the mind, to think differently. Repent means to think differently, to reconsider, to reframe how you approach something.

Repent. Think differently about God, was Jesus’ message. Think differently about what you put first and seek first. The word in the original Biblical Greek is metanoeo. Metanoeo means to think differently, to reconsider, to reframe, to repent. Metanoeo involves some heavy mental lifting. It beckons the mind to be engaged.

John proclaimed in the wilderness and the crowds lined up to be baptized by him. Scripture does not say, but we might presume that the crowds were Jewish. Matthew wrote (3:5) “Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region around the Jordan were going out to him.” Could you imagine John’s hearers saying “Why do we need to repent? What’s wrong with our Jewish faith?” Today when we think about who ought to repent, it’s other people, especially the ones who hold different values, beliefs, priorities, or perhaps even politics than we hold. THEY need to repent.

John’s crowds could have thought that way too, that others who were not like them ought to repent. But they came to him and he told them that they needed to think differently about their relationship with God. They needed to reframe their relationship with the Divine. That was the key message of John the Baptist and of Jesus of Nazareth: to encourage people to think differently about their relationship with and their love for God. John actually bawled them out and told them to “bear fruits worthy of repentance…” (Luke 3:8). Therein lies a clue to what John and Jesus meant when they encouraged people, even people of faith, to repent. Bear fruit.

In John’s call to repent, he quoted from Isaiah (Matthew 3:3). Perhaps underlining John’s call to think differently was Isaiah’s similar call when he addressed people of faith whose religion led them to engage in religious practices, but those practices were not bearing the fruit of repentance. The same could be said for religious practices, then and now. Isaiah told them, “Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high” (Isaiah 58:4). Something different was needed. What was needed? Isaiah put it in the form of a question: “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice… to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them… Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer…” (Isaiah 58:6-9). In other words, think differently about what God means to you and bear fruit.

To Isaiah, true faithfulness to God leads to bearing fruit, especially to care for those on the margins and to those with the least. This sounds like a calling to care for all people. Emphasize the word “all.” It is a warning to religious folks and their leaders who seem so “anti” many different kinds of people who are different from themselves. The clarion invitation to approaching the Divine feels insultingly rejected by those who define their religion as opposed to immigrants, LGBTQ people, women, the poor, the disabled, Native Americans, Black people, Hispanics, or anyone not like them. That is not justice. I imagine Isaiah might say to them… such “anti” behavior you do today will not make your voice heard on high. Repent. Think differently. Reconsider. Bear fruit. Sounds like John the Baptist. Sounds like Jesus. Jesus preached the same message: reframe your relationship to the Divine. Then he noted precisely what he meant by bearing fruit: “For I was hungry and you gave me food…I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing… As you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:35-40).

John and Jesus spoke to people who engaged in religious practices. It’s not that their listeners rejected God or God’s ways, but their practices and dogma got in the way and consequently, they were not bearing fruit. Their inspiration to us in Advent might cause us to reconsider the fruit we bear and the priorities we set. We see a lot of folks who we think ought to repent, but perhaps it is a time for us to think differently about our own faith and what actions result when we “seek first the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness…” (Matthew 6:33).