Be repenting!

In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the Desert of Judea and saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near." This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:

"A voice of one calling in the desert,
`Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.'"

John's clothes were made of camel's hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, `We have Abraham as our father.' I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

"I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire" (Matthew 3:1-12).

"You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, I’m telling you why—Santa Claus is coming to town. He’s making a list, he’s checking it twice—he’s gonna find out who’s naughty or nice—Santa Claus is coming to town. He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake. He knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good, for goodness’ sake!"

I bet you never thought you’d see these lyrics in a religious meditation! But I think there’s something interesting in them, something that we usually don’t associate with Christmas—judgment. Santa is supposed to be this happy little elf who spends all year getting ready to make children happy. No one thinks of Santa with a stern face, wagging his finger and saying ‘naughty, naughty’. But this classic song suggests that Santa isn’t all fun and games. Do you remember what were you supposed to get from Santa if you’d been naughty this past year? That’s right, you’d get a lump of coal.

Santa has nothing to do with the coming of our Savior into this sinful world 2000 years ago. Nevertheless, the Santa tradition of America has picked up more than the name ‘Christmas’ from Christianity. The Santa tradition correctly recognizes that there is a connection between the gift of Christmas and the kind of behavior that fills our lives. Santa did not give presents to naughty children; in an imperfect way, this Santa tradition reflects the teachings of Jesus’ herald, John the Baptist.

John began his ministry in a desolate area some distance from Jerusalem. His message was, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near." Actually, good English obscures his meaning a bit. Although it doesn’t sound proper to our ears, a more exact translation would be, "Be repenting, because the kingdom of heaven is near". John was calling on his listeners to adopt a new attitude in their lives. John wasn’t talking about the kind of repentance where you feel bad for a little while, until you talk things through and realize that you did the best you could in a bad situation. John wasn’t talking about the kind of repentance where you go to church on the weekend, confess to God that you did some bad things this past week, hear forgiveness announced, and then go out and do the same bad things all over again. No, John was talking about something more radical. The repentance that John preached was a life-changing repentance.

As far as John was concerned, repentance was a journey, not an event. Some Christians have the idea that repentance is something that you do once, when you change from being a non-Christian into a believer. For some Christians, repentance is part of their ‘conversion experience’, something that you do at a religious rally. They believe that once Jesus lives in your heart, nothing you do can offend God, because you now have His forgiveness living within you. Other Christians look at repentance the same way they look at the safety release floodgates on a dam. Just as water slowly rises when it is trapped behind a dam, these Christians look at sin as something that piles up in their souls. Confessing sins in church each week is like opening the floodgates and letting the pent-up waters loose. Such Christians treat confession as a way to keep from being overwhelmed by their sins.

John does not teach these kinds of repentance. John said, "Be repenting." John knew that all of us are sinners by nature. We commit sins because our souls are tainted with sin. It isn’t just our sins that anger God; the sin that taints our souls angers God as well. God created mankind to be without sin; it infuriates God to see us enjoying our sinful behavior. Since sin corrupts every moment of our lives, God sent John to tell us that we need to ‘be repenting’ continuously. Repentance is a lifestyle.

We hear a lot about lifestyle choices these days. Living together outside of marriage is a lifestyle choice. Homosexual relationships are a lifestyle choice. Choosing abortion is a lifestyle choice. Choosing to divorce is a lifestyle choice. We are told that everyone is entitled to live the type of lifestyle that makes them happy and fulfilled. But John came with a message that made many people uncomfortable. John came with the message that there is only one lifestyle acceptable to God—the lifestyle of repenting. John knew full well that the sin within us makes it impossible for us to please God in our lives, so he announced an alternative: admit that the way you are living is wrong, and beg God for mercy. Beg for mercy continually, and ask God to help you live the kind of life He wants you to live. John said, "Produce fruit in keeping with repentance." In other words, live your life according to a new lifestyle—the lifestyle of repentance. If you are truly grieved that you’ve been angering God with your sins, you won’t want to fall back into them. Every time that you are tempted to go back to your old ways, you will recoil in horror and plead that God would give you the strength to resist the temptation. Every time that you knuckle under to temptation, you will soon be on your knees begging for forgiveness. A lifestyle of repenting is daily, even hourly struggle with temptation, where you pray for strength and forgiveness.

Such grim news, just before Christmas! Why is there such an emphasis on repentance as we approach the joyful arrival of our Savior in Bethlehem? Because John, in preaching repentance, was preparing the way for our Lord. When Isaiah said, `Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him', Isaiah wasn’t talking about maintaining county roads. Isaiah was saying that, before Jesus comes, our hearts have to be prepared to receive Him. The path into our hearts is a rough and desolate one, as rough and desolate as the area where John called the people to repentance. There are valleys of selfishness and mountains of pride. These obstacles must be cleared away before our Savior comes.

Our problem is that we need a Savior, but so often we don’t realize that we need Him. Sin is like a mirror; rather than look at God and our fellow man, the mirror of our sin tempts us to only look at ourselves. We look in the mirror and admire ourselves. We look in the mirror and see that we could be even better if we just had a few more accessories, like more money, a more prestigious job, or a better quality circle of friends. The mirror of our sin tempts us to spend our time and energy on ourselves, not on God our fellow man. But the mirror of our sin is like a funhouse mirror—it doesn’t give a true reflection. That is why God gives us the mirror of His Law. When we see what God expects of us, and how miserably we fail to measure up to what our reflection should be, the mountains of our pride collapse and the valleys of our selfishness are filled in. When we realize how utterly contemptible we really are because of the sin within us, our hearts are ready for the coming of our Lord.

Jesus came to offer mercy. God knows that our sin makes it impossible for us to ever please Him in this life. We cannot even live a life of repentance without lapsing into periods of pride and selfishness. Every thing we do, every 'fruit' that our lives produce, is tainted and worthless. But Jesus comes to those who recognize their hopeless condition; David wrote in Psalm 51 "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." David knew that sinners who are truly repentant do receive mercy from God; in Psalm 32 he wrote "Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD"--and you forgave the guilt of my sin." John the Gospel writer adds to this when he writes, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). When we live our lives repenting, Jesus not only forgives our sins, He blots out everything that identifies us as sinners when God looks upon our lives. Jesus’ forgiveness not only removes the threat of God’s punishment, it restores us to the warm and powerful arms of our loving heavenly Father.

This is why Jesus came into the world. Jesus was born of the Holy Spirit by the virgin Mary and was made man, so that He could offer us the twin gifts of freedom from our sin and sonship in the Father’s kingdom. To do all this for us, it was necessary that the sinless Son of God take into Himself the nature of a human being. Being born of both God and man, Jesus was both divine and mortal. He had to be mortal, because He came to pay for our sin. Scripture says, "it is the blood that makes atonement for one's life" (Leviticus 17:11). Since "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23), sin had stolen our lives from us. The only way Jesus could give life back to us was by the giving of His own blood as He died on the cross. Jesus had to be human so that He could die for us. But Jesus also had to be God. He had to be God so that His blood would have divine worth, worth enough to blot out every sin, of every human being, of every time and place. Because Jesus was true God, death could not end His work. Jesus rose from the grave of our sins to assure us that all is forgiven to those who put their trust solely in Him. Only in Jesus is found freedom from sin and death. Only in Jesus is found everlasting life.

It is said that you cannot appreciate the brightness of a beam of light unless you see it contrasted with the darkness of shadow. The Law that John preached in the wilderness serves to make us aware of how beautiful and precious the mercy of Jesus is. If we are not aware of how deeply we are sunk in our sin, we will not cling desperately to our beautiful Savior as our only hope and rescue. So it is appropriate to discuss repentance as we draw near to Christmas. Christmas is about Jesus coming to save us from our sin, and the death that sin brings as its punishment. When we realize how deeply we are corrupted by sin, and how helpless we are to resist temptation, we realize how wonderful it is that God in His mercy sent His one and only Son to live among us, die for us, and rise to lead us to heaven. As we look forward to celebrating Jesus’ entry into the world He came to save, we can pray. We can pray for forgiveness for everything we’ve done that angers God. We can pray for forgiveness for sometimes enjoying the sin that lives within us. We can thank God for His infinite mercy, shown to us who don’t deserve His mercy. And we can pray for Jesus’ continuing presence in our lives, that He would help us to recognize temptations when they arise, and give us the strength to resist them.

The Lord is coming soon. Make His way straight to your heart by pleading for forgiveness and asking for the strength to bear fruit in your life, fruit that is in keeping with repentance. Ask with confidence, because "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."