Waiting and Repenting

The season of Advent is a season of preparation and of waiting. And we all know waiting can be the worst. But our smart phones have made waiting differently now, haven’t they? It used to be you stood in line and awkwardly looked around you, noticing people, reading signs, shifting your weight on your feet and your entertainment was whatever weird things were going on in your mind. Nowadays, we grab our phones in line and we scroll social media, have conversations with friends over text, DM’s or snapchat, or we crush candy or whatever other game we are into. Back in the 80’s, when I was a kid, the most fun you would experience waiting around was if your mom got into a fight with a grocery store clerk because the price of cheez whiz rose to $1.99 and who could afford those ridiculous prices. Today, smartphones have eliminated boredom and have changed how we wait.

Last week, we looked at the idea of waiting and anticipating. We identify with the people of Israel who were waiting for a Messiah to come and save them and as we wait to celebrate the birth of Jesus, we should remember that Jesus is the center of History and should be center of our lives and that Jesus came for all kinds of people. We were reminded by the genealogy in Matthew’s gospel that there is no one so good they don’t need Jesus and no one so bad they can’t be redeemed.

Today, I want to continue that theme of waiting. But good spiritual waiting is neither idleness nor distraction. It’s engagement with Holy Spirit. It’s looking at ourselves and asking God what changes do I need to make in order to be ready to receive my king, Jesus the Christ. I believe that God gives us seasons of waiting so that we can prepare our hearts through repentance.

What is repentance? Repentance in the Greek is the word metanoia. On the surface, it means to change your mind. But it isn’t like changing your mind about what you’re going to watch on Netflix, or what you want to eat for supper. It is a changing of the mind that takes place after the fact, after you’ve done something. And the desire to make the change comes from a conviction on a mental and even emotional level that what you have done was wrong. Like eating at Taco Bell. It’s great while you are there, but soon after, you understand that you made a colossal mistake. Repentance is experiencing that, and then not going back to Taco Bell. The idea here is that you are walking on a path and you soon realize that you are going the wrong way. So you “repent” - you change direction because you know that you are wrong and you re-align yourself in the direction you want to go.

What does this have to do with Christmas and Advent? A key figure in the Christmas narrative is John the Baptist and his ministry, was about preparing Israel for the Messiah and that preparation focussed on repentance. Let’s read Mark 1:1-8.

Mark 1:1–8 NLT

This is the Good News about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God. It began just as the prophet Isaiah had written: “Look, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, and he will prepare your way. He is a voice shouting in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord’s coming! Clear the road for him!’ ” This messenger was John the Baptist. He was in the wilderness and preached that people should be baptized to show that they had repented of their sins and turned to God to be forgiven. All of Judea, including all the people of Jerusalem, went out to see and hear John. And when they confessed their sins, he baptized them in the Jordan River. His clothes were woven from coarse camel hair, and he wore a leather belt around his waist. For food he ate locusts and wild honey. John announced: “Someone is coming soon who is greater than I am—so much greater that I’m not even worthy to stoop down like a slave and untie the straps of his sandals. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit!”

Pray.

Mark is an action-oriented book. Mark spends very little time with Jesus’ teachings, preferring to focus on what Jesus did, as opposed to what Jesus said. It’s why his letter is so much shorter than the other gospels. Here, Mark gives a quick reference OT reference in order to situate us just before Jesus’ appearance.

Mark connects the ministry of John the Baptist with the prophecy by Isaiah, written about 700 years earlier. It describes the type of ministry that John will have: one where he prepares people for Jesus by calling them to repentance. And for them, the sign of their repentance was baptism.

Repentance prepared people to receive Jesus because repentance helps us emotionally and spiritually deal with our sin. For those of you who are new to the faith or are just exploring Christianity, let’s define sin. The Greek word for sin, “hamartia”, means to miss the mark or the standard by which God has set. But what is the standard? Well, because God is our creator and we are made in God’s image, to sin is to fail to love God and to love others by not treating them with the honour they deserve. In fact, if you were to look at the 10 commandments found in Exodus 20, you would see that the first half of the commandments identify ways to you can fail God and the second half are ways that you can fail others. Maybe that is why Jesus, when he summarized the entire OT law with its 613 commandments, said in Matthew 22:37-39 “...‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’”

Repentance helps us to take our sin and give it to Jesus to deal with it. Isaiah 55:6-7 says, “Seek the Lord while you can find him. Call on him now while he is near. Let the wicked change their ways and banish the very thought of doing wrong. Let them turn to the Lord that he may have mercy on them. Yes, turn to our God, for he will forgive generously.”

When we repent, we experience God’s forgiveness and God loves to forgive people. Luke 15:3-7 says,

Luke 15:3–7 NLT

So Jesus told them this story: “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!

How do we actually practice the spiritual discipline of repentance? Repentance can be broken down into three steps:

Step 1: Recognition

To change your mind, you need to practice self-examination. Self Examination is simply paying attention to the way in which you are living your life. It is easy to go through life without giving any thought to why you do things and what your motivation is.

And in today’s world, more and more people are not doing this reflection and assuming that everything is good.

1 John 1:8 says, “If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth.”

So, if you value authentic faith, then you need to engage in the process of recognizing your sin.

Ask yourself why more often: Why am I working so much? Why can’t I find a job? Why am I angry? Why do I want this or why do I want to do that? Why is my marriage not thriving right now? Why won’t my kids talk with me more?

The key word in self reflection is self. You are not trying to figure out everyone else’s problems. You are examining yourself. Better yet, you are inviting God to examine you. Self reflection is a prayer exercise.

Psalm 139:23-24 “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.”

What you are looking for are the ways that you aren’t loving God and the ways you aren’t loving others in your life. If you are snapping at your spouse or kids, you aren’t loving them and you need to examine that. If you are working 80 hours a week and have no time for the things of God: prayer, scripture reading, church, anything - then you aren’t loving God. If you are caught in an addiction to pornography, drugs, or alcohol, then you aren’t biblically loving anyone, not even yourself, for if you loved yourself, you would do what is good for you, not what feels good.

The key to good spiritual growth is to take time to reflect on your life, on your day and invite God to examine your heart for all the ways that you succeeded and you failed to love God and love others. The first step in repentance is recognizing your sin.

Step 2: Confession

I read a story about four pastors who met for a coffee and prayer time. During the conversation one pastor said, "Our people come to us and pour out their hears, confess certain sins and needs to us, because we are safe and they know it won’t get passed around. But what about us? Who do we confess to? Why don’t we confess our sins to each other because, as we know, “confession is good for the soul." Everyone agreed. One confessed he often downloaded his sermon from the internet. The second confessed that his coffee on Sunday morning usually contained some Kahlua. The third said that he was so upset with his youth pastor over breaking the piano by standing on it while singing “I want to know what love is” by foreigner at the youth group karaoke night, that that he snuck into the youth pastor’s office on Sunday morning and put some Ex-lax in the open can of Red Bull on the desk. He said the noise that followed echoed throughout the whole church. When it came to the fourth pastor, he wouldn't confess. The others pressed him saying, "Come now, we confessed ours. It’s okay, we won’t judge you. What is your secret or vice?" Finally, he got up, grabbed his coat and as he backed out the door, he answered, "I’m sorry. I have to go, I have an elder’s meeting tonight. But pray for me, because my sin is that I really struggle with gossip.”

We all struggle with something and most of us know that confession helps us. After all, as Jesus said, “the truth will set you free.” And yet, even though we know it’s good for us, confession is one of those things that is really hard to do. We all want others to think well of us and we feel like if we tell people the things that we are actually struggling in, they will think less of us. And that can even be true of God. We want God to see the good things but ignore the bad things we do. But, if we can move past the fear of everyone else’s opinions of us, there is a blessing waiting for us when we practice the discipline of both vertical and horizontal confession.

Vertical confession is when you confess to God. This is the most vital form of confession there is. King David, after sleeping with a married woman, getting her pregnant and then arranging the death of her husband was called out by the prophet Nathan for his sin. He writes about it in Psalm 51:4 and says, “Against you, and you alone, have I sinned; I have done what is evil in your sight. You will be proved right in what you say, and your judgment against me is just.”

All sin is against God, whether you do something in private you whether you do something that hurts another person. And so vertical confession is key element in your spiritual walk. The good news is that when we confess, God forgives.

1 John 1:9 NLT

But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.

Vertical confession is crucial to your walk with God. But so is horizontal confession. Horizontal confession is when you tell others about your sin and this can play out in two ways:

You confess your sin to the person you hurt. I am convinced that most conflict can be diffused if people would just go to someone they hurt and admit it. Unfortunately, our pride often has us justify our behaviour, or qualify it, instead of just admitting we done messed up. Jesus talks about this in Matthew 5:23-24 when he says, “So if you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the Temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God.”

The other way confession to others plays out is when you confide with some good friends or spiritual leaders about your sin so that they can pray for you and guide you. James 5:16 says, “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.” There is healing for our souls waiting for us on the other side of confession, if we have the courage to do it.

Step 1: Recognition Step 2: Confession

Step 3: Transformation

Paul the Apostle, while he was on trial in front of King Agrippa, told his testimony and how God called him to preach to the Gentiles. Paul said in Acts 26:20, “I preached first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout all Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that all must repent of their sins and turn to God—and prove they have changed by the good things they do.”

For us Christians, we believe that we are not saved by doing good works. We are saved by the work of Jesus through our faith. We believe that you don’t have to make yourself good to be accepted by God but that his powerful love for you, revealed by the sacrifice of Jesus the Christ, is showered upon you even at your worst moments.

But we also believe that God calls us to a higher way of living. We believe that although God accepts us as we are - broken, sinful, messed up - he doesn’t leave us in that state. By the work of the Holy Spirit, God shows us our sin, so that, from a place of being fully loved by God and loving him in return, we can be free of it. And freedom comes through repentance. But repentance is more than just acknowledging your sin - it’s doing something about it.

Those of us who are married have most likely already learned that “sorry” isn’t enough. You can get away with it once or twice, but then after that, “sorry” loses it’s meaning to our spouse. Let me confess a sin to you: I have a terrible habit of saying I’m going to be home at a certain time, and then not following through. I’ll tell Abby, “I’ll be home by five. Guaranteed.” Then at 4:45, someone walks in and we get talking and soon it’s 5:15 and I still have a 15-20 min. drive ahead of me. It drives her nuts. But more than that, it makes her not believe me. Her trust in me is diminished because I keep breaking my promise. And I have apologized it to her. I have recognized my sin and I have confessed it. But I keep doing it. Which means, I haven’t done the final step in the repentance process: transformation. I haven’t done anything different. And if you don’t do alter the behaviour, if you don’t follow through on the promise, if you all you do is confess, but you don’t change, then you miss out on the blessing of repentance.

What’s the blessing of repentance? The blessing of repentance is a deeper walk with God. The blessing of repentance is a stronger, healthier marriage. The blessing of repentance is the chance to restore relationship with your kids. The blessing of repentance is more respect at school or at work. The blessing of repentance is growth as a human.

Conclusion

One of my favourite Christmas stories is Charles Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol.” It has been brought to life on screen in dozens of adaptations but I stand here as a truly lover of movies and I declare that the best adaptation is “A Muppet Christmas Carol” starring Gonzo as Charles Dickens, Kermit as Bob Cratchit, and Michael Caine as Ebenezer Scrooge. Do yourself a favour this Advent and watch this movie. The reason I love the story is because I see in it a man who has tried to live one way and then has a metanoia - a change of mind that leads to a new way to live. It’s a story of repentance within the larger setting of Christmas.

When John the Baptist came, he prepared the way for Jesus by preaching about repenting of sin and baptizing people who did so. My hope is that this advent, as you prepare to celebrate and worship our King, you might take some time for personal reflection. That you recognize your sin, confess it to God and others, and out of that place of being loved by God and loving him in return, you make some changes and experience transformation.

Let’s pray.