A Life of Repentance
Matthew 3:1-12
Introduction
As I was talking to Amanda about our current sermon series looking at various people from the Bible, she recognized that I had picked people who could be considered “B list.” That is not to say that they are not important. We have already looked at Ruth and Jonathan and they both play very important Romes in God’s plan for Israel. Rather, they are not necessarily the first people you would expect to be chosen for a series on figures from the Bible. We might expect people like Noah or Abraham or Moses or David.
The possible exception to the “B list” theme is our look at John the Baptist. He seems to be a very major and influential figure. Most people, even with a limited knowledge of the Bible, have at least heard of John the Baptist. So John does not seem to fit the pattern.
Except that John the Baptist is often treated as an honorary member of the B-team. This is what I mean. What is the role of John the Baptist? If you were to say that his role was to prepare the way for Jesus, you would be absolutely correct. But how does John do that? We might say that he does it be baptizing Jesus, which obviously was very important. Yet what percentage of John’s time was spent baptizing Jesus compared to the rest of his ministry of preaching and baptizing at the Jordan River? Less than one per cent?
Without diminishing the importance of baptizing Jesus, I would say that John had a broader way of preparing the way and that was the preaching of repentance.
This reminds me of the story of the congregation that wanted to paint their church. They tried to save money by diluting the paint with thinner so that they could spread it farther. Predictably, when they were done, the paint started to peel. When they wondered why this was happening, they heard a voice from above: “Repaint and thin no more!”
What does it mean for John to call people to repentance and what does it mean for us to be called to repentance? That is what we are going to look at.
The Ministry of John the Baptist
Luke, in his Gospel, gives us much more background on John, including his birth. We are not going to get into that here. We are going to focus on what Matthew has to say about John.
We are told that John appeared in the wilderness, which in the Bible signifies a place of major spiritual significance and place where people determine their loyalty. We see this with the Hebrews wandering in the wilderness for forty years and Jesus fasting in the wilderness for forty days. We are told that John preached a message of repentance, in fact we are informed about the content of his preaching before his baptizing is described. We are also told what John was wearing. The only reason this is important is that his wardrobe is awfully similar to the Old Testament prophet Elijah. In fact, there are a lot of connections between Elijah and John. Elijah, whose name means the Lord is God, was someone who called the people to choose their loyalty, to choose between following Baal or the Lord of Israel. Ultimately, that is what John was also doing. That is what repentance is about.
But John did not teach on repentance but also gave a way for people to act on that repentance. John baptized those who decided to repent. Now there was already a type of baptism within Judaism at that time. The problem was that the baptism was for Gentiles to be baptized in order to become Jewish. John inviting fellow Jews to be baptized was problematic. It was assuming that God was looking for something other than just being a part of the right nation. And yet people seemed to respond well to both John’s preaching and baptizing. What he was doing struck a chord with people and they responded with personal repentance.
John welcomed these demonstrations of repentance. But then came the Pharisees and Sadducees. This did not go well, and John responded to their presence in a less than “seeker-sensitive” manner. This seems strange because these people were much more religious and outwardly respectable than the others being baptized.
Part of our confusion might be with the images that come to mind when we talk about repentance. We might think of the need to repent of abusing alcohol, of being sexually immoral, of being violent, of other criminal behaviour. That kind of repentance makes sense. But what about people who are not involved in those behaviours? Do they need to repent? What about people who seem to be rule-abiding or religious? What about people like the Sadducees and Pharisees? It would be interesting to know what activities John had in mind. I suspect that what John really was trying to express in his preaching of repentance was for a change of allegiance. John was calling people to turn away from allegiance to self and to embrace allegiance to God. But were not the Pharisees and Sadducees already following God? Some may have but some others saw their position in the temple and the synagogue as being of great personal benefit. This is not meant as a criticism of Judaism, as the same thing happens within the Christian Church. The preaching of repentance and the response with baptism was not to get better behaved people in society. It was to get people to choose who they really belonged to, aside from what society thought of who they were and what they could become.
Our Repentance
While I am happy to look at what happened in the biblical story, I am also very interested in what this means for us today. What does it mean for someone to repent?
If you were to think of someone in your life and their need to repent, what would that look like? Do you think of someone who has made some lifestyle choices that go against the teachings of Jesus? It might even be a Christian that holds a theological position that you disagree with and you think they should repent. I have had people demand that I repent, even as a pastor. There are those who so disagree with obeying public health guidelines during the covid pandemic that they call pastors who had people wear masks or moved services online to repent of their terrible sin. While I have not felt the need to repent of that, it is a reminder that we think of repentance primarily as a repentance from something. But this then leads us back to John’s harsh treatment of the Pharisees and Sadducees, people who were outwardly living fairly moral lives. While there is a place to repent of specific sins, that might not be what this passage is about. What if repentance is more of a changing of allegiance from one thing to another, in this case from self to God?
As you know, I am an army chaplain and I am loyal to the Canadian Armed Forces, the nation of Canada, and the King. But just wearing a uniform does not mean one is dedicated to the cause.
For example, after the D-Day landings at Normandy, four men were captured wearing Wehrmacht uniforms. They were not German, nor did they belong to any nation that Germany had conquered. They were Koreans who were forced to join the Japanese army. They were captured by the Soviets and forced to join their army. They were then captured by the Germans and sent to Normandy as part of their army.
Compare this to Oskar Schindler, someone who had voluntarily joined the Nazi party. He had an armament factory in Poland and at first he used Jewish workers because they were cheap. Then something happened and he changed loyalties, actively seeking to save Jewish families against the wishes of the Nazi leaders. He ended up saving 1200 Jews during the Holocaust, at great personal danger to himself.
This is what I am trying to express about repentance. We think of repentance as being sorry about one behaviour and an attempt to avoid that behaviour in the future. But what if repentance is actually a change of allegiance first, one that works it way out as a change of behaviour?
How does this fit with us? Like with John, repentance is connected to our baptism and our baptism is a sign of our repentance. It is not a sign that we are free from sin, but it is a sign that we have a new master, it is a sign that Jesus is Lord. But what about ongoing repentance? Is repentance just a one time thing as baptism is? Repentance is not repeated in the sense of experiencing a new conversion. But we can and should reaffirm our loyalty to God through repentance. Self wants to retake control and repentance, not in the sense of beating ourselves up, can help get us back on track and remember who our master is.
Conclusion
Repent! That was the message of John the Baptist. John prepared the way for Jesus by getting people to choose their loyalties. Even when surrounded by religious teachings and ceremonies, whether Jewish then or Christian now, we can still be loyal primarily to self. Repentance is a change in loyalty, a pleading of allegiance to God in place of self or any other idol that has taken over. Our baptism is a sign of the repentance that we have experienced and it is a sign of our intention to remain loyal to the one true God. It is not so much about outward behaviour, although that too is a sign, but it is about where our hearts are at.
