2-16-18 - Repent and Believe

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When Jesus had finished his forty-day trial, he commenced his mission: Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

That one sentence contains everything we need to focus on during Lent – and the rest of our lives as Christ-followers. We are to proclaim the Good News that the Life of God has come near. We are to live in the Already – the time is fulfilled! We are to repent of the ways we fail to live in the fullness of that message, and we are to believe in the Good News. Proclaim it, live it, repent, and believe it.

I said yesterday that Ash Wednesday is kind of a threshold to lead us into Lent. Lent too is a threshold, an antechamber if you will, into the greater mystery and promise of Easter life. And the life we inhabit in this world, embodied, governed by time and the laws of nature – this life is itself a threshold, a foyer, an antechamber, into the Life we will enjoy with God for eternity. That’s our Good News, that that Life begins here and now, in this life, as we open ourselves to it.

If we’re focused on life, why the “downer” of a practice of repentance? Because big parts of us are not on board with entering that Life God invites us into. We fear too much will be asked of us, it's too hard to pin down, we can't see it. And the point of repentance is not to feel bad about ourselves. Repentance is about inviting our whole selves to join into the movement toward God.

And why stress believing? Because we’re more convincing when we talk about things we believe in. There is always room in belief for questions and doubts – but we don't have to make up a bed and invite them to settle in.

No one can get another person to put God first. All we can do is call out from our own place on the path, “Hey, the view’s pretty good over here. Come walk with me a ways.” That’s why clergy want their congregants to participate in everything, all the time – not to make us feel good, but because we’ve found satisfaction in shifting our center God-ward and we want that for everyone.

Lent is a time to walk intentionally so that we might find our center shifting… and then we’ll want to stay on that path all the way to its End.

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