Housekeeping ,matter. My tech crew (Hi Tiffany) is working on the problems with the Subscription Button. We know it is a bit of an issue and we really want it to work for everyone. I am very serious about continuing this series. I truly appreciate the encouragement from so many.
And, yes, a year from now I may be sitting down to write Christology and the Current Crisis, Day 365.
Now, to the matter at hand.
In Matthew 4:17 we get the Vision Statement of Jesus. In Matthew 4:19 we get the Mission Statement of Jesus.
Vision Statement: From then Jesus began to preach, saying “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand (at hands meaning present at this moment in Jesus Himself.)”
Mission Statement: Come follow me and I will teach you (how and why) to become fishers of Man.”
We can learn from the text Matthew has of our Lord’s first sermon. The first word of His first sermon; Repent.
You know the classical meaning of the word Repent. Repentance is a change of direction. We are going one way. The voice of God calls out to us. We turn our head, affix our eyes and our body follows to God.
Or, we ignore the voice of God (the word of God spoken or written or displayed on a screen). We keep right on going the way we are going because, after all, God is dead (by which Nietzche meant irrelevant; blame Niethzche), the Church is just about collecting power and Morality is Individualism. At that, it is Radical Individualism wherein any discussion of Responsibility starts and ends with Rights to one’s own way of doing/being.
For those who might consider turning away from license to something more deeply satisfying, there is, well, umm, God. For Christians,well, umm, we meeting God revealed in Jesus, the Christ. We believe Jesus is the Messiah/Prophet of Israel, not a Messiah as one might hold a station to be relinquished when one loses interest or someone better comes along, but the Messiah, the one and only, who keeps on being the durable Savior, through life and death and that which comes beyond.
What happens when we repent? Why is it even a matter for discussion? Am I not as good as anyone else (by which we may actually mean “as good as I need to be) without resorting to some stuffy old religion.
Theodore Parker was an American minister and leader of the Abolitionist Movement in the mid-1800s. His mother influenced him greatly. He recounts this story, to wit:
At the age of nine he was playing one day. He encountered a turtle. A mischievous boy, he readied his foot to stomp the creature, when he heard a voice saying, “But it is wrong.” He stopped.
Theodore recounted this occurrence to his mother and asked her about the voice he heard.
She replied, “Some people call it conscience but I call it the voice of God in the heart of man. If you listen for this voice you will hear it more often and clearly. If you ignore this voice it will become weaker and dimmer until you hear it no more.”
At nine Parker committed himself to listen for the voice of God. His sermons and writings influenced men like William Seward, Frederick Douglas and an unlearned unbeliever from Illinois’ who became our sixteenth President.
To repent probably means more than sparing a turtle (though the turtle might argue otherwise), but it certainly involves our actual morality. Good and Evil matter, be we this or that, turtle or fetus. The Current Crisis, it seems to me, has deep roots in our lack of moral intent to do more than just not hurt someone else, as important as that may be.
The first word of the first sermon of our Lord is “Repent.”