To be honest, whenever I read John the Baptist’s message, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near,” I get the image in my head of the people who travel to college campuses to preach a gospel of condemnation, screaming judgment and denunciation, accusing students of all kinds of things. Some students are mesmerized, some antagonized, few (if any) drawn to Jesus.
The movement of Matthew 3 is interesting. It begins with John’s call to repentance and ends with Jesus’ baptism and blessing from the Father. “At that moment, heaven was opened, and [Jesus] saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and landing on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’”
In Jesus, the kingdom of heaven has invaded the stuff of earth. God’s kingdom done on earth as it is in heaven. We don't get there without repentance.
Repentance, technically a change of mind and purpose, is more than turning away from someTHING. It is turning toward someONE. The momentum of life changes direction.
In spite of the initial images in my head, repentance is not negative. True, it is a call to turn from a life direction inconsistent with God’s good intention for us (call that sin), but it’s not an imperative to beat ourselves up. It’s a realization that God is drawing us to himself, and by lowering our resistance to his movement in our lives, we move toward his life for us, in us, and through us.
Repentance is our response to the gracious, magnetic draw of Jesus, the fulfillment of God’s dream for all of us.
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