“In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”  This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’”  Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.  Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.   But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance.  Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.  Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”  Matthew 3:1-12

“In Matthew’s gospel there are numerous instructions regarding how we are to prepare for our exit interview from this earthly life or for judgment day, whichever comes first. We are not only to hear Jesus’ words, but we are to do them. We prepare for the coming kingdom by active obedience to the teachings of Jesus. The way not to prepare is to rely on our spiritual credentials. Relying on any other assurance or past accomplishment than God is not the way to prepare. Inaction is not the way to prepare. Making excuses is not the way to prepare. Being distracted from Jesus’ coming kingdom by possessions, prestige, and power is not the way to prepare. Not then and not now. John the Baptist sums up the way to prepare in one little six-letter word: repent. And then follow that up by “bearing fruit worthy of repentance” (How Not to Prepare: Reflections on Advent 2, by Alyce M. McKenzie, December 02, 2013)

So, why should we repent?  What are the benefits to repentance?  I would list two benefits: 1. We give up on the idea that we are in control (something Americans have a problem with). 2. We put our trust and faith completely in the hands of Jesus.

St. John of the Cross, the great Carmelite friar once wrote that faith is not only complete trust and obedience, but requires repentance as well.  He went on to say “If we want to be united with G-d, we need to empty ourselves.”  How do we empty ourselves?  First we have to relinquish control, give G-d the reigns of our lives, and then we must allow G-d to lead and guide us, including leading us down paths we may not be prepared to follow.  But now, here is one thing about repentance that is important – repentance is not a series of “I Can” statements, statements like “I can change this Lord, and I can change that”.  Instead, repentance is about an “I Can’t” statement – “I can’t do it Lord, You need to lead me – You do it Lord”.  You see, true repentance means we hand the reigns over to Christ – and that is an apt metaphor as we head toward Christmas Day.

Pastor Dave

“When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” ³³ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. ³⁴ He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” ³⁵ Jesus began to weep. ³⁶ So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” ³⁷ But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” John 11:32-37

So we have been talking about the phrase “OK, Boomer”, and digging deeper into the reasons for why people from different generations do not always agree with one another. At first we were looking at why people resist change – and one of the reasons we were examining revolved around trust. Trust in necessary in all relationships – our trust in G-d – our trust in each other. And, so we are examining different aspects of trust. So we are on reason four you can follow to help you choose to trust again after a painful experience.

1. Allow Time To Grieve: There are reasons we lose our ability to trust – we are hurt by someone, we are taken advantage of, or we are lied to. Loss of trust can also involve loss of relationships. So not only are we grieving a loss, we are grieving our ability to trust our intuition in understanding people. The person you thought you knew turned out to be someone different – or you are grieving the life you had and the life you thought you would have forever. We know that grief involves stages like denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance. It may take going through some or all of these stages before we might find ourselves being able to trust again.

Jesus came to Bethany, and his friend Lazarus had been dead four days. Lazarus’ sisters Mary and Martha had trusted that Jesus would be there to save their brother. But Jesus was delayed – and the sisters had lost hope, and trust. We can hear it in their words: “If you had been here, our brother would not have died.” And Jesus wept – I believe because of the loss of his friend, the lack of trust from the sisters, and, of course, his own grief.

But Jesus did not remain in his grief – he turned to his Father for support and understanding. Grief is important – but we must learn to use that grief to grow stronger in our faith, and in our trust. We are always losing something in life – but we never lose Jesus’ love and grace. Oh, we may lose our focus once in a while – but Jesus is always waiting for us to return, give our grief to him, and continue to grow in a relationship with him.

Pastor Dave