Hurry Up and Wait!: Repent
Repentance Opens Us Up to Happiness
Mark: 1:1-8
Rev. Tim Callow
Preached Sun. Dec. 10th, 2023
There’s a story I’ve often wanted to write. The trouble is it’s less of a story and more of an idea. So I’ve never been able to crack it. It’s science fiction. One of those alien stories. The aliens arrive and decide that we have advanced culturally to the point that they can open the secrets of the universe up to us. We can cure cancer, end aging, explore the universe. We can end poverty, heal the planet, and end war. No strings attached, no caveats. They aren't trying to eat us. They aren’t involving us in some intergalactic war. They’re not trying to make us their slaves. They only want to end our suffering, and they succeed.
All sorts of adventures await. We can explore the deepest trenches of the ocean. We can climb every mountain. If we want we can sail a starship past the pillars of creation. We can see where the black hole goes.
The story is from the perspective of someone who has lived hundreds of years, perhaps millennia. They have seen everything, done everything, experienced everything. And the end result is they’re exhausted. They’re bored. They want to die. Because you can only do these things so many times before they lose their luster. Even the great nebula become rote. Even a life full of pleasure eventually becomes monotonous. What we ultimately desire, what we ultimately seek cannot be satisfied in this life. We get glimpses of it, of course. But it’s all transitory and fleeting. Our true happiness comes from beyond ourselves, beyond this world, and we wait the time it is fulfilled for us.
Moreover, I imagine such a person would become all to well aware of their own personal limitations and the limitations of others. This wouldn’t be a life of moral purity. All the petty differences, squabbles, annoyances would break out once in awhile. There would still be inexplicable abuses. Sin would still reign. And with sin still reigning material abundance can only go so far. All the promises of this life cannot match the promises of the life God would give us.
Our gospel reading this morning speaks to the beginning of God’s work to restore our world, root out sin, and bring about our true and abiding happiness: the presence and love of God.
Marks’ Gospel opens, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” As Genesis opens “in the beginning” Mark’s gospel gives us a new beginning. That is the new beginning founded in Jesus, the son of God. While the world was hushed and people were caught up in the monotony of daily life, Jesus came to this earth to open us to the Father’s love. And he came to over come sin, and death, and to make known for us our own forgiveness. To make real for us our own salvation. To make true happiness possible.
But before that happiness can be made manifest there must first be a messenger. There must be one crying out in the wilderness, “prepare the way of the Lord!” This one is John the Baptist who comes clothed in camel’s hair and eating locusts and wild honey. He has a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Though he says there is one coming after him who is mightier than himself. One who will baptize not with water, but with the Holy Spirit. With fire.
Last week we talked about waiting for the Lord and how we are to wait in prayer and hope. This week we are talking about the way of God, the way of love, and the way of happiness. But that way is marked, on our end, by repentance. We who are in the time of Advent need to heed the call of God’s messenger. We must repent.
The way of the cross, the way of love, is a way of repentance. We do not repent simply out of a feeling of guilt. As if it were the role of the Church to make us feel guilty all the time. More importantly we repent because God has punctured the monotony of our lives and revealed it for what it is. We repent because God has beckoned us to something still greater. To know a peace that is still greater. To experience a joy that is still greater. And we know we cannot hold onto what we have if we are going to enter the heavenly kingdom. We repent because we know what we cast aside is infinitely less than what is on offer. We change our minds and our hearts in repentance because we know God can do for us infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.
There’s an old story that I’m told isn’t true, but it still makes a good sermon illustration. The story is that in some regions they have a sort of monkey trap where some fruit is put inside of a jar and the opening to the jar is just large enough for the monkey’s hand to get in, but not large enough for the monkey’s hand grasping a fruit to get out. And the monkeys are so greedy that they won’t let go of the fruit. Sadly that isn’t true, but it remains a great image of sin and repentance. Im our sin we seek to grasp hold of things that do not belong to us, or we are not supposed to hold. But in repentance we let them go and find ourselves freed.
Repentance is freeing and liberatory. It frees us from the power of sin, and it opens us up to the infinite promises of God. The Advent of Jesus, his second coming, is all about securing our happiness. And repentance is one way that happiness becomes manifest here in this time, in this day, before his coming again.