John the Baptist. This “in-your-face” “call em’ as you see em’” prophet dressed in a ragged camel hair, smelling of bug breath and the poverty of desert discipleship isn’t exactly the cozy Christmas character we might expect at this time of year.
And though he is always a main character in our readings during the season of Advent, you won’t find him featured in any heart-warming holiday films or as a sugar cookie figure or a cheery ceramic tree ornament.
Imagine a Christmas card with the traditional “from our home to yours this holy season…” on the cover and then inside there’s this alarming picture of John the Baptist with his fierce, wild eyes, looking dusty and lean, screaming “REPENT!!!”
As the saying goes “You can choose your friends but not your relatives.” I wonder if anyone ever said that to Jesus about his weird cousin John the Baptist?
But, humor aside, John was an incredible man of dedication and courage who lived what he preached with a depth of integrity that demanded a hearing. John understood his mission as one of preparation …to make straight the path for Jesus. But what does this concretely look like? What is this “preparation through repentance,” and how do we do it?
When we hear the word repent, we often think it means having feelings of deep remorse for our sinful ways that demands we undertake some punishing hard work to make amends. But our English interpretation of our ancient texts often misses the mark and, in this case, rather spectacularly.
Repentance is a translation of the Greek word Metanoia.
Metanoia simply means to change our mind…to change the way we understand or think about something, so that we might change our direction.
The repentance John is promoting isn’t one that would have us shamefully beating our breasts and entering into some harsh acts of atonement, rather, through the tactile ritual of baptism he is hoping to change our thinking – to remove any obstacles that keep us from recognizing God’s boundless love revealed in the person of Jesus; the incarnation; the embodiment of God tenderly coming to be with us in our very own history to show us the way.
Meister Eckhart said, “Any talk of God that does not comfort you is a lie.” And isn’t that the heart of the good news?
Jesus really only had one message, and it is this: No matter who you are, what you believe, what you have done, if you go to church or not, you are loved by God and there is little you can do about that… in fact, there is nothing you can do about that. It is simply not in your power to change God’s love for you. It’s impossible, like turning off the sun.
So what change of mind, or change of direction is John indicating needs to happen for us to hear this truth? To recognize the one who is to come.
Jesus is on the way, but how do we straighten the crooked road before him? What in the terrain of our lives needs some rethinking so we can clear the path?
Among the many stumbling blocks that keep us from truly hearing and believing this good news are two lies that we have an extra hard time shaking; One, our persistent imaging of God as judgmental and stingy and, two, our overidentification with our unworthiness that keeps us mired in shame and unable to receive the love God is continuously offering us.
Our deepest human struggle does not come from God’s image of us but rather our image of God and our tendency to dwell on where we fall short. We are often much more inclined to love and accept others as they are, but are slow to offer that kind of grace and tenderness to ourselves and this impedes our ability to absorb God’s love, that is always coming at us without boundary or breaking point.
We can’t build the kingdom that Jesus dreams for us if we are stuck in the sludge of self-loathing and a skewed image of God. Do we fall short and contribute to the disorder in the world? Of course…but we can’t get stuck there because we can’t give love, forgiveness, and unconditional acceptance unless we have received it ourselves. We can’t give what we don’t have.
Offending God with our sin is not the problem. In fact, it is rather arrogant to even imagine that there is any sin that is greater than God’s mercy. The obstacle on God’s path to us that John is intent to remove is our stubborn conviction that we are not enough…that we are unlovable and our sins are unforgiveable.
How can we authentically live out our baptismal call to spread the good news if we still haven’t believed the news ourselves? Having the courage to accept acceptance IS the metanoia, the change of mind, that marks the true repentance John is urging us to undertake.
This advent, may we do just that…be renewed in our baptism, plunged anew into the lavish love of God that opens our hearts and minds so we may be bold, faithful, living signs of God’s compassion in our world.