The First Step

And after that, John was delivered up, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, And saying, “The time is accomplished, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent, and believe the gospel” [Mark 1:14-15, Douay-Rheims Bible].

I’m clearly showing my age here, but in 1970, about the time that Jane and I began our yearlong engagement to be married—at the time, we were both mature 19-years-olds—the most popular movie was Erich Segal’s Love Story, starring Ryan O’Neal and Ali MacGraw. At some point in the movie, Ryan’s character says something in anger to Ali’s character, but then he quickly apologizes. Those in my generation will remember Ali’s hokey response. Batting her eyes, she says, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”

I thought of that line in Love Story yesterday afternoon, as I took a glance at the Gospel reading appointed for this upcoming Sunday, Mark 1:14-20 [Third Sunday after the Epiphany, RCL, Year B]. Jesus, known for His loving kindness, his care for the marginalized, and, among many other things, his willingness to be “delivered up” to the cross, offers an uncharacteristically brief sermon, “Repent, believe.”

Repentance—it’s a practice generally shunned by our culture. This morning, I performed an Internet search that cross-referenced several words — “mistakes,” “errors,” “transgressions,” and/or “repentance” — with “current best practices.” Most of my hits had a common theme, not altogether different from Ali MacGraw’s famous line. Facing a person or a situation and saying, “I’m truly sorry,” is frowned upon in our current culture.

To read modern pop culture, business admonitions, and self-help literature today, one quickly learns that it’s counterproductive to spend too much time on one’s mistakes. We shouldn’t focus on our weaknesses or shortcomings. In fact, according to many modern muses, one should delve into the past only as a means of identifying and developing one’s individual strengths. Then, having identified our strong points, one should remain fixed on the future. “You can’t cry over spilt milk.”

My notes on Nietzsche tell me that in his Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche allows, “I did that,” says my memory. “I couldn’t have done that,” says my pride. Pride, of course, stands firm. Eventually, “memory gives in.” Another way to put it is something like this: “I recognize that I did that, but that isn’t really so bad after all.”

We rationalize: What’s done is done. The culture around us invites us to look at our past only insofar as it helps us to identify our strengths and abilities—those positive characteristics that might be nurtured further along. We look at our past mistakes—some of them huge—and we make excuses, we adjust our vision here and there, we may even seek some appropriate counseling, but there’s no need to dwell on things, no need to, dare I say it, “repent.”

And yet Jesus, still virtually wet from the baptismal waters of the Jordan [Mark 1:9], his ears still ringing with the echo of the voice that came from heaven [Mark 1:11], his back still aching from sleeping on the ground for 40 days in the wilderness [Mark 1:13], goes into Galilee to tell everyone that the time—God’s kronos—isn’t so much coming at some point in the future, no, It’s already here! At this early point in his ministry, Jesus doesn’t so much offer “the sweet by and by,” as He points to a straightforward “here and now.” And in that here and now, the one who hears His Gospel is to do two things: repent and believe.

Repent and believe—It is interesting, is it not, that here Jesus place the act of repenting before the act of believing. Many of us were taught that it has to be the other way around. I’ve even written that when it comes to repentance, until one has seen the cross, until one has come to understand (believe?) just how costly it was for God to intervene in the way that God did, one can never really know the depths of humanity’s sinful nature and our need for forgiveness. In that sense, Faith (or belief) precedes repentance.

Well, I don’t think that Jesus is actually contradicting any of that here. Instead, I think He has sometime quite a bit different in mind. All too often, many of us think that repentance is our means of assuring our place in Heaven. That is to say, if we want eternal relationship with God, then we must repent of our sins before we die. A lengthy debate on that point is beyond the scope of this meditation, of course. I’d quickly argue that we may easily miss the horrible implication of such a statement. It is as if the all-powerful, omnipotent God has to sit on His hands on His throne, powerless to act until we act, that God cannot forgive until we have sought forgiveness. Within that context, if we’re not careful, forgiveness through repentance becomes our act and it becomes an act that is closely associated with death.

Here, however, Jesus isn’t talking about death. Instead, He’s talking about Life. Jesus isn’t reminding folks that they need to repent at some point before their death in order to avoid Hades, He’s telling them—virtually pleading with them—that God’s time is the here and now. He’s telling them that a blessed life can begin now—not tomorrow, not next week, or next year, now!

Jesus offered those folks in Galilee—and He offers you and me—an alternative to what the culture teaches (and demands). Jesus doesn’t tell us to repent because He wants us to dwell on negativity. He doesn’t tell us to be sorrowful over our sins and misdeeds because we don’t have an appreciation for our own depravity. Instead, He’s telling us to repent because He knows that until we do so, we will remain haunted by the power of those sins over our lives. We only think we’ve blotted them from our memory. We engage in internal Jedi mind tricks, deluding ourselves into thinking that if we concentrate on our good points and ignore that time we deeply wronged our neighbor four years ago, we can move on.

Jesus takes our sin so seriously that He demands that it be removed from our lives, for only with its removal can we enjoy the sort of life that Jesus wants for us. Jesus tells us to repent, not because He is powerless to act upon it until we do—He has shown us in the Cross what He’s already done on that score—but because He knows that if we see our sin, if we name that sin, it we then believe that it can be obliterated by and through His power and Spirit, then we will have the abounding fullness and wonder that is promised by God. Jesus wants to pile on. Yet, He isn’t interested in weighing us down with guilt; He’s wants us to experience the Joy that is ours when we are in communion with Him.

Christ’s Love for us requires that we say (and mean) that we are sorry for our sins. It’s a tough first step. We must repent.