Repentance and the Good News (1)

Repentance and the Good News (1)

“‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news’.” (1:15)

According to the Gospel of Mark, Jesus said that the kingdom of God was near and so to repent and believe the good news. Metanoia meaning repentance is also the essence of Baptist John’s message. Then does it mean Jesus had learned this idea from Baptist John? We cannot make it sure about that. On the other hand, Jesus seemed to get influence from Baptist John who had been away from home earlier and been preaching the words of God in the desert, but Jesus is fundamentally different from Baptist John and also because the Gospels are writing about Jesus one-sidedly it is impossible to find out any information out of it about how related thoughts Jesus and Baptist John had shared with each other. With this kind of limit we could reach indirectly to this problem through the boundary of the New Testament.

Baptist John mentioned baptism and Jesus did too, but there are similarities and differences. The similarity is that each of them emphasized on change of the mankind. Baptist John asked the people in those days to change and Jesus did such change too. Repentance means a change for direction. Changing direction could mean a change. Even though both of them were talking about change, direction for change was so much different from each other.

Baptist John’s repentance means change for a new life. He is saying that every body should live morally perfect life. That kind request brought up such turmoil in people’s heart, so that they went out to the desert in crowds. On the other hand, repentance Jesus is talking about means a much more fundamental change. As we could see today’s scripture, Jesus asked to change the direction into the kingdom of God. Metanoia means a change from the worldly attention to the lives in the kingdom of God.

According to their opinions, Baptist John’s repentance looked to be more realistic and concrete, and also desirable. For if teachers, officers, soldiers, doctors, lawyers, pastors, and workers would live honestly and conscientiously, this world could become more beautiful. On the other hand, the change into the kingdom of God sounds too abstract, because we could not grab the true self. In here there must be some difficulties for the Christian faith. It means that the idea of changing direction toward the kingdom of God could be misunderstood by Christians as well as by others. The people outside of the church could consider Christians as people who just look up a far away sky, and also Christians could not care living in this world, and instead keep waiting for Rapture in the end times.

But a true Christian faith is like a way of attitude for life, which resists against such extremes but keep on walking through a narrow spiritual passage. We are not people who only long for ethical change of life, but also who look up only a far away sky. But we are not two sided people who are living a virtual life as well as a mysterious life in heaven. We are not people like a bat, which is living between the first choice and the second one. Basically we consider earth and heaven are one. But more than that! We regard earth surrounded by heaven as basis for our lives. Is there any reality in such a life?

Lord. We like to live a life of repentance enough to change our attention to the kingdom of God. Amen.