Lent 1 - Repent and Believe. Mark 1:9-15 & 1 Peter 3:18-22
“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; Repent and believe in the gospel!”
The bracing words of Jesus in Mark chapter 1 are the very first words we hear from Jesus, and they are a summary of his message preached throughout Mark’s Gospel.
John the Baptist came preparing the way, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Now, Jesus has burst onto the scene proclaiming that the time is at hand: here is the decisive moment!
Here in the opening chapter of Mark we encounter two words that have gone out of fashion, especially outside the walls of the church, and so they require some exploring.
Sin
Repent
I can guarantee that if you drop those two words at a party most people will either walk away from you to fetch another drink or consider you studiously with pity and then change the subject. It’s unlikely that they will lean in and say: “so, tell me more about sin and repentance, I’m all ears.”
When we talk about sin in contemporary culture, we often use it to describe something that is a bit naughty but nice, like “Try this chocolate cake, it is just so decadent that it is sinful.”
The other way that the word sin is often conceived of culturally is as a word associated with guilt and judgement of the worst kind, reserved for religious zealots from whom we should steer clear.
Sin is seen as a negative and gloomy concept by many – outdated and irrelevant, the vestiges of an era of fire and brimstone preachers and guilty consciences.
A British writer, Francis Spufford names our cultural moment well, saying: “Everybody knows, then, that “sin” basically means “indulgence” or “enjoyable naughtiness.” If you were worried, you’d use a different word or phrase. You’d talk about “eating disorders” or “addictions”; you’d go to another vocabulary cloud altogether. The result is that when you come across someone trying to use “sin” in its old sense, you may know perfectly well in theory that they must mean something which isn’t principally chocolatey, and yet the modern mood music of the word is so insistent that it’s hard to hear anything except an invocation of a trivially naughty pleasure. And if someone talks, gravely and earnestly, about what a sorrowful burden one of those is, the result will be to be to make that speaker seem swiftly much, much more alarming than the thing they’re getting worked up about. For which would seem to you to be the bigger problem, the bigger threat to human happiness: a plate of pralines, or a killjoy religious fanatic denouncing them?”[1]
I think he makes a good point about how the word sin is often perceived and heard.
Yet, as strange as these words “sin” and “repentance” are in our cultural context today – they really do matter. As much as some people might want to ditch the concepts of sin and repentance, they are central to our understanding of who we are and what Jesus has done. Without them our understanding of the gospel will be impoverished. And so, we must wrestle with what Jesus is talking about when he calls us to repentance, and what he means when he announces the forgiveness of sin.
This Sunday, the first Sunday of Lent seems an especially good time to dive into this topic.
During the service on Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, a Priest says these words as they apply the ash to the foreheads of the people gathered for worship:
“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.”
Lent can simply be described as a season to repent and believe.
To turn from sin and be faithful to Jesus.
This is the invitation of Jesus that we hear loud and clear in this
mornings gospel reading – but what does it mean to turn from sin, to
repent and to believe?
Sin – the Biblical concept
So, what are we talking about when we talk about sin?
Theologian and Biblical Scholar Anthony Thistleton lays out the range of meaning for this term in the Bible.
“The biblical writings regularly use three groups of words to denote different aspects of human sin, both in Hebrew and in Greek, to call to attention respectively (i) the aspect of action or failure; (ii) a more deliberate action with more serious effect often entailing an attitude or desire; and (iii) a resultant state of sinfulness.”[2]
Sin is both something that we do, and it is a state we find ourselves in.
When we talk about sins, we are often referring to actions – lying, cheating, stealing, talking ill of our neighbour, greed, lust, murder.
We confess our sins, and as we do so we may think of very particular things that have happened in our life that have left others hurt and broken and us carrying a sense of guilt or shame.
When we talk about sin, we are referring to the state we find ourselves.
Sin describes the sense of misery we experience in a state of being in bad relationship with God.
Sin is not just doing something naughty, a mistake or a moral lapse but is a violation of the way things should be.
Let me have a go at a basic definition:
Sin is first and foremost directed toward God. It is a break in relationship with God, resulting in a series of behaviours that alienate us from God and our neighbours, and results in a general state of misery and brokenness.
Fundamentally, sin has to do with a rejection of God.
The opening chapters of Genesis tell the story of what we call the “fall.” This is where Adam and Eve go against what God has asked them to do and they believe the lie of the serpent who raises a question around God’s character. The serpent lays the bait of mistrust between Adam and Eve and God and they take it hook, line, and sinker.
Adam and Eve attempt to go their own way without God and things decline very quickly.
Because of this, in the Christian tradition some thinkers have labelled the fundamental sin as ‘pride.’ Once we have rejected God because we think we know best, it all goes downhill from there.
There are all kinds of contenders for what the most basic sin might be.
The one that I have found most helpful is this: that the most basic sin is mistrust.
Mistrust as in – not accepting our lives as a good gift from God.
Mistrust as in – suspicion of God, doubting God’s goodness and love for us.
Mistrust as in – not being willing to follow God’s direction for our lives.
Fundamentally mistrust as in – not accepting that we are creatures, made by and loved by God.
Sin – our experience and the complexity of it
Theological reflection aside – sin is not just an idea, but something we actually experience.
The word names the sense we have that all isn’t quite as it should be in the world.
The word names the feeling of disconnection we might feel from God.
The word names the experiences we have had in our own lives of feeling shame and guilt when we have done something we wish we had never even contemplated or didn’t mean to do.
The word names experiences we have had happen to us or things done to us that have deeply hurt us.
Sin is something we experience, and it is multi-layered and complex.
Now you might be thinking – thanks a lot Joshua, that’s why we don’t talk about this stuff so often. It is morbid, unpleasant and frankly depressing.
But, actually sin is in fact better news than it sounds…
-Firstly, sin as a concept has explanatory power.
Sin names and sheds light on aspects of our lives in which we experience guilt and shame. Not so that we might feel condemned, but so that we might experience healing and forgiveness.
-Secondly, we are all in the same boat
The Bible teaches the universality of sin. None of us escape it.
Jonathan Edwards once said: “This doctrine teaches us to think no worse of others, than of ourselves: it teaches us that we are all, as we are by nature, companions in a miserable helpless condition: which under a revelation of the divine mercy, tends to promote mutual compassion.”[3]
-Finally, sin doesn’t have the last word. The Bible addresses us with good news. We are not stuck in a rut that we must work our own way out of – God offers us forgiveness for our sin.
This is where we get to the second word: repent!
Repent!
Amidst this mess and muddle we find ourselves in, God enters, takes on flesh and blood, becomes fully human in Jesus Christ and comes to rescue us.
Jesus comes announcing that a new way is possible – the kingdom of God is at hand.
The kingdom of God refers to God’s rule and reign – it isn’t about a place, like the “kingdom of Narnia” or something like that. It speaks of the reality that God has come to rescue his people and establish his peace and justice in the world. To set things right.
It means that God has come to deal with sin and its consequences that have rippled throughout creation.
The good news of the Gospel is that Jesus establishes God’s kingdom by taking on sin.
Jesus goes into the desert and he there he is tempted. He is tempted just as Adam and Eve are tempted – the devil, the liar and accuser of humanity questions God’s goodness, just like he did in the garden. He tempts Jesus to mistrust the Father. Yet unlike Adam Jesus doesn’t give in. Jesus, remains obedient and trusting, and rejects the lie.
Jesus is a new Adam, but unlike the first Adam he is faithful and trusting of God.
The desert is a significant place for God’s people, the Israelites.
It was the place they wandered for 40 years after God rescued them from slavery. Like Adam, the people struggled to trust God in the desert. They strayed from being faithful to God.
Yet Jesus is the perfect Israelite, he wanders in the desert and remains faithful to God.
The point that Mark’s Gospel makes clear is that Jesus was not only one who came preaching that the kingdom of God is near.
He is the one who ushers it in.
Jesus, in his perfect humanity makes it possible that we can be reconciled to God.
The Bible teaches that Jesus not only resists the temptation of sin, but he also conquers it. Jesus journeys to the cross, and in his death defeats it.
Our reading from 1 Peter 3 puts it succinctly: “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God…”
Jesus on the cross takes upon himself the weight and the burden of our sin. In His resurrection he breaks its power.
In response he calls us to repentance, which simply means to turn from sin.
And he calls us to believe – to turn away from mistrust in God and instead trust fully in all that he has done for us through Jesus Christ.
There is a lot more I could say about the topic.
Thousands upon thousands of words have been written about how the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus has saved us and set us free.
This week, I found these words of Gregory of Nazianzus, an ancient Christian and theologian to be a beautiful invitation to worship as we begin this season of Lent.
So, let me share them with you:
“The Father accepts the sacrifice of Christ not because he demands it, still less because he feels some need of it, but in order to carry forward his own purpose for the world. Humanity had to be brought back to life by the humanity of God. We had to be summoned to life by his Son. Let the rest be adored in silence. Nothing can equal the miracle of my salvation. A few drops of blood have set free the entire universe.” – Gregory of Nazianzus.
By Joshua Taylor
[1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/what-sin-really-is-the-hu_b_4164852
[2] Anthony C. Thistleton, The Hermeneutics of Doctrine (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007).
[3] Quoted in: Henri Blocher, Original Sin: Illuminating the Riddle (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1997), 131.