“Repent for the kingdom, the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
“Repent” is an unfortunate translation
of the original Greek word “metanoia.”
Metanoia comes from two words:
“meta” which is beyond and
“noia” which is knowledge or thought or mind.
Put together it says to move your mind and
the translation is to move your mind and your thoughts beyond.
In other words, to change your mind.
We are called to change our mind for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
That would be the better translation, but it is awkward.
John the Baptist tells us:
“Listen, something new is happening;
you have to look again and change your mind.
Be open to changing what is happening.”
And it is powerful.
John then goes on to pick on the Pharisees and Sadducees,
who are the religious leaders of the times.
Jesus does the same,
using the word metanoia and
picking on the Sadducees and the Pharisees.
John does that because he sees
their actions are not matching their words;
that they say all these words and they are not living them.
He goes on to say the fruit is not in your words
but the fruit is in your actions;
that unless you act in the way of what your words are,
your words are empty.
He uses some harsh terms there.
The same message is given to all of us;
that we are called to be followers of Christ not just admirers;
not just to look at Christ but to follow in our words and our actions.
Of course, we are all here at Church so in some way, we are all trying.
If we are honest, we all know that we have actions
that do not mirror, do not reflect Christ.
That is why we use reconciliation at the very beginning of liturgy
with Lord have mercy; Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.
And that is hard for us because as much as we try,
we know we fall short;
that not every single word and not every single action
is the paragon of virtue, or points to Christ.
Yet if the general pattern of our life is as a follower of Christ
then all these little mistakes we make do not overshadow
the general pattern of our life.
It becomes clearer for us when we step back a little bit.
And that is what Advent and Lent do;
it is just take a step back and look at the overall aspect.
Where is our life leading us?
What is our general direction in life,
the whole way to look at it?
It is kind of hard to explain.
Let me do this by this artwork given to me by my former parish.
What do you see?
Yes. It is the face of Jesus, isn’t it? Right?
It is called an icon. It’s an icon of Jesus.
But come closer to it and take a look at it.
It is made up of pictures.
It is a mosaic of real photos to make a larger picture.
This artwork is made up of hundreds of little photos of me
in ministry at my previous parish showing the face of Christ.
