I have heard my share of funny stories about bad sermons. Like this comment after the worship: “Your service was too long by one half, and it wouldn’t make any difference which half you left out.” Or: “That was an outer space sermon. There was a lot of it, but not much in it.”
A parishioner had undergone a serious operation, and was still under the influence of the sedative when his pastor came, so the pastor just read the scriptures, said a prayer, and left. The next day, the pastor returned, and asked the patient if he had been aware of his visit. “I vaguely remember your visit yesterday, Pastor. I remember opening my eyes, and hearing your voice. I was thinking ‘I can’t be in Heaven because my pastor is here!”
Yet for us of the evangelical tradition, preaching is one of the important parts of worship. It is a God-ordained way of sharing the message of salvation.
In the book of Acts, Luke records eight of Peter’s sermons, nine sermons by the Apostle Paul, and seven more from others. It has been figured out that about one fourth of this important book is made up of sermons.
After the day of Pentecost, the disciples were all filled with the Holy Spirit. People were asking, “What does this mean?” This prompted Peter’s first sermon. At the end of the sermon, the people asked, “What can we do?” Peter tells them, “Repent and be baptized.”
The sermon in chapter 3 started after the healing of a crippled person. He ended it by saying, “Repent, therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord…”
We are asked to share what we have experienced. Like the disciples, we need to share the gospel. One of those things that we need to share with others is for them to “Repent.”
When John the Baptist came as a forerunner of Jesus, preparing the way for the Messiah, his message was summed up by the gospel writers as, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”
When Jesus started his public ministry, he went to Galilee and his message began: “The time has come. The Kingdom of God is upon us. Repent and believe the Good News.”
Then in the sermon of Peter, he said, “Repent that your sins may be blotted out…”
Thus, we need to remind others to “repent.” The tragedy is that for so many people today, “repent” has become a word that they avoid like a plague. This word seems to conjure many dark, foreboding images, and none touches so quickly those emotions that create queasy feelings in the pit of the stomach.
The word itself brings to mind some bearded figure with fearsome countenance shouting, “Beware! God is about to destroy you!” Or some hellfire and brimstone preacher, with Bible in one hand, menacingly shouting, “Repent! Or else!”
However, this is one of the saddest mistakes, and most tragic misunderstandings. Actually in the gospel, the word “repent” is a word of hope, one that focuses on new possibilities, and provides the way by which we humans can enter into a new relationship with God. It offers new beginnings. It is the door to a new life.
The call for repentance in vv. 19 is a plea that the people should “turn”. Repentance brings with it the “wiping out” of sins. It brings “times of refreshing”.
Repentance has never meant to be a threat, but an offer. Not a warning about dire consequences about to break out, but about a promise to be fulfilled.
Let me try an analogy to make clear what I am saying. As a pastor, I am often called upon to walk with persons through their hours of pain. I have seen first-hand many of the forms that suffering can take: broken relationships; death of a child or a spouse; loss of a friend; abandonment; betrayal; illness that brings excruciating pain; abuse. The list goes on and on, but experience teaches me that no pain may exceed that caused by loved ones who are missing.
When a wife of a military person told me that her husband was missing in action, I could feel that her pain must have been excruciating.
One time I was talking to a young lady who was given up by her mother for adoption when she was a baby. She could not understand why. She felt abandoned. She told me, ”Everyday I look out the window, hoping my mother would come, and explain to me why she left me.”
This kind of loss may be the source of the greatest suffering we know, precisely because there is never any closure. Death at least has finality to it. It brings an end to a relationship, and, while that causes pain, where there is an end, it can also be a new beginning.
But for those whose loved ones are missing, there is never a closure, and therefore, no healing can take place.
Against this background, something of the essential meaning and impact of the word “repent” comes to light. Repentance is the means of bringing closure to a way of life or pattern of behavior whose inevitable consequence is pain and suffering.
A gracious God offers us a way out. God promises that when we repent, we are forgiven; we are released from the past, and a new beginning is offered.
At any point in our life, the moment we repent is the moment we can begin life all over again. We can leave behind the past into a brand-new future. And God offers it as a free gift. All it takes is literally turning around, and facing a new direction towards God.
Unfortunately, repentance is not the mood of our time unless one is really caught. We live in the age of the “no-fault” — a time when apparently no one is guilty, and no moral questions are asked.
I am “okay” and you are “okay”, although wrong things are being done all over the place. Unless one is caught, no one is responsible.
It is hard for healing to take place if there is no recognition that something is wrong.
The beauty of it is that God does not demand that we get our lives totally in order before we repent. God does not require perfect obedience before we are accepted. God does not ask that we come with a new life plan all worked out, and in our hands evidence that good deeds will be forthcoming.
All that our God asks is that we turn around, that we show God our faces instead of our backs. And then, forgiven and accepted by God, and in gratitude, we begin, even if haltingly, to follow Christ’s way.
The word “repent” is filled with grace and love. It is an appeal of a loving God for us to wake up, to start going in a new direction so that we can avoid the blind alleys and deadends to which the self-focused life inevitably leads.
It is God saying, “Turn around. What I want from you is to live a life that is abundant and eternal. And you can have it if only you let go the pursuit of self-centered ambition. From now on, talk to me, walk with me, and abide with me. Let us go on in life together.”
And so today, we can go with God, each of us. New life begins the moment we repent. That is God’s promise, renewed every time we come to Christ’s table. Come, my friends, join me at the Table of our Lord.
