Fr. Dale Matson
Repentance and the End Times
This Sunday is the second Sunday in Advent. Today the Second Advent candle called the “candle of the way”, is lit and represents Christ as the light of the world and the way out of sin and darkness. Although last Sunday was the first Sunday in Advent and the first Sunday in the Church year, the Gospel readings for the first Sunday in Advent in years A, B, and C come near the end of Christ’s mission on earth. Last Sunday’s Gospel reading is near his death. In the readings for today, the second Sunday of Advent, our Gospel readings are at the beginning of His earthly ministry. Last Sunday deals with the end times and the return of Christ as Judge. This Sunday deals with repentance and Christ as Savior. So, what is this season of advent about? The season is a time of preparation for the Nativity of Christ and serves as a dual reminder of the original waiting by the Hebrews for the birth of the Messiah as well as the waiting that Christians today endure as they anticipate the second coming of Jesus the Christ. We state both of these beliefs every Sunday when we stand and recite the Nicene Creed. His first coming is stated “Who for us and for our salvation came down from Heaven”. His first coming is for our Salvation. Our belief in His second coming is stated, “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead”. I’d like to quote from our Catechism about the creeds.
(Page 31. Item # 20) “What does belief in the creeds signify?
"Belief in the creeds signifies acceptance of God’s revealed truth and the intention to live by it. To reject any element of the creeds signifies a departure from the Christian faith.” (Matthew 16:13–20; 2 Timothy 3:14–15; 4:1–5; James 2:10–26)" Yet many people today deny that Christ arose from the dead, That Mary was a virgin, That Jesus is both God and man, that Christ will return to judge the living and the dead? Advent is a good time to reflect on the creeds.
Cardinal Robert Sarah recently said, “The church is dying because the pastors are afraid to speak in all truth and clarity. We are afraid of the media, afraid of public opinion, afraid of our own brethren! The good shepherd gives his life for his sheep.” There is a lot said about salvation in the church today but very little about repentance. People no longer seem to be ashamed or take responsibility for their actions. People no longer admit that they lied; they say they were taken out of context. One favorite faux mea culpa that we hear is, “If I have offended anyone, I’m sorry.”
There seems to be a lack of true repentance in our land today. Paul states in 2nd Timothy Chapter 3, “But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. 2For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.”
People are no longer drug addicts. They are victims who have become addicted to prescription medication. We no longer even have criminals. We have medicalized misbehavior and now we call it behavior disorders and personality disorders.
Today even alcoholism is considered a disease, a medical problem, although step six in the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous refers to alcoholism as a “defect of character”.
As it states in our Epistle lesson (2nd Peter), “The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed. Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire? But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.” Notice that Peter is saying here that those who lead holy and godly lives will hasten the coming of the day of the Lord. We usually think that the Day of the Lord is hastened by unrighteous behavior. An important part of leading a holy and godly life is repentance and confession. Everything that is done on earth will be disclosed. Let us just call a life of repentance and confession a proactive approach.
I believe the end times, or the Day of the Lord is nigh upon us. In 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 Paul talks about the two things that must come about before Christ returns. One is the great Apostasy. Christians will fall away, whether it is because of temptation, delusion or persecution. The other thing is God gradually removing the restraint on evil. I believe this is God removing his church. Without Christians there is no bride. There is no church. There is an excellent new book about this called, “A Church In Crisis: Pathways Forward”, By Ralph Martin. In his book, Dr. Martin discusses the growing hostility to the church, ambiguous teaching of the contemporary church, attempting to accommodate the church to the contemporary culture. And as Paul said in 2 Timothy 1:8, “Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God.
There is growing pressure to preach another gospel. About 5 years ago a parishioner confronted me about preaching about Hell. He said to me that a loving God would never consign people to Hell and that if I ever preached about Hell again, He would no longer attend St. James. I have preached about Hell since then but he has not been in the church to hear it. He left the country.
During Covid there has been a tendency to give up our freedoms. Benjamin Franklin said in 1775, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
Mark 1:1-8
The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, "See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: `Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,'" John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, "The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit." In the Gospel of Matthew, John the Baptist is reported as saying, “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Matthew 3:11.
What does John the Baptist mean when he states, “I baptize you with water for repentance.”? He (Christ) will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire”. Are we to understand that there are two baptisms? Didn’t St. Paul say in Ephesians (4:5) “One Lord, one faith, one Baptism”? I believe that there is only one Baptism but as Martin Luther once stated. “We should celebrate our baptism daily, drowning the old man that the new man would come forth.” The more we submit our lives to Christ, the more he empowers us with his spirit and becomes the Lord of our lives not just our savior. Christ’s Lordship does bring fire upon us and he requires us to do things that we could avoid in the past. We must confront those aspects of ourselves that resist His Lordship. Those things should be purged away by the refiner’s fire. We are also challenged by circumstances in our lives that tempt us to turn away from our Lord. Satan attempts to destroy our witness by attempting to discredit our reputation. Remember what it says in Revelation, “….and they defeated him (Satan) by the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony.” (Revelation Chapter 12). Unfortunately, sometimes individuals cooperate with Satan in destroying their own witness. 30 years ago, Jimmy Swaggart was a powerful man of God. He was the most influential televangelist in the world who had his entire ministry destroyed when his ongoing private sexual sins were made public by defrocked pastor Martin Gorman. Ironically, Swaggart had helped destroy Gorman by exposing his sexual sins. Jimmy Swaggart had always spoken very forcefully against sexual sins, and also led the fight for the removal of Jim Bakker from the Praise the Lord (PTL) TV network. He referred to Jim Bakker as "a cancer affecting the body of Christ." “Judge not that ye be not judged.” (Matt. 7:1)
Personal holiness is the beacon that attracts others to leading righteous lives. Virtue is in fact power in and of itself. In the story where the woman with an issue of blood touches the garment of Jesus, she is instantly healed. In the King James Version of the bible, it states, “and Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him. Here, virtue and power are synonymous. The church is big on virtues and lists faith, hope and love as the theological virtues and considers prudence, justice, courage and temperance to be the moral virtues. These are the fruits of or rewards of a holy Christian life.
This baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire is both the power of God and the refining fire of God. We must be empowered but we must also be a Holy People. At the conclusion of Paul’s Ministry, before his death, Paul said that he had run the good race. He meant by this that He did not dishonor His Lord by conduct that would discredit the Gospel message that was entrusted to him.
This baptism of Christ that we have been baptized with empowers us to witness to others; it allows us to understand scripture and gives us a desire to worship together in his body the church. This baptism of Christ provides both the fruit and the gifts of the spirit. It must not be forgotten however that it is also a baptism of ongoing repentance. It is a baptism of fire. To be a holy people we must realize that our holiness is imparted by Christ who is our righteousness. We fall short of being his holy priesthood every day and must confess that we cannot of ourselves even keep the basic two commandments of our Lord. We must confess that we have broken the two great commandments that sum all of the commandments. In the renewed ancient text, we say, “Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you by thought word and deed, by what we have done, and what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent. For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your name, Amen. (Page 130 BCP 2019) This is both repentance and confession. Let us not look at the sin of our neighbor and look self righteously to ourselves. May we repent of our sins, simply seek personal holiness and run the good race that our Lord and Savior has called us to run. Stop looking to the left and to the right. May we not be a stumbling block in the lives of those who do not know Christ and may we never discredit the gospel message through scandalous lives ourselves. Amen.
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