Friday: Repentance Is a Change of Mind
WEEK 39
FRIDAY
REPENTANCE IS A CHANGE OF MIND
Matthew 3:1-2, 7-10
We now turn to the answer given by Peter to the human dilemma, “What should we do?” The first step in the answer is “repent.” Now note he didn’t say, “Do penances”; he said, “Repent” (Acts 2:38 RSV; the CEB has “Change your hearts and lives”). Is there a difference? A very profound and decisive one. In doing penances you try to atone for what you have done by what you are now doing, namely, penances. That puts your eyes on the wrong place, you. Repentance is different. It is literally metanoia, a change of mind or change of outlook or viewpoint. You’ve been looking at the wrong place: your interests, your prestige, your happiness, yourself. Now change your viewpoint in life. Look at God, the kind of God revealed in Jesus; see that you’ve not only broken God’s law but wounded God’s love. Look at yourself and your sins in the light of that love. How do they look? Does it make you change your mind about them? Does it make you want to throw them away and begin all over again? Do your sins become intolerable in the light of what you see in the face of Jesus? Does this make you sorry to the point of not only remorse but renunciation? Do you fling them away and empty your hands so you can take the gift? If so, you’re ready for the next step.
The next step is: “Be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ.” In other words, confess outwardly what has taken place inwardly. Baptism stands as an outer confession of an inner allegiance: “in the name of Jesus Christ.” You belong to him outwardly now as well as inwardly. But suppose that you have already been baptized, then what? Well, confess it publicly by word as baptism was a confession by act. “If you confess with your mouth ‘Jesus is Lord,’ . . . you will be saved” (Rom 10:9). The confession of Jesus, not the mode of confession, is the important thing. It may be by act—baptism, or by word—confessing Jesus is Lord. The confession is the crux. It is the outward revealing of a change of mind. The outward expression deepens the inward impression. Before yourself and the world you come clean.
O Jesus, I have gone through the greatest catharsis, the changing of my mind and the changing of my position before the world. I’m cleansed. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I have changed my mind, not someone else’s, and I’ve changed it wholly.