After 400 years of silence, some may still find it hard to repent

By Dean Collins

400 years of silence... And then a man dressed in camel hair crunching on a meal of locusts appears to prepare the way for Jesus. What was God’s marketing department thinking?! It just seems like a different approach would have helped explain the silence since Malachi’s last words. Now, without warning, John the Baptist appears, and his first words did not include any explanation for the silence.

A good speaker knows how to warm up the audience. Clearly John the Baptist didn’t go to Toastmasters or take a preaching class at the local seminary; otherwise he would have known better. John’s first and abrupt words were, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” You might close a good seminar or sermon with a call to action, but rarely would one start there. What was the Holy Spirit thinking?!

A call to repent

By the way, a well-raised Jewish person would not necessarily have been thinking much of repentance. After all, they were God’s chosen. They had the Law, the prophets, the traditions and the expectation for the promised Messiah. But after 400 years, you get a little lazy in the waiting and you get a little sloppy in the particulars of faith. That was true for most of the first-century Jews, but not for the Pharisees and Sadducees. They were ramped up on the details of the laws. They had even created extra rules to guarantee they were seen and known as the informed and prepared people of God.

The Pharisees and Sadducees saw no reason to repent. They had history and the Law on their side, and they were quite content that they had no reason to repent.

They had history and the Law on their side, and they were quite content that they had no reason to repent.

John was direct and abundantly clear. Repentance isn’t a feeling. It isn’t about just being sorry for an oops or a sense of guilt over what you did last night or even for the last 20 years. Repentance had to do with the heart. It was a change of heart that launched a change of direction and behavior. Repentance was demonstrated by fruit. John the Baptist was clear that sick trees do not produce fruit; only healthy ones do that.

The Kingdom of God was at hand. Jesus was arriving, and his entrance to the scene would change everything for everyone, for every season, and for all time. And He would call for repentance as well. He would call for fruit that demonstrates changed hearts, too. Actions speak louder than words in the Kingdom of God. Even important words are hollow if there is no action.

More centuries of silence

There is another 400 years of silence we need to talk about. It might make us uncomfortable, but we can’t ignore it. It was 400 years ago that the transatlantic slave trade hit the shores of a new world in Jamestown. I am neither a professional theologian nor a professional historian. But I can read. I can learn. And I can repent.

No I wasn’t around when the slave trade started. None of us created it. It’s not our fault that our country got off on the wrong foot in matters of race and participated in abusive acts of oppression and brutality. And while there is so much to celebrate about America and her greatness, one of the topics we have ignored more than changed is our attitudes, our ignorance, and our actions when it comes to matters of racial justice. We may have the best constitution ever written. We may have the best economic and judicial systems in the world. But our appetite for addressing this lingering and un-Christian silence about race issues must change.

Our appetite for addressing this lingering and un-Christian silence about race issues must change.

As we watch a black man suffocate while he and others plead for help, we cannot look away. Even if an act like this was the first time or the exception, it is not what God wants. It is not representative of the Kingdom of God. But this is not the first time. It is a continuation of a race problem that Kingdom people must address.

More than politicians and laws

You may disagree, but the problem of race will never be solved by politicians. And it won’t actually be changed by laws. The problem of race is a problem of the heart. John the Baptist called for repentance, for changed hearts and behaviors. Jesus does the same, and, even better, Jesus made it possible for our hearts to be transformed. He ushered in a new Kingdom where his will would be done on earth as it is in Heaven. You and I have aligned ourselves with this Kingdom. We’ve prayed his prayer more times than we can remember. And it’s time for us as people of faith to repent of our silence and step into this race problem and work for change.

We can’t fix it alone. And we can’t hide behind how big the problem is. Of course it’s not just an American problem. But we live here and we are called to live out our faith here, not just in far away places through people we send out to do God’s work in distant lands.

More than we’ve done so far

If all of this were easy, I guess we would have solved it by now. I don’t have all the answers. I can’t even articulate the problem well. But I, for one, am convicted that we can and must do more. We must speak up, but maybe the first step is repentance. And the first actions will seem small compared to the size of the problem. But we must begin. Where we are at this moment I am confident is unacceptable and inconsistent with the call of Jesus in our lives.

Where we are at this moment I am confident is unacceptable and inconsistent
with the call of Jesus in our lives.

The problem of racial injustice in our country stems from racial injustices long before Jamestown. We can never go back and get a redo for human failures that are generations old. Neither John the Baptist nor, more importantly, Jesus asked us to do that. What we are called to do is repent and change. The tree of equality in our country is diseased and cannot bear good fruit. Jesus calls us to love each other, to mourn together over our sinfulness, and to practice justice, mercy, and humility.

If we build our lives, our churches, our communities on the practices of Jesus found in his teachings, then we establish a firm foundation. When we build on foundations of racial injustice, hatred, apathy, and silence, the house will fall. The walls of the house are cracking. It’s time to fix the foundation.

Jesus we repent of our silence. Forgive our apathy that continues to allow our brothers created in your image to suffer simply because of skin color.
I pray that all Christians of all colors will first seek you for wisdom and direction. We ask that your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.
And let it begin in our hearts, by our mouths, and through the demonstration that your body, the church is the salt and light that can and will bring the restoration you died for and are establishing. Forgive us for watching instead of participating in real Kingdom transformation.
Amen.

Your time with God’s Word
Matthew‬ ‭3:1-12‬; ‭7:12-20, 24-27‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Photos by Roger Bradshaw and by Bermix Studio on Unsplash

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