“REPENT”
Saint Matthew 11: 12-19
The Festival of The Reformation [observed]: 30 October Anno Domini 2016
Father Jay Watson SSP
The “days of John the Baptist” are the days of repentance and belief. They are days—the time—of The Word of The Lord. While they are not rare or decade specific—they have been with mankind since Adam’s Fall—they reached the fullness of time in Palestine between the years 3 B.C. and 30 A.D. These days of “the Baptist” are the fullness of the “man sent from God, whose name was John” [Jn. 1.6]. The Evangelist makes clear that The Baptist came to be a martyr (in English, a “witness”). John’s martyrdom was his testimony; His witness was his confession of Christ the Light!
John baptized sinners with water. He preached “the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.” [Lk 3. 3] He called the unbelieving Jews who came to him a “generation of vipers” and “to bring forth fruits worthy of repentance” for “every tree…which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.” Repent and believe He thundered. They—Herod, the Pharisees, the heard-hearted sinful hearts, the devil’s children killed him…violently. They cut off his head. John pointed to the Nazarene and confessed “Behold The Lamb of God, Who taketh away the sin of the world” and they killed The Lamb as well—violently. “The Kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.” Such it has ever been and such it will ever be, until The Return of The King.
You mourn the passing of an age…a “golden age” of the Church. There never was such a time. The age of The Church is blood red and signs of The flock are cruciform. The way is the way of the desert, the 40 day/year/life time of repentance and reform. God’s Word accompanies His own in pillar of incense (cloud) and pillar of fire. God hides His Trinitarian Glory behind masks of means; instruments of Grace. Until at last The Lord came in The Flesh—Immanuel. You lament the dying embers of what you think was a “republic,” a civil culture, even the patrimony of The West. These social constructs were indeed better than what is coming, to be sure, but they too were capable, and in fact became, “golden calves.” The mammon you so sinfully rely upon is nothing more than an empire of dust. John preaches to you: “repent and believe; the Kingdom of heaven is at hand!”
The violence suffered by Adam as he was stripped of innocence and the Garden; of Abel as he was violently slain—his blood crying out to God; of all the persecuted, imprisoned, slandered, deported, mocked, and martyred Hebrew Saints find a focal point in John…but only a penultimate one. For John is indeed not worthy to stoop down and untie Messias’ sandals. But he is welcomed as a dear child to stoop down, to genuflect to God in the flesh: “and was made man.”
And now in these dark and latter days, this time of the New Testament, be alert; be on guard; for the kingdom of heaven will and does suffer violence! Be watchful for your adversary the devil prowls about you like a lion seeking whom he may devour. Be doubly alert against the traitorous old Adam within your own heart, your own will, your own brain and mind. Drown that Judas goat in the Blood of the Lamb as you receive Holy Mass every Lord’s Day.
Don’t look for and self-congratulate yourselves this day with heroic and triumphalistic backslaps. The only heroism is on display, hanging over the altar in visual form. The heart and center of This Feast is not the faithful parish pastor or the outspoken theology professor; it is The Crucified God suffering, bleeding, and dying. The Lion of Judah defeated the faux lion. Jesus suffered violence on the tree so that you would not suffer violence in hell. Christ had His precious Body reformed with thorns and nails so that the Paraclete might reform you in The Lamb’s Water and Word.
The Holy Ghost calls you by The Gospel. The Evangel is Christ and Him crucified for your forgiveness. The Spirit restores you and reforms you in the Blessed Image of your Lord—The God/Man.
In the Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost
Email the webmaster.Contact Augsburg Lutheran Church: (913) 403-6194