Repent! - Good News?

Repent!  When we here the word, we usually envision the person on the street corner with a placard or the fire and brimstone preacher pounding on the pulpit.  For us, there’s an ominous quality to the word.  We rarely think of it as good news.   And yet, “Repent” is how Jesus began his ministry and the scripture tells us that it was good news.  How can that be?  Repentance begins with the painful truth that something is fundamentally broken and off in our world and in our lives and needs to change.  Change is at the heart of repentance.  As difficult as it is to hear that word, it’s true.  The shooting in Parkland is just the most recent reminder that the world is broken and change is needed.  As we look at our own lives, we can own that brokenness.  There’s a cause to our sleepless nights and anxious days that needs to be addressed.  With the call to repentance, Jesus is simply speaking the truth.  The good news is that he came not only acknowledge the need for change but to make that change possible.  Grace, the love of God, is the door to new life and new beginnings.  With grace, change happens.  We sees that in the lives of the people Jesus impacted.  Peter was changed.  Mary Magdalene was changed.  Paul was changed.  That power of change was poured out through Christ into whole world.  That’s why Jesus’ call to repent is good news.  The change we need in our lives, the change we need in the world, is made possible through Christ.