Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand

 Now when Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, He departed to Galilee.  And leaving Nazareth, He came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is by the sea, in the regions of Zebulun and Naphtali, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying:

"The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali,
By the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan,
Galilee of the Gentiles:
The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light,
And upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death
Light has dawned."

From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, "Repent, for the  kingdom of heaven is at hand."

- Matthew 4:12-17

Yesterday we read that, after His Baptism by John, Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry.  Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread."  But He answered and said, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'"  Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down.  For it is written:  'He shall give His angels charge over you,' and, 'In their hands they shall bear you up, / Lest you dash your foot against a stone.'"  Jesus said to him, "It is written again, 'You shall not tempt the LORD your God.'"  Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.  And he said to Him, "All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me."  Then Jesus said to him, "Away with you, Satan!  For it is written, 'You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.'"  Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.

 Now when Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, He departed to Galilee.  And leaving Nazareth, He came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is by the sea, in the regions of Zebulun and Naphtali, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying:  "The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, / By the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, / Galilee of the Gentiles: . . .  My study bible explains that the term Galilee of the Gentiles indicates that many non-Jews lived in this region.  As it had a mixed population, Galilee was not considered to be a genuinely Jewish land, although many of its Gentile residents had converted to Judaism during the Maccabean period.  As many of the Jews there had been influenced by Greek culture and customs, they were generally looked upon as second-class citizens by Jews of Judea.

"The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, / And upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death / Light has dawned."  Darkness in this context is an indication of ungodliness, my study bible says.  In this case, it's a representation of the unawareness of God by the Gentiles, and the Jews being under the shadow of the Old Covenant.  To sit in darkness means to be surrounded in spiritual ignorance.  The great light is the gospel of Jesus Christ.   The entire Scripture quotation is from Isaiah 9:1-2.

From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, "Repent, for the  kingdom of heaven is at hand."  My study bible points out here that Christ's first word, just like that of John the Baptist, is "Repent."  The kingdom of heaven, it says, is present wherever Christ is.

I recently read an article about an institution called The Other Side Academy, an institution which takes in -- for a minimum two-and-a-half-year commitment -- people with the most-difficult seeming problems, stemming from childhoods of violence, poverty, crime, and abuse.  Its rigor begins with a refusal to discuss the past, and a system of conduct which emphasizes mutual correction. Each participant in The Other Side Academy program is bound to keep the rules enforced through vociferous correction of fellow participants, overlooking absolutely no infringement  Those who enter are all adults with troubling records of many convictions, incarcerations, addictions, violence, and patterns of destruction.  But this mutual correction is the gateway to eventually exploring -- and re-writing through deep honesty -- the past and the possibilities for change into the future.  It is a way to reset, to begin again, to turn around.  It is a reorientation to everything in one's life.  At its heart, it seems to me, is the entire concept of repentance (see the article here).   We may think of repentance as one thing and another, and in the context of our faith simply mourning the things we've done that we can name as sins, but repentance can take on a potent number of aspects, if we but allow it to do so.  Repentance, first of all, begins with a kind of responsibility, a willingness to understand the power of our own choices, and that we can choose differently.  It encompasses the action of a willingness to reconsider our own behavior and our own choices to think one way and another.  Most of all, repentance is a question -- in the spiritual context -- of turning back to God, and turning things over to God.  In the Greek, the word for repentance -- metanoia/μετανοια -- simply means "change of mind," and that is perhaps the best place to start when thinking about repentance.  Repentance, like the program discussed in the article about The Other Side Academy, is a process of changing one's mind, one that can work in the most profound ways for an entire reorientation toward life and toward our places in the world and in relation to God.  To "change one's mind" isn't merely to make a new decision regarding how we feel about one thing and another.  It is, in fact, to be transformed, to change ourselves, and therein is our orientation to our very existence changed.  So much depends upon what it is we look to in order to define the good, and herein comes the power of the ministry of Jesus.  For Christ does not ask us, completely on our own, to invent new ways of thinking or to correct ourselves without guidance.  Jesus calls us to Himself, in personal and intimate relationship, to participate in His very life, so that we can learn from Him.  In His words in today's reading, He invites us into His Kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, and tells us that our own orientation -- in the act of repentance -- must be toward that Kingdom and what it offers us.  As my study bible says, where Christ is, there is the Kingdom.  It is present wherever Christ is.  And so, in all forms of repentance, we turn to Him.  We might find our repentance taking the form of learning what abuse and self-destruction really is, and repenting of our old patterns in which we ignored such things or characterized them as that which we only deserved or were good for us.  In our repentance, we may find that behaviors we let "slide" are destructive not only to ourselves but also toxic or poisonous to other relationships as well.  In our repentance, we may find that what we thought was perfectly good and fine can stand some improvement, that there is a better "good" where Christ takes us than that with which we were previously satisfied.  Repentance can take on all sorts of forms, but always has as characteristic a drive toward what is truly better, and a need not simply to correct others but to accept correction ourselves first.  Repentance is an ongoing and constant process in our faith, as we move more and more toward Christ, cementing our dependence upon His guidance, and become willing to submit more of our lives to Christ's guidance.  Repentance is not moving simply from something "bad" to something "good."  Repentance is moving -- as the quotation from Isaiah indicates -- from a place of relative darkness and into the light that shows us what's better.  This applies to any and all circumstances, no matter how comfortable or known the darkness, no matter how uncomfortable the movement to the light.  In short, repentance is about claiming a life in Christ's light, and the constant turning again to Christ for the next place He wants us to go, the new thing He wants to shift within us, the new place or potential that lies before us in this journey of faith.  He tells us, "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls" (11:29).  This process is the substance of our faith, the ongoing movement within us, where we always begin again.  Let us have the courage to take it up today, even now, and accept the place He leads us toward -- our reorientation and "change of mind."