One of our youngest granddaughter's most beloved tv programs is Bubble Guppies. In each episode, Mister Grouper asks "What time is it?" and the response is "It's time for lunch." The show plays at different times of day and I never have a problem with his conclusion! Within the text of the Bible, there are two words for time, kairos and chronos. The latter is what we mean when we say it is eleven a.m., Central Time. On the other hand, kairotic time is what time it is on "God's watch." In fullness of God's time, things happen. At the right times, Jesus is commissioned by the Baptiser, enters wilderness to wrestle with his demons (ways of capitalizing on his charisma to become the first-century equivalent of a rich tv evangelist), and then picks up the torch to carry forward John's message that the Kingdom of God is near.
Jesus counsels us to "repent and believe in the Good News." That is good advice at any time, though left to our own devices, to our moral clocks, we'd likely never get around to the hard work of coming right with God and others. Fortunately, we are blessed because Holy Mother Church in her wisdom provides in the course of the Christian Year, the season of Lent, with disciplines intended to help us in this spiritual walk. You get out of Lent pretty much what you are willing to invest in it. Fasting and abstinence and sacrifice have no intrinsic value apart from instilling self-discipline and helping to frame our minds and hearts as we make the journey towards Good Friday and Easter.
Having said that, I ask: What does it means to "repent and believe in the Good News?" Let us note that repentance is not feeling bad, focussing on regret, or living in the past. In the sacred languages, repentance is teshuvah (Hebrew) turning round to go in the right direction, metanoia (Greek), a new mindset focussed forwards, and poenitentiam agere (Latin), to do penance, to take action in the right direction in response to the new mindset! All of these are about making the change we need, being the change we want to see in the world.
Belief is not assent to creedal propositions, faith statements, or doctrinal pronouncements. All of those have their place, but New Testament belief is pistis, which means radical and unconditional reliance and trust in God through Jesus Christ. It calls us to surrender to Holy Spirit, to turn over everything we are and have to God's service --time, talent, and treasure. It means to become a new person, walking a new kind of life. For us Christians that means growing in faithfulness to the life and actual teachings of Jesus -- being seriously dedicated to building the Divine Kingdom.
In todays' Tulsa World there is an article about my dear friend Eva Unterman. Eva is a Holocaust survivor, being one of a few who made it out alive from the death camps to find a new life after World War II. I have a fond memory of one day when she shared with me the contents of a small metal box, in which she keeps souvenirs of those evil days, including a yellow Judenstern, the Star of David emblem she had to wear on her dress in public . Eva could have become an embittered, selfish person. That would be understandable. Instead she has spent her life teaching and serving children who never had to live the ordeal of her childhood. Now, well into retirement, she knits beautiful scarves to raise money for Hispanic youth in Tulsa. That to me is a snapshot of what it means to "repent and believe" as demonstrated by a life in the right direction, constantly strengthened by a deep trust in God.
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