Repent! Change! Turn! Why not?

 I've seen this image many times before. I've seen not just an image, but the real thing while I worked at Armco Steel in years past. The reading from Matthew 3:1-12 (read it!) reminded me of my past. 

In the reading, John the Baptist is in the wilderness, baptizing, of course... duh! 

Even through the food that John lived on, he relied on food provided by God the Creator. It was food that God gave directly. Food that didn't need human intervention. Honey... from the bees... some say it was sweetness from pods naturally grown, and locust, well they don't need any human intervention either. John depended on life totally from God.

 John's life was God given towards a God ordained task. All of us are given life and God has a task for each and every one of us. 

John's task was to turn folks around. John declared in the midst of the wilderness, "Repent!" But why?

Well... if I just look at myself. I have so many reasons to repent. I can reflect on my daily life and see reasons to repent. I see things I've said and done that just ain't quite right. In fact, some of those things are downright wrong towards God and towards those people I encounter each day. So... I NEED to repent. I need to change my mind for the better. But how?

It's easy to look to my own sin and explain it away. I can rationalize my bad behavior. Christians do this all the time. They don't look to their own sin, they look to the sins of other people and judge the other person. I do that too much... way too much. So, I need to put away all that phony Church Man, or Church Lady stuff and look at myself. Look at my relationship with God and with those God gives to me and see first hand my sin. See my sin up close and disturbingly uncomfortable. See my failure to live the life God wants me to live. I need to repent!!!

But still, why?

John's God given task was to open the eyes of the people. People then and today. John's baptism of repentance was to wash us and turn us around. You see, John was pointing to Jesus the Messiah. John wants you and me to look to our past... repent... then turn to life in Christ. 

It's the only way. I can't make all of those things of which I repent right again. Only Jesus can. So John tells me that Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. 

Whoa!!! Fire? Yep, fire. And thus comes my Armco Steel image.

You see, when I daily repent, when I daily turn to Jesus for new life and a new day, God turns up the heat a little bit. Each day, a little hotter. And finally when the crap from the metal rises to the top. God, through Jesus, scrapes all my junk and sin away. Jesus takes it away... I can't. 

Well guess what? Eventually all that crap on top will boil away and when Jesus looks into that pot of molten metal of myself, Jesus will begin to see himself more clearly in me.

Now that's an Advent of Jesus coming I didn't expect. Jesus coming to me in and through the forgiveness of sin, each and every day of my life. All due to Jesus taking away my sin.

So there you have it. Why does the pot of molten metal remind me of repentance? Because it's all about Jesus Advent, his coming into my world, into my life, into my very being.

Repent! Change! Turn! Why not?

Let Jesus scrape all that crap away and live your life today anew in him and for him and for all those God gives to you each day, in newness of life. God is all you need after all... just ask John.

God gives you life each day and gives you his task as well.

Come, Lord Jesus, come.

Thanks be to God, today, tomorrow, and forever.