Baptism of Repentance unto the Remission of Sins…
Today in particular, as we approach the end of the year together – in about twenty-four hours we’ll enter the new year – the reading offers us two passages which are much needed.
In the second verse, we read: As it is written in the Prophets, behold, I send My messenger before Your face, who will prepare Your way before You. When the fullness of time had come, the hour of the incarnation of the Son of God, God sent His messenger – in this particular case, John the Forerunner – to prepare the way through which Christ will later pass.
The voice of one crying in the wilderness: prepare the way of the Lord; make straight His paths. This messenger will be a voice in the wilderness and he will say: “Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight the paths that He will cross.” In other words, John the Forerunner comes to prepare the people, the entire world, preaching repentance as the Gospel states more specifically in what follows: John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins… This is the chief work of John the Baptist: he preaches that people should repent and be baptized, so that their sins might be forgiven them.
One might make the argument that these things are not necessary for us now, since we have already believed in Christ, we have already been baptized, we belong to the Church, and we partake of the mysteries of the Church. Is this preaching of John the Forerunner relevant to us? In what ways are we to prepare and what paths are we to make straight for the Lord to pass through, since we have already accepted the Lord, we already believe in the Lord, and furthermore, through the mystery of the Holy Eucharist, we receive His Body and Blood, partaking within us of the Lord Himself?
Still, as the holy Fathers say – Saint Isaac the Syrian in particular emphasizes this – repentance is for beginners, for those in the middle, and even for those who are perfect. Repentance, says Saint Isaac, is the entranceway into paradise. The Lord Himself, when He came, preached repentance, the apostles preached repentance, and all the Fathers and saints until the present day preach repentance.
Repentance is not something that occurs once and is over. If this is the case, most likely it never truly happened in the first place. Given that a person never ceases to be sinful, repentance must never come to an end. If one were to forget about repentance, if one does not have repentance implanted continually within his soul, at once, all the deeply rooted weeds of sin will re-awaken inside him and he will become unrecognizable – certainly worse off than before. A principal reason we Christians vegetate and are stagnant spiritually is this: we do not repent, we do not preserve repentance perpetually within ourselves, and we do not live in repentance.
“Make Ready”
Furthermore, we must pay attention to our preparation. The Forerunner invites us to make ready the way of the Lord and to make His paths straight. As we find ourselves at the dawn of the new year, together with repentance I think that it is important to pay special attention to the verb make ready. What impresses me a great deal, which I think is most necessary, is the phrase: Make straight His paths. He means here what we have said on various other occasions: we must be direct; we must be genuine before God.
How great it would be, how much more different we would become – certainly, we would make a good start and we would experience new understandings – if only we paid attention to this one point: “Make straight the paths of the Lord.” The Lord wishes to enter into us. Consequently, we need not prepare some other paths or some other trails. We ought to prepare our own souls. Therefore, all things are to be made straight within our souls. This is nothing else but authenticity, that we be authentic and genuine before God.
If at this hour and from this point forward, we try within ourselves to cultivate this truth – meaning to be genuine with the Lord, to be honorable before the Lord, and to be true – we will certainly see things from a different perspective! I beg you not to immediately make haste and to question and to inquire as to what these words mean. We can all understand. If within our hearts we assume an authentic stance before the Lord, many things will change, and we will see many things in a different light. Right off the bat, let me say that everything that each of us says and offers as excuses – “These things are hard, I can’t, it’s impossible, I can’t last, nowadays things don’t happen as they used to” – all these things are falsehoods.
Let none of us, please, become puzzled and make haste to bring forth arguments. There are no arguments. Falsehood exists within us, hypocrisy exists, and we want to patch things up here and there in a haphazard way. Given that the Lord made the decision to come to earth, this implies that the world – people in general who live on the earth – can accept it. He would not have come otherwise. Furthermore, this means that all people can prepare their souls.
Since the Lord decided to come into the souls of each of us, each of our souls can be genuine and honorable, dismissing every which kind of distraction to repent in truth. The Lord speaks; we do not speak. The Lord speaks; there is no place for our own thoughts that we find such things difficult, impossible, like this or like that, attempting to escape either here or there. The Lord speaks; the Lord comes; the Lord works. Does He not know? Does He not discern? And He does not exclude anyone; He does not come merely for some. He comes for all, for everyone and for each of us individually. He wishes to enter into each of our souls and to be enthroned there, making man’s soul a true church within which abides the Holy Spirit, through Whom the Lord dwells in the soul.
Genuine, Honorable, True, and Direct
I do not overlook the fact that there are likely some here now present and others who might hear the words that we say, who will start to contrive arguments and various excuses – it is not like this, it is not like that… All of these things surface from the fact that falsehood has been enthroned within the soul and not truth. This is the truth of the matter: You are a sinner, but the Lord has decided to save you. You are a sinner, but the Lord has decided to come reside in your soul. The Lord, however, before He can come into your soul, waits for you to prepare it. This implies that you are able to prepare your soul. All the other things, no matter how much you think you can justify and support your arguments, all the other things are lies. In the end, you are a liar, you are a hypocrite.
In this manner, we can better understand what is said in the Book of Revelation: But there shall by no means enter it – into the kingdom of God – anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or lie. Additionally, Outside – of God’s kingdom – is whoever loves and practices a lie. The lie is not some little white lie which one might say, realize, and confess: “Oh, no, I told a lie; forgive me, my God.” The lie is falsehood which is enthroned deep in the soul, which causes you to see things as difficult, to see things as impossible, and this causes you to become wholly dishonorable, devoid of any authenticity or forthrightness before God. The Lord passes you by and departs from you, because you are not ready. You are not ready, not because you were unable to prepare or didn’t have the time, but because you did not want to prepare yourself.
It is true that such things may not happen consciously such that one might say: “I do not accept Christ.” No one says such lies consciously. Rather, this is exactly what we must do at this specific hour: not hesitate to enter deeply within our souls to uncover our own desolate spiritual condition in its entirety. The Lord is ready and able to help us. Let us decimate, in the good sense of the word, everything inside us. Specifically, let us cast out falsehood, hypocrisy, and self-justification, so that our false feelings of comfort and security can vanish. These things must depart so that the path can be opened, so that the Lord, Who is truth and love, can enter into us so that both love and truth can be enthroned within, so that we can be genuine and true, so that true love can enter within. Not the selfish love that people nowadays have among themselves.
Furthermore, when you beg God, for example, to heal you – not that you should refrain from this: do it – or you ask Him to grant you some rest, given that you are pressured by the weight of your own sins, and you beseech Him with all the strength of your soul with genuineness, we do these things out of selfishness. We must advance further than this. We must become ever truer; more direct, more genuine.
Let none of us say: “My, my, how difficult all this is!” It is not difficult. We make things difficult. These lies and these affectations, self-justifications, and deceit are the difficult things. All the other things just appear to be difficult. However, if you accept them, you become true, you accept the true God of truth, Who is love and makes you too, true and full of His love.
December 31st, 1995