Scripture: Mark 1:4 — “John the Baptist proclaimed a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”
Exhortation: Baptism initiates us into a life – a way or path – of repentance. When we are baptized, we become lifelong penitents. When John baptized Jesus, the Spirit kissed him with approval and anointed him with herself, for he took upon himself the weight of people’s collective sins and bore them before the Divine. This drove him into the desert to mourn over our sins and to grieve over what our sins mean in the sight of God. Jesus never stopped being a penitent: one who lives day by day a life of repentance. Penitents mourn for the way the world is, and for their own lives too. For we too are sucked into the sinfulness of our society and culture. Its sins are ours. Hamas’ and Israel’s sins are both our own, including the painful past of oppression that led to what we see today. The sins of settler colonialism, America’s past and present, white people’s racial crimes against Indigenous, Black, Latino, and Asian people – when we inherit this society, these sins become our own, we benefit from them, we are therefore involved in them whether we choose to be or not. Penitence means we take this on and, instead of “fleeing from the wrath of God,” we bear its weight before God, and – while bearing it as our own – take responsibility for it and take on God’s own feeling towards it as our own. As penitents – those baptized into the baptism of Jesus – we embrace a life that does not countenance such sins, that rejects them, and, instead, values what they deny: poverty, humility, and love.
Prayer: “Give us grace to imitate your Son in the humility and purity of his first coming.”
Your Humble Servant Council
Petra, Owusu, Kathy, Ron, Magdalena, Deb
May we pray for Peace in places where there is war. Reconciliation where there is division.
Hope where there is despair. Love where there is hatred.