Keep on dancing...

Dear Friends,

On Christmas Eve, we danced. We celebrated because St. John’s Gospel makes clear: “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.” This Sunday, we’ll read similar news from St. Matthew:    

The people who sat in darkness

have seen a great light,

and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death

light has dawned (Matthew 4:16)

For those oppressed by the powers of Sin and Death, this is reason to dance. It is in light of this new context of hope—of having been set free—that Jesus proclaims, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”   

But what does it mean to repent?

For some of you. this word brings to mind the image of a man with a sign yelling at you. When Jesus says “repent,” he is saying, “Be of a new mind;” “change your whole way of thinking;” “wrap your mind around this!”

This isn’t so much a call to get your act together. This is a call to embrace a completely different kind of reality: the unexpected reality of God’s gracious love has invaded this broken world. “The kingdom of God has drawn near!”

So what does this new reality look like?

It is marked by the forgiveness of sins, the undoing of all that has gone wrong, the inversion of tit for tat. This new reality has its consequences—it will cause us to doubt our common-sense notions of how the world works—but it’s also the greatest news of all:

Despair does not have the final word! Death has no dominion over us. We need be nihilists and stoics no more.

And so we keep dancing. 

Alleluia, alleluia,

Ben