A reading from the Gospel according to Mark 1.9-15

⁹ In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. ¹⁰And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. ¹¹And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved;^*with you I am well pleased.’

¹² And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. ¹³He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

¹⁴ Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news^* of God,^* 15and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near;^* repent, and believe in the good news.’^* 

One of my favourite quotations comes from William Wordsworth, who wrote:

… the best portion of a good man’s life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love …

I want to issue a challenge: Lent is a time of new beginnings, and so let us be people who pay attention to the ‘... little, nameless unremembered acts of kindness and of love...’ If we do this – and I defy anyone to claim that it is not a good idea – then much goodness in our lives will fall into place. If all people did this, whole communities will be transformed. Our society will be a place where we all want to be.

But this does not happen easily; it certainly is no something that we can ever take for granted – in fact I contend that - it is one of the most difficult things for a community to achieve. But it is possible; and the recipe is provided for us in our Gospel reading. Jesus was about to begin his ministry to the people. We were reminded during Lent that John the Baptist had a vital role to play and it is this: the way people grow and develop is through facing up to the reality of who they are and what needs to be changed in their lives. As most people would agree that they are not perfect, there must be some challenge facing everyone at times like this, when we take stock of our lives. This is John the Baptist’s recipe:

Firstly, Mark states that John proclaimed a baptism of repentance for the forgiving of sins. These words are so seldom used these days that they can come across as harsh and strange. When people use them, there is a real danger of being labelled a “Bible basher” or fanatic. And I agree that they have been misused and even abused by some fanatics, but it does not alter the truth that is to be found in this message; a truth that can be life-transforming.

Some people have given up making Lent resolutions because they claim that they never work. Others say that – “… this is who I am, I cannot change, and so people must just accept me for who I am …” I want to suggest that this is sad, because none of it is true. It is only true if the person has never discovered what it means to repent. The Greek word used is metanoein which literally means ‘to change one’s mind’. Valid though this is when one looks into the message of the whole of the New Testament, it means ‘… to turn back’ implying a ‘coming to one’s senses’, a deliberate turning away from one’s sinful past towards God …’ a complete change of conduct.

Rowan Williams provides some further insight. The reason why people sometimes do not change is because they do not really want to; they do not want to repent. This happens when a person only focuses on consequences. They do not really dislike what can be changed; they just dislike the consequences when they are found out! We have all said “Sorry!” when we have been in trouble, and we have really felt sorry because we are in trouble but would not have been if we had not been found out. Rowan Williams explains this in stark, clear language. He writes:

Repentance means that the person who was in love with sin comes to hate sin because of its exceeding sinfulness.

Life transforming change comes when true repentance is part of the equation; without it, we all too easily fall back into our old ways.

Secondly, it involves making a decision. Making a decision to live a better life is one of the secrets of a truly happy and fulfilled life. Professor William Barclay, the late Professor of Theology at Glasgow University writes:

In every life there come moments of decision which can be accepted or rejected. To accept them is to succeed in life; to reject them, or to shirk them, is to fail. … The wasted life, the frustrated life, the discontented life, and often the tragic life is the undecided life. … The drifting life is the undecided life …

King Duncan offers the following thought entitled: It Might Have Been

In the 1800s, poet John Greenleaf Whittier wrote one of his most quoted poems in the English language. The poem was titled, "Maud Muller."  You've never heard of it?  Actually, not many people remember this sorrowful poem, but generations of people have quoted two famous lines from its final stanza.

"Maud Muller" is about a young maiden who, while working the fields one day, sees a handsome young Judge riding by on horseback.  She offers him a drink of cool water.  Their encounter lasts only a few moments, but it makes a deep impression on both of them.  Maud is greatly attracted to the Judge, and she dreams of marrying someone of his gentleness and integrity.  She could leave the fields behind and live as the wife of a wealthy and powerful man.

At the same time, the Judge is attracted to Maud.  He is tired of his career, and he dreams of marrying a warm, compassionate woman like Maud and settling into a simpler life in the country.  But neither Maud nor the Judge acknowledges their attraction to one another.  They are from different social classes---they cannot risk breaking the bonds of social conformity.

Maud later marries a man who brings her much pain and hardship.  The Judge also enters into a loveless marriage.  In the final stanza of the poem, Whittier offers us this warning: "For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: 'It might have been!'" 

Today is a good time to make decisions about our lives and how we are going to live them.

Today is a good time to make decisions about our relationships, particularly those with the members of our family. Perhaps there might be bridges that need to be built or maybe there is a need to state clearly what we have assumed to be known: When last did you say to the members of your family that you love them?

Today is a good time to make decisions about our relationships with our friends. Here too there might be a need for bridge building, apologies, commitments … This leads to my last point

Lastly, it involves identification. Jesus, by his baptism, identified with what John the Baptist was doing and what he stood for. Professor Barclay states:

The really great identification is when a person identifies themselves with a movement, not for their own sake, but for the sake of others.

I want us to be involved in the good things, I want us all to take every opportunity that comes our way with both hands and enjoy them and get the most out of them, but at the same time I want us to repent when we go wrong, not just because we have been found out and the consequences are horrible, but especially because you have got away with it, simply because you know it is wrong. I want us to make decisions that are for the good of ourselves and especially for others, especially our communities but also wider afield as well – not just the big things, because they are not the most important – as Wordsworth has reminded us:

… the best portion of a good man’s life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love …

Amen.