Saturday before Theophany; Synaxis of the Seventy Holy Apostles; Our Venerable Father Theoctistus, Hegumen of the Cucomo Monastery in Sicily
Read
1 Timothy 3:14-4:5; Matthew 3:1-11
Christ is born! Glorify Him!
John’s call to repentance was not just to those Gentiles who wished to become Jewish, it was a call to repentance for all people. The Pharisees and Sadducees were upset as this broke with the established presumed order. There were those who believed that when the Messiah comes, the very Messiah of whom John preached, they would be saved because they were Jewish. The temptation was that if we are part of the Chosen People, they would win acceptance by God through the Messiah. The temptation is dangerous. The Lord demanded that you have the outward sign of the covenant between God and Israel (circumcision, see Genesis 17 and Leviticus 12); He also demanded that there be a change in the heart, a circumcision of the heart (e.g. Deuteronomy 10:12-16). Hence, John states to them: “Bear fruit that befits repentance.”
We Christians can fall to a similar temptation – believing that we are saved because we are baptized, chrismated, and have received the Eucharist. There must be, too, an inward change. Repentance is a change. It is a turning to the Lord in all things at all times and simultaneously a turning away from temptation and sin. The fruit is repentance is not only interior but exterior – there is a change in our behaviour, the way we pray, the way we deal with others; there will be peace and joy in our lives despite what circumstances in which we find ourselves. If we could describe Christianity in one word, it is repentance.