New Year resolution

Some atheists may react when I say that they miss out on the most important reality in the universe – God. Yet if God is really there, an objective all-powerful Creator, it stands to reason that wisdom would require us to take that fact on board. That, of course, presupposes the “if”.

I don’t want to rehash the evidence for God’s existence this time. I’d rather encourage people to think, at the beginning of this New Year, whether they need to make some adjustments to their way of life.

I don’t know if it has every occurred to you (as it did to me only a short time ago) that at the beginning of the Gospel record written by Mark, he quotes two extraordinary statements which deserve a moment’s reflection. He quotes in the first 15 verses of his first chapter, two challenging calls, made first by John the Baptist and then by Jesus.

The Baptiser came “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Mark 1.4). A few verses further on, we read, “Jesus went into Galilee proclaiming the good news of God. ‘The time is fulfilled’, he said. ‘The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news’” (Mark 1.14,15).

These two pioneer revivalists proclaimed the same requirement, laying on their listeners the same obligation: “Repent!” To repent means two things: change your mind, and change your way of life. In other words, both Jesus and John the Baptist proclaimed as their first message, that their listeners (probably quite ordinary Jewish people living in Palestine) had to change their ideas and adjust their way of living.

This was a message given to normal good-living religious people. But the presupposition of both preachers was that their audience had “got it wrong” both intellectually and morally; and they needed to change.

It may surprise you to know that this is still the first emphasis of Christian preaching today. It assumes that all people – all listeners – have got it wrong and need to be corrected, reformed, changed by divine truth. This change must take place on two levels – first one’s thinking, and then one’s living. In other words, Christian proclamation, following Jesus’ lead, insists that all people must change: their opinions are wrong and their lives are not blameless.

Now this is quite humbling. To be told you’ve got it all wrong and need to rethink your philosophy of life is a challenge to our pride. Maybe that’s why the Gospel message is not more eagerly received. We don’t like being told we are wrong. We hold to our religious ideas even though we may not have spent much thought acquiring them. But Christianity comes with a messenger out of heaven saying our human ideas are inadequate and need correction.

Christ brings fresh news – Good News – about our relationship with God: he loves us and wants to embrace us in a permanent harmonious relationship which will be a great blessing to us. But to get there we must take on board our need to rethink our ideas of God: Jesus brings unique truth about God that we would never know without his coming. We do well to listen, to read what he says in the Gospels.

And as we do, we will hear him say, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5.32). We are called to stop any unkind, selfish, evil, disobedient behaviour, and start a new life opening our hearts to Christ. This is Jesus’ call for you at the beginning of this New Year.

Clive Every-Clayton