Planting Seeds Day 11: Repent!

You can plant seeds one by one with your own green or not-so-green thumb, or use a big noisy and smelly machine to do all the work for you. Not that God has anything against machinery for farmers! But when we move forward to plant seeds for His kingdom, God wants a personal touch. He wants our whole attention and our inner person at rights with Him. He asks us to be conscious of our sin and repent as needed (daily, right?) and to serve Him and others with humility, not seeking attention for ourselves, like John the Baptist.

Now in those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” The prophet Isaiah spoke of him, “He is the voice calling from the wilderness for all to prepare the way of the LORD.” John himself had a garment of camel’s hair, a leather belt and his food was locusts and wild honey. Matthew 3: 1-4 

Clothes do more than cover us, keep us warm or keep us pleasantly adorned. They are a vestige of our ancestor’s need to protect themselves from the environment. Nowadays, a lack of appropriate clothing symbolizes a vulnerability and a comparison with others that can highlight shame or misplaced pride.  

John the Baptist was identified as the first prophet in 400 years, by Jesus, and he dressed the part! He wore camel hair sackcloth, a coarse and loosely woven garment, which represented a special prophetic call for personal and national repentance. His message and his demeanor were one of humility. He was there to proclaim and plant seeds so they would know that someone greater was coming! Jesus was coming!

Fasting, while wearing sackcloth and ashes, throughout the ages symbolized repentance, mourning, submission and self-humiliation. In Isaiah 58, God tells us that He is done with Israel’s public demonstration of repentance and humility that did not truly indicate an internal submission to Him. 

As we have seen in prior blogs that talk about fasting, the way God wants us to show our true repentance is not by fasting as a ritual but by our lasting response to Him and His people: Champion freedom. Root out oppression. Feed the hungry. Shelter the homeless. Cover the naked. Help your family. 

Repentance is work! Because we must do the inner work first. We receive the forgiveness of God and agree with Him that we are wrong. We repent and turn away from our own selfish needs and our inadequate power and resources. We turn around to face Him, the Lord of the Universe, and the very power of God is now in our hands.  

Our response, in gratitude, is to use those hands to serve Him by serving the people He puts in our path that are needy. Or, we may even be called to seek them out. 

Fasting and wearing sackcloth was a public demonstration. Jesus reminds us that now God wants us to give and pray and fast in secret (Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18), not to try to be noticed or praised or seen by people. Our reward is with Him! 

When is the last time you “wore the sackcloth of ritual” for others instead of responding to God in secret?

How did that coarse fabric really feel?

How does giving and serving in secret feel? 

Lord, make it clear to me that the fruit of my repentance is not penance, but a freer response to the love You show me. Amen.