The first words Jesus Christ speaks in the Gospel of Mark — the first of the gospels to be written down, according to scholars, are these:
“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: Repent ye, and believe the gospel.”
As I read those words during the special Christmas worship service in my ward on Sunday, it reminded me of a Puritan prayer I read last week:
Let me learn by paradox that the way down is the way up,
That to be low is to be high,
That the broken heart is the healed heart,
That the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
That the repenting soul is the victorious soul.
David Brooks shared that prayer in his outstanding column about his journey to faith in adulthood. He said it helped open him to the wonder of belief.
“Look at the inverse logic in those verses ... This logic struck me as both startling, revolutionary and astonishingly beautiful. I had the feeling I had glimpsed a goodness more radical than anything I had ever imagined, a moral grandeur far vaster and truer than anything that could have emerged from our prosaic world.”
Brooks then made an interesting connection, he said.
“It hit me with the force of joy. Happiness is what we experience as we celebrate the achievements of the self — winning a prize. Joy is what we feel when we are encompassed by a presence that transcends the self. We create happiness but are seized by joy — in my case by the sensation that I had just been overwhelmed by a set of values of intoxicating spiritual beauty. Psychologists have a name for my state on that mountaintop: moral elevation. I wanted to laugh, run about, hug somebody.”
Interestingly, David French made a related point in a column a few days later, referring to what his former pastor called “the upside-down kingdom of God” that began with “an upside-down birth.”
For example, he said, “If a person is going to look for a coming king, the last place you’re going to start is in a stable.”
French was writing about how Jesus approached power.
“He rejected it in word and deed,” French wrote. “... He constantly behaved in a way that confounded every modern understanding about how to build a movement, much less how to overthrow an empire.
“He withdrew from crowds. When he performed miracles, he frequently told the people he healed not to tell anyone else. When he declared, near the end of his life, that we are to ‘render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s,’ he not only rejected the idea that he was Caesar, he also rejected the idea that Caesar’s domain was limitless.”
Ultimately, he yielded to torture and death.
“When Jesus did triumph, he didn’t triumph over Caesar,” French wrote. “He triumphed over death itself. When he ascended into heaven after his resurrection, he left earth with Caesar still on the throne.”
These three messages — “Repent ye” ... “The repenting soul is the victorious soul” ... the upside down birth of a king — reminded me of core themes from President Russell M. Nelson’s ministry.
He has taught repeatedly that repentance is meant to be joyful, not shameful. Here are three brief examples:
“Today, I call upon you to rededicate your lives to Jesus Christ,” he said in October. “... Come unto Christ and offer your whole [soul]’ to him. This is the secret to a life of joy!”
“The gospel of Jesus Christ is a gospel of repentance. Because of the Savior’s Atonement, his gospel provides an invitation to keep changing, growing and becoming more pure. It is a gospel of hope, of healing and of progress. Thus, the gospel is a message of joy! Our spirits rejoice with every small step forward we take,” he said in April 2021.
“Too many people consider repentance as punishment,” he said in April 2019. “(Satan) tries to block us from looking to Jesus Christ, who stands with open arms, hoping and willing to heal, forgive, cleanse, strengthen, purify and sanctify us ... When Jesus asks you and me to ‘repent,’ he is inviting us to change our mind, our knowledge, our spirit — even the way we breathe. He is asking us to change the way we love, think, serve, spend our time, treat our wives, teach our children and even care for our bodies.”
Certainly, that one line from the Puritan prayer quoted by Brooks could be a headline atop President Nelson’s teachings about the gift of repentance Jesus Christ provided through his birth, life, death and resurrection.
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