John went throughout the whole region of the Jordan,
proclaiming a baptism of repentance
When we hear that word, repentance,
what immediately comes to mind?
We often think of Lent when we think of repentance,
we think of a lenten journey, turn away from sins.
It is the focus of Lent.
The translation of that word for “Repentance” is unfortunate
as the orginal is much richer—metanoia.
It is actually quite a hard word to translate
because it does not really mean repentance
as much as it means to turn away or reset your mind or heart.
It is to turn your mind or heart back to God.
It is it to move your heart beyond what it is today,
a call to reset our spiritual heart.
What does it mean to reset our spiritual heart?
Let’s start by looking at our physical heart for a moment.
As a result of having a heart condition called AFib,
and having an ablation surgery with that condition.
I have had to learn a lot about the health of the heart
and how important it is.
There are a couple things I have learned
that been crucial for good heart health, and thus for my life
because you can not live without the heart.
The number one is nutrition.
Nutrition has a huge impact on the health of your heart.
There are a certain foods that are obvious.
If we eat a lot of fatty foods,
then it will clog up the arteries of our heart.
The thing you have to understand about the heart,
that there are two components there.
Think of the heart as having plumbing and having electrical.
The plumbing is all the fluid going in and out.
And the electrical makes it fire in rhythm.
In my case, it is all about the electrical.
But if the electrical is not working right,
then one can get a stroke easily among other things.
If the plumbing gets kicked in
then one can have what is known as a “heart attack”
because of the blockage.
So, nutrition plays a incredibly important role
to keep those arteries flowing and not clogged.
Food and nutrition are important, but another is exercise.
The heart is a muscle.
We have to exercise that muscle and keep it healthy.
But we can exercise it too much and then we enlarge it.
It is good to have a large heart,
but we have to exercise the right amount to have a a healthy heart.
Then there is the one that is probably the least obvious, rest.
The heart needs rest. It needs sleep.
In particular, it is during sleep
that the heart gets the greatest amount of rest and rejuvenation.
And if we do not give it enough rest,
then the heart will start to overwork.
Now these things intertwined.
If you do not get the right food,
or in particular if we take too much alcohol too close to bed,
then we will not get the right sleep.
And that means our heart is racing all night.
And if our heart is racing all night, it does not get the rest.
And if it does not get the rest,
then it, we are shortening its life.
The reason why I bring all this up is because,
we believe that we have a spiritual heart
and the same components play a role for its health.
Our spiritual heart needs spiritual nutrition.
And the primary nutrition is to come each Sunday
to the table of the Lord to receive the body and the blood of Christ,
which we believe is as spiritual nutrition.
We also listen to the word of God
and we believe that is spiritual nutrition.
But we also come to be with each other and the priest
in the community of the Eucharist, which is the body of Christ,
which is also spiritual nutrition.
We need connection and community.
These are the four modes of Christ at the Eucharist each Sunday.
But we also know that once a week exercises
are not enough for the physical heart.
It is not also enough for the spiritual heart.
We need nourishment throughout the week.
We need to be able to read from scripture each day and and pray.
This is why this action, this prayer is important to nourish the soul.
We can also read spiritual books,
but primarily the nourishment we get is
through private prayer and communal prayer.
And then comes exercise.
The spiritual heart needs exercise.
That exercise is doing good works.
This is how we exercise the muscle of our spiritual heart.
We do not grow in in muscle strength unless we serve others.
This is where we are not just kind and gentle
and forgiving to our neighbors and our family,
but we go beyond that and we serve those who are most in need,
those who are on the periphery.
Those who are most in need.
And why?
Because that is how we exercise our spiritual heart.
That is what the Lord has called us to do.
The Lord commands us to serve one another as he has served us.
To love one another as he had loved us.
The last one that we have to be mindful of is
that is easily forgotten is rest.
The spiritual heart needs rest.
Now it just goes along with the physical heart here.
If it does not get rest, then we are constantly stressed
and the spiritual heart will not last for the whole of our life.
We need this rest and that is why the Lord commanded a sabbath.
The the day when we rest in the Lord.
Then we would take our time to pray,
take our time to do spiritual reading
and the time to do exercise for others and serving others.
This is the journey we go on in Advent.
Last is to rest in the Lord.
Our theme for the whole year is
“Be still and know that I am God.”
But during the advent period it is
to be still and be joyful with the Lord.
In the current secular climate today,
we have the craziness and the busyness of Christmas.
We cannot stop all the shops doing what they need to do
and to try to get us ramped up and amped up on all the purchasing.
But we can take a rest from it
and to be still with the Lord.
We need to nourish our bodies, our spiritual hearts.
We need to exercise our spiritual hearts
and we need to rest our spiritual hearts.
So today, as we seek to have this metanoia mindset,
this idea that we are resetting our heart,
we focus on the message of the incarnation at Christmas,
that Christ became one of us to show God is love for us.
We come to, to nourish our spiritual heart.
We come to exercise our spiritual heart,
and we come to rest in the Lord and know that he is God.
John went throughout the whole region of the Jordan,
proclaiming a baptism of repentance
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