City Life Starter

Written by Paul Lane

The Word

⁴ John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. ⁵ And all the country of Judea was going out to him, and all the people of Jerusalem; and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins. ⁶ John was clothed with camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist, and his diet was locusts and wild honey. ⁷ And he was preaching, saying, “After me One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to bend down and untie the straps of His sandals. ⁸ I baptized you with water; but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

Mark 1:4-8 (NASB)

Reflection

They came to the river because they saw truth.  Here, a man wearing the skins of animals and eating perhaps the simplest diet possible simply said, “repent.”  It is the same message that Jonah was told to deliver, “repent.”  No deeper learning needed.  All the evidence people needed was wrapped up in their lives.  They needed to look no further than their reflections to see that something needed to change, and that they were that something.  So, they came.

Today we have cell phones, which reflect what others do.  With such gazing, what do we see?  Do we see that repentance is for us, or for others?  We can not teach repentance if it is something we never do.  When we think of sin and repentance, we usually think of the question of going to heaven or going to hell, but it is easy to lose sight of that fact that it is about the restoration of the soul.  We must turn away from the things that are destroying God’s image and turn to that which restore it.

The making of disciples is the work of leading people through the journey of repentance and restoration.  But this work is not just a brainless job where you just count the parts you made at the end of the day.  It is as if we work in the finest of workshops, doing the most extraordinary restorations of the finest art ever created.  The canvas of these paintings does not just get a patch on the back.  The threads that are bear are clipped and new strands are woven in. The damaged paint is cleaned with special chemicals, applied with a cue tip.   And when new paint is applied, a new pattern is inscribed by the truest master.  And this master is not one who rushes or tries to complete the work all at the last minutes.  He takes His time and completes it when it is ready. Now, imagine a master who restores paintings that he then uses to restore other paintings.  In this we find the truest nature of discipleship.

Think on this C. S. Lewis quote:

“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously – no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.”

The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis

Application

It is said that at the end of his life the Apostle John would teach crowds the same simple teaching repeatedly.  He would simply say, “just love one another.”  To do this, we must go beyond shallow relationships, like what you might see on the big and little screens.  We must joke and marry, work with, snub when inappropriate, exploit when the neighbor kid is willing to do your lawn, and in all other ways interact with all of the other paintings in the shop, though they are at different stages of restoration that ourselves.  We must love each other, seriously, intentionally, and deeply.

Prayer

Dear Lord, we come to You as master pieces disfigured during a war, and the damage is so great that it is difficult to see Your image.  And we acknowledge that we are the source of that damage.  So, we repent and turn to You, that we may be cleansed and restored.  We pray that You restore Your image to us, breath in us new life that we might be used to restore others.  In Jesus name we pray.  Amen.