The Second Tuesday In Advent

THE SECOND TUESDAY IN ADVENT

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

(I got 2^nd Sunday and Monday confused this

week due to illness.  But I’m back on track.)

Matthew 3:7-10  ⁷But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?  ⁸Bear fruit worthy of repentance.  ⁹Do not presume to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our ancestor'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.  ¹⁰Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

Another word about repentance – Repentance is like planting and tending a garden.  In the Spring I prepare the bed by clearing it of all weeds that have sprung up, tilling the soil, planting the seeds or plants.  I stand back and admire the weedless soil, straight lines of the seed beds and plants.  But a week or two later, the weeds are back.  So I clean it out once again and then admire my work, only to have to do it again and again and again all summer long.  Those weeds have a way of coming back.

If I work at it a little each week, I can keep ahead of the weeds and each week it becomes easier and easier to keep the garden clean.  But if I let it go the weeds will take over and removing them could harm to produce.

So it is with my sin.  I can repent and change my ways, turn around go in the opposite direction (remember that’s what metanoia means) but my sin has a way of cropping up again and again and again.  Each time I repent makes the next time easier.  And like the produce in the garden, we grow and grow more and more into the people God created us to be. 

SO WHAT is the sin the keeps cropping up in your life for which you need to repent and repent and repent? 

Stir up your power, O Lord, and come.  Come and give us the strength and courage to look at the sin in our lives and help us to repent.  AMEN