It can sound like such a nasty word, can’t it? REPENT. I often imagine it spoken at high volume, with a finger pointing right at my nose and an implication that I’m hell-bound if I don’t.
There were present at that season some who told Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answered them and said, “Do you suppose these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things?
“I tell you no; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.
“Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think they were worse sinners than all other men who dwell in Jerusalem? I tell you, no; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”
— Luke 13:1-5
Jesus describes two ways of dying: one, through a sort of terrorism, where people were killed during a sacrifice and their blood mixed in with the blood of the animals; the other, through bad luck. Both sets of circumstances contain an element of unfairness, that the victims didn’t “deserve” it.
Jesus challenges us: do we “deserve” such a fate any more or less than those people? He’s telling us, This can happen to you, too, if you don’t repent.
But if He means repenting of sin, is He talking about examining yourself until you can see all the sins you need to repent from? Or something else?
To my mind, “repent” carries the connotation of turning away from sin, insofar as you are turning towards God.
Turn towards God, and He becomes your Shepherd. He becomes your provider and caretaker, and Jesus and the Holy Spirit lead you in Truth. The transformation that happens in your person is both overnight and gradual: you know you’re a different person than you were before (the Bible confirms that), but it’s going to be a process, where little by little, the various urges that had shaped your life before fade into the background. The Holy Spirit checks you and leads you into the things you should do and away from the things you shouldn’t, and eventually sin falls away like the scab off a sore.
For the most part, Jesus tells us about the beauty and glory of the Kingdom of Heaven. “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness,” He tells us, “and all [the worldly things the Gentiles seek, like food, clothing and shelter] will be added to you,” (Matthew 6:33), but this is one time that He gives us a reminder that by doing so, we avoid that kind of “unfair” fate.
Two Minutes for Cross-Checking! 