In Bible Class at the church I visited this past Sunday, the pastor spent some time commenting on a radio broadcast he had heard on his commute that morning. It had rightly troubled him, as it featured a woman claiming to be a “prophet” with a “Word from the Lord” concerning the recent events in Iran. The pastor didn’t elaborate on the many erroneous details, but he did offer some helpful teaching on the proper source of all true theology, as well as the measure of the prophets whom the Lord has called and sent in His Name. The Prophetic and Apostolic Holy Scriptures are the infallible, authoritative, and sufficient Word of God from which our theology derives and upon which our theology depends. And the preaching of the Prophets and Apostles throughout the Holy Scriptures – and therefore also the preaching of any orthodox minister of the Word to this day, even to the close of the age – is a preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, crucified and risen from the dead (St. Luke 24:25-27, 44-47).
Of course, the preaching of repentance resonates with our understanding and observances of Lent, in particular, which is recognized as a penitential season. In some ways, I suspect, that penitential emphasis can actually be overdone at times, to the detriment of the season’s historic catechetical underpinnings and purposes. Even so, it is absolutely right that the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ Name should permeate and punctuate Lent.
The thing is, though, that the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ Name is fundamental to the Christian faith and life on earth – under the Cross – at all times and in all places. So does it rightly permeate and punctuate all the seasons of the Church Year (in a variety of ways). As I was reflecting on what that looks like, I began by considering Easter, and it struck me that it is especially in His Resurrection from the dead that Jesus commissions His Church and His ministers to undertake precisely this preaching of repentance to all the nations. That is most clear and explicit at the end of St. Luke 24, but it’s there in the other Holy Gospels, too, and in the Acts of the Apostles, especially in St. Peter’s preaching on Pentecost (Acts 2:38).
Setting aside the infancy narratives, the Holy Gospels begin, of course, with St. John’s preaching and Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins (St. Mark 1:4). Our Lord Himself submits to that Baptism, embarking on His journey to the Cross – a journey that culminates in His Resurrection from the dead on the third day. When He afterwards commissions His Apostles to “make disciples of all nations,” He instructs them to do so by way of Holy Baptism in the Name of the Holy Trinity and through ongoing catechesis in the keeping of all that He has commanded (St. Matthew 28:18-20). Just as true repentance necessarily requires the preaching of both the Law and the Gospel, so does Baptism involve both the dying of the old Adam and the rising of the New Man; and so does the Word of our Lord encompass both faith and life, the believing and trusting of all that He says and does and gives to us, and the patient and persistent bearing of His Cross in love for our neighbors within our respective callings and stations.
We see that in St. John’s Resurrection accounts, not only in the giving of the Keys – both the binding and the loosing Keys, for the retaining and forgiving of sins (St. John 20:19-23) – but also in the case of St. Peter, who is brought to repentance, forgiven, and restored to his office as a shepherd of the Good Shepherd’s lambs and sheep (St. John 21:15-17). It is noteworthy that both of these accounts are included in the Rites of Ordination and Installation of a pastor.
In the last chapter of St. Mark, we have the commissioning of the Apostles to preach the Gospel to the whole creation. Remarkably, that commissioning immediately follows the Lord’s rebuke of those same men for their hardness of heart and unbelief, and it is then followed in turn by His promise for those who “believe and are baptized,” and His warning for those who are condemned for their unbelief (St. Mark 16:14-16). In this we see that those who are called and sent to preach repentance are themselves called to repentance and to faith in the forgiveness of all their sins.