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S. Advent 2.25 Matt. 3:1-12

‘I, though, baptize you in water into a change of heart…’

That’s what the original Greek actually says—what the Greek μετανοια actually means—‘a change of heart’. It’s a compound word of two simple Greek words: μετα (which has nothing to do with Facebook™, at all 😉 a word that simply means ‘change’ and: νους, a word that means the most essential element of your personality—your ‘heart᾽ (or mind, soul, or Yes!)—whatever it is you call that which charts your whole course in life, gets you up in the morning, makes your blood flow faster, and guides you to a desired End.

It never ceases to amaze me how all the modern English translations butcher the simplest Greek words (including also, in that sentence I quoted to start, the prepositions εν and εις—“in” and “into”, which get translated ‘with’ and ‘for’ (dumb and dumber!) and which we’ll talk about in a minute. Not to keep you in suspense: it’s the Calvinist convictions of the majority of the committees which have ruined every major English translation since the King James, including the ESV and NKJV. C.S. Lewis hit it on the head when he said Calvin was “Marx (Karl, not Groucho) and Lenin (Vladimir, not John)” in one person…

Someone really needs to fix this, maybe it should be me? It’s not that the Calvinists don’t know what the Word says, but that they don’t believe him!

But yeah, definitely: μετανοια is not properly Englished as ‘repentance’—it’s not feeling bad about your behavior, not taking ‘a fearless moral inventory’ and deciding to make significant changes in your ethical conduct. It’s not a law thing. It’s a love thing, actually…

It’s good we don’t have video screens (like those big-box nondenoms 😉 otherwise I’d be strongly tempted to cue the 1975’s “Change of Heart” video at this juncture, a quite charming little song about falling in and out of love with someone and how tough it is for the narrator to figure out how “I just had a change of heart” and really having no answers, in the end, except maybe that there’s something really wrong with him, maybe, deep down, at heart, he’s, possibly, pretty shallow?

I know it’s only rock n’roll but I like it, like it, yes I do. I guess that deep down, maybe I’m kinda shallow too?

And this is getting us to the point John the Baptist is actually making and what his baptism is designed to fix. It’s not our ‘ethical code’ as defined by human or divine laws that’s screwing us up. It’s our heart—that has reasons of which reason knows nothing—our ill-advised loves that mess us up, so bad.

Every time you see “repentance” in the bible (over 50 times in the NT) cross that out and write “a change of heart” and see how it changes the whole plot of the story! Jesus and his 4Runner John didn’t come to swap out our old ‘moral compass’ for a new one. No! They came to change our hearts and the love of our lives. Like I said: not a law story, but a love story… 😉

It wasn’t the eating of the apple that brought death to Adam and Eve. It was their change of heart, their falling out of love with God and their new love for themselves and the snake that destroyed them (that destroys us!) because we inherited their screwed-up hearts and loves like a crack baby inherits the habit from its addict mother.

But the good news here is that ‘a change of heart’ is possible! The Pharisees and Sadducees are in love with their own idea of righteousness, their ‘moral code’ that they think makes them superior to everyone else. So, when John brings a baptism that effects ‘a change of heart’, they come out to see what exactly it is, but certainly have no wish to undergo such a baptism, such a ‘change of heart’ themselves. Because they love themselves and their lives and their possessions just as they are!

AA gets this right: until our lives have become unmanageable, we have no desire to change. Until we are sick to death of ourselves and our misguided loves that have wrecked us, we will steer well clear of any prophets and their magic spells that could give us new loves and new lives!

Which is why John rips into those Pharisees and Sadducees (Conservative Calvinists the first and Chancel-Prancing high church libs, the second group, basically, still very much with us :-(. As his prophet, God has shown John their hearts—which they show also by their loves which are quite apparent to everyone. He says they are in for one hell of a time—the ax is laid to the root of that tree of the knowledge and good and evil which ruined Adam and Eve and stop saying “We have God as our Father” because God is able to raise up children for Abraham from the stones!

The trees that bear bad fruit, the hearts that spawn sick loves, are destined for the fire of eternal destruction.

But, John has another Way: he puts out the fire, baptizing you in water into ‘a change of heart’. The preposition problem: he baptizes not with water, but εν, literally “in” water and not “for” repentance as mere symbol that might make you re-evaluate and change out your code of ethics, but εισ, “into” ‘a change heart’.

This is the problem with Calvinism. It insists “the finite is not capable of the infinite”—that God can’t really become Man and that his Word combined with water cannot actually, ontologically change us into something holy and divine! Baptism, Holy Communion—for Calvinists—isn’t God’s divine doing, making us new creations, they’re just empty symbols we ethically actualize by our hard work…

NO! John’s baptism in the Jordan’s muddy waters actually baptizes you into ‘a change of heart’—effects the change, seals in the change that hearing the word of Christ brings.

And Jesus baptizes in the Holy Spirit who makes us fall in love with Jesus, ‘idolizing him’—like he’s God or Something!, throwing over every other love affair to run off with Jesus, even if he takes us down a dark road like Aragorn on the paths of the dead through death and hell. Once Jesus gets into your heart, under your skin, a new love will propel you recklessly down the Road with him…

And it is that new love for Christ Jesus, the One, True, Triune God come in our flesh, that changes our hearts, minds, souls into little non-identical repetitions of Jesus, little mirror images of him, our One, True Love.

The word of Jesus does this, effects this!—divinely, by faith in him alone. Holy Baptism does this, under the water you’re finally free, swept into Christ’s Life and Love. And at his Holy Table, the bread that is his body, the wine that is his blood, makes you one body with Jesus, unites you with the love of your life and oh, the places you will go, the things you will see, swept along that Way with him, as Peace, surpassing understanding, guards your νους, heart and mind, in Christ Jesus. Amen.