Having been on over 10 college campuses for school and
missionary work; it never failed that during certain parts of the year the soap
box preacher would come onto campus preaching fire and brimstone, yelling with their
Bible in hand at the college students that they should repent of their sin and
come to the Lord! Now I’m not
disagreeing that sinners, including myself, need to repent. But I do believe
the soap box preacher was taking the wrong approach, if anything, he was pushing
people away from the Lord, not drawing them closer to Him!
And yet, in the Gospel today we hear about St. John the
Baptist preaching like the soap box preacher!
“Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand!” But there is a different
between the two! John the Baptist lived
in the desert of Judea. Do you know how
many people live in the desert? Not
many, it’s a place of solitude and isolation.
The fact was people from all over Judea and Jerusalem were going out to
see the saint and listen to his message.
They, except the Pharisees and Sadducees, had already made the
realization that they wanted and needed to change their life and St. John the
Baptist was extending the invitation to come back to the Lord. We see it also in the life of Jesus Christ as
well. Jesus goes out, yes! But it’s the sick, the lepers, the blind that call
out to the Lord for healing! Again, the
healing begins with their decision to seek repentance and turn back to the Lord.
In a same sense, I can’t force you to repent. I can’t force you to grow in your faith. This can only be done by your decision to
seek out and cooperate with God’s Grace.
So, I encourage, better yet, I’m inviting all of us, including myself,
to prepare our hearts by repenting and turning back to the Lord!
