05 min 45 sec: app reading time
February 19, 2025
Dear Friend:
Since I was a kid, I had heard Jesus's first words when he started his ministry 2,000 years ago in Palestine. The two words wired in my psyche were "repent" and "kingdom."
I was told that when you have something important to say, your first words matter. I still affirm this assertion.
Jesus appeared on the landscape of culture and religion in the spirit of an ancient Jewish prophet. His words indicate a purpose and meaning he had no doubts about. He had spent time at the synagogue listening to learned scholars and arriving at his own conclusions.
His first statement is important because it defines the core of Jesus' message that we need to grasp today.
It's the prologue to his entire life's work—the first domino that, once tipped, would shape his entire message. Once you miss this first message, the rest is subject to biases and interpretations, such as what followers of the Messiah did just a few years after he departed from their midst. They missed the meaning of "repentance" and the meaning of "kingdom."
If it were me, driven by a purpose, I’d probably go with something grand and impressive. We all do it because we are wired to believe that first impressions matter and shape what we have to say.
Not Jesus.
He didn't show up saying, — "Behold, I am the Son of God."
Or "Listen to me because God has sent a message to you through me."
Or a stirring call to activism against the Roman Empire and their liberation from a marginalized cultural condition.
Or a call to "repentance" in the way we understand it today.
Or a call to being better as a community, such as — “Love one another, for this is the way of God,” which he did later on.
Or, if he really wanted to grab people’s attention (as a Christian preacher), he might just cut to the chase—"Follow me, and you won’t lose your salvation." I grew up having nightmares about losing my salvation in my religious tradition.
But that’s not what Jesus said.
His first words, the ones that launched His entire ministry, were these:
“Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.” (Matthew 4:17)
And I have to be honest — if I had been standing there that day, waiting to hear the grand mission statement of the Messiah, I think I would have been a little confused.
Follow me for a few minutes in this "Chats."
Why "repent"?
Repentance didn't mean then what it means today.
The Hebrew word for repentance is "teshuvah" (תְּשׁוּבָה), which means "return.
"Repentance" is a poor translation because it comes from the Latin word "paenitēre," which means "to regret" or "to be sorry," related to "poena," which means "punishment" or "penalty." Poena is the root of many words related to crime and its consequences, such as "subpoena," "penalty," "punish," "punitive," and "pain."
"Re-pentance" actually means experiencing "penitence" (sorrow, regret) driven by the consequences of what caused it. I have issues with this because the actual word indicates something profound and is not always connected to consequences and penalties.
"Teshuva" does not regret or change behavior because of punishment, judgment, or fear of consequences. It means to experience an entirely different mindset prompted by something you perceive anew from within before you attach consequences. You "see" something else. You catch something else.
I remember as a Dad "waking" up to the fact that speaking to my kids calmly resulted in a "better relationship" with them than yelling in anger when they did something wrong. The latter created fear and often corrected the behavior. The earlier was about self and my state of mind.
"Teshuva" is like "seeing from within" (waking up to) your behavior, conduct, responses, and reactions to life's experiences contrary to what your consciousness whispers as the loving, harmonious path. It is waking up to what's originally intended to be pure and vibrant in wholeness. It is waking up to innocence, aside from showing regret and remorse.
I understand "teshuva" (translated as repentance) as "waking" up to love and compassion from within and choosing to change behavior from within.
Change is not forced from the outside; it's prompted by something you experience in consciousness. I remember times when I was ready to discipline one of my kids as a Dad for some wrongdoing. In fear, they rolled their eyes and explained to me what happened, and in love and compassion from within, I was prompted to change my tactic. I saw something I was not aware of before. But love from within had prepared me to change my disposition at that moment. I "woke" up to my inner source of compassion. I "repented" of the disciplinary action I was about to take if you please.
Jesus's call for people to "change their minds" in the proper understanding of the term was not forced as a power authority or a warning of impending doom, as many Christian preachers proclaim it today. Jesus offered something so glorious, so vastly different that change would happen from "within" as a "waking up" to it. Seeing their wrongdoing would seem insignificant in view of what he was offering them. That's why Jesus never used the word "sinner," accusing a human as intrinsically evil or born as a sinner. The word "sinner" is only used by Jesus in the context of those who chose to be unloving to other humans. (According to scholars, Jesus used "sinners" between 61-73 times depending on translation, as in Mark 2: 15-22; otherwise, he called people by name or "friends.")
Why Kingdom?
At first, I assumed the "Kingdom" was just a fancier way of saying heaven, the presence or power of God in their midst, as Jesus was the liberator of their Roman Empire, which was the Kingdom they faced day in and day out.
In the Greek kingdom, "basilea" or the feminine "βασιλεία" implies the same as the Hebrew "מַמְלָכָה" or Malchut. In both the Old Testament and the New Testament, it means the rule, power, and the realm over which a King has dominion. All of them are connected to "power."
Jesus used the word "Kingdom," subverting (I want to use the word sabotage) the meaning of the word to shock people into a new vision.
He revealed that what they had been wired to believe as "power" was not power at all! This was radical indeed. It was like a guy telling you he has 1 million dollars in his savings account to impress you and say, "Well... that's nothing... You will be rich when..."
For years, as a Seventh-day Adventist Christian Pastor, I interpreted these words to mean some kind of divine afterlife, a destination for people who had prayed the proper prayers and avoided enough sin. A "power" counterpart to the secular power I was wired to interpret. God's Kingdom was like a "mega" Formula 1 racing car or a "super sport" character that would make the game look different. I saw God's kingdom as a competitive power.
So, "repent," confess, follow Jesus,and keep the commandments were the usual routine to walk into a future Kingdom! The Kingdom of God meant, in the end, God's power to save me if I repented enough for being such a miserable sinner.
But that’s not what Jesus said at all.
Instead, he said:
“The Kingdom of God is at hand.” (Now)
“The Kingdom of God is among you.” (God in human body as Jesus)
“The Kingdom of God has come near.” (God is next to you now)
He wasn’t describing a far-off paradise, a place, or even God's power! I need you to catch my move away from "power" to uderstand what kingdom means.
He wasn’t talking about something that would happen "someday"—he was talking about something already breaking into their midst right there and then. And catch this: He wasn't referring to the power of God either, as is often portrayed in Christian messages. In other words, "the power of the Roman kingdom versus the power of God's kingdom." That wasn't it.
When I caught this after leaving religion, it fascinated me!
And such insight raised a question I had never really considered.
If "kingdom" was the thing Jesus cared about most, then why had I spent my whole life thinking Christianity was about the power of God?
When one's mindset shifts from "power" to "inner consciousness" of something more significant, "power" becomes dust in the air.
Tomorrow, Part 2
With you on your journey,
Pastor Harold