Change Your Mind
Advent 2, Gospel: Luke 3:1-14
Luke 3:1-14
Most people won’t get to heaven. The Bible is clear about that. And it is disturbing to all who love the Savior, or better who realize they are loved by the Savior. This does not mean that God is stingy with His salvation. After all the question is never, “Why are some saved and not others?” No, the real question is: “Why is anyone at all saved?”
People who love the Bible know that people who end up in heaven are there because of the work of God from first to last. God is salvation (Revelation 7:10). But God’s work is mysterious and our gospel highlights one of the great mysteries of Scripture. John the baptizer is preaching in the wilderness of Judea. And many in his crowd are confident that they will enter heaven simply by their bloodline, declaring, “We have Abraham as our Father” (Luke 3:8b). Just a few verses earlier is the solution to their wrong thinking: change it! That’s right. John calls them to bear fruit in line with minds that have been changed by God and about God. And therein lies the mystery. God commands, gives and yet still calls us responsible.
God calls all people to repent. “Repent” is our translation of a Greek word that means a “change of mind.” Now that doesn’t mean our salvation is merely a mental exercise. But thinking, in order to be in line with God’s thinking, must be attached to what God has accomplished for us through His Son; the very one about which the Baptist is preaching. In effect John is saying, “Having the right family line isn’t your ticket to heaven. Well, at least no earthly family line is sufficient.”
There is a family line by which you gain that entrance. And that family has a Heavenly Father and a glorious Son by which we have gained adoption to a family and admittance to a new address.
Advent is about that entrance, but first and foremost it is about the God who for us, gains that glorious admission. For Him we wait. He came once. He is coming again. Set your mind on that.
