Why Do We Find It Difficult to Repent?
In its time, the term “TOMAT” was once popular among Christians. The word is an acronym for “TOBAT and kuMAT” which was popularized by preachers to underline our tendency to often never learn from making the same mistake or sin. Isn’t that what often happens in our journey of faith as believers. We are aware of our sinfulness, but at the same time easily fall into the sin that we have realized.
What really happened? The easiest answer is to divert it to human nature which is indeed full of flesh and vulnerable to temptation. However, if we are honest, one of the determining factors is our lack of seriousness in declaring repentance to God. Every week in worship we are invited to confess and regret our sins, but as soon as a new week begins, a new chapter of submission to sin begins. Perhaps the repentance only stops at the conceptual level and has not been manifested in concrete forms.
Concrete Repentance
Repentance is essentially something concrete. Even John the Baptist emphasized it by advising people to live in the fruits of repentance. The word fruit is used to emphasize the impact of our repentance that should be felt by others. For John, as recorded in the current text, repentance must begin with an awareness of our fragility and the elimination of self-pride. Therefore, after calling for repentance, he strongly rebuked his listeners. John's firmness radiated from the word he chose, namely "offspring of vipers" to target the symptoms of spiritual arrogance that had infiltrated the Jews at that time. They felt themselves to be the chosen nation and descendants of Abraham so that they received privileges by being freed from all religious obligations including repentance to God. He then asserts that no one is exempt from the call to repentance, warning the people that “…the tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”
A positive response came to John’s warning, someone asked him what they should do. It is at this point that John tries to contextualize his call to repentance. He raises several situations based on questions from his listeners, namely repentance for the people, tax collectors, and soldiers. For the people he says to share and be compassionate to those in need. Share starting from the most basic needs, namely clothing and food. To tax collectors, he advises not to collect more than is stipulated. The soldiers are reminded not to rob, extort, and be content with the wages they receive. These things refer to the sins that tax collectors and soldiers often committed at that time. Tax collectors often collected more than what was charged to them, while soldiers often robbed and extorted the people to enrich themselves.
These two groups of people in the social life of the Jews were two parties who were isolated and considered sinful and even as if unforgivable. John the Baptist seemed to want to make an affirmation that their sins were forgiven as long as both of them showed real fruit of repentance in their lives. This act of repentance is important to welcome the coming of the Lord who will sanctify us completely in His work of redemption.
Firm in Our Repentance
The questions from the tax collector and the soldier seem to represent us today who are engaged in various professions, activities, or jobs. If placed in the current context, perhaps the question is how is repentance for a civil servant, private employee, police officer, accountant, pastor, and so on. The answer lies in each of us who understand the struggles, challenges, and trials of the path of life that we are taking. Our conclusion should be concrete actions that are manifested in the work that we do every day.
The concrete actions that we try to formulate as the fruit of repentance today are challenged by the turmoil of the times that lead humans to addiction to cyberspace. In our time, what is real and what is virtual is very thin. F. Budi Hardiman in his book Aku Klik Maka Aku Ada states that humans today are homo digitalis who feel they exist or achieve their existence when they are connected to cyberspace. Self-actualization is obtained through the number of likes received, appreciation of posts on Instagram or Tiktok channels, and the number of followers or subscribers.
On the other hand, for homo digitalis, he will be very disturbed based on what happens on his social media channel. Whether it is the decreasing number of followers, harsh comments from netizens, or the small number of likes.
Imagine how easy it is for us to fall into the trap of making our "fruit of repentance" an effort to achieve self-actualization in cyberspace. Helping others and displaying it on our Instagram feed to get likes and good comments. Including Bible verses every day and showing up at church on Sundays to look pious to our followers on social media. Does that mean we shouldn't display these things on our social media? Of course we can, but we need to always test ourselves whether there is a desire in all these actions to make everything good only a means to achieve our self-actualization.
The most important thing now is to always purify our hearts. We are reminded in this fourth advent to welcome it in true and complete repentance and be directed to God alone. Faithfully and consistently producing the fruit of repentance that is felt by others even though there is no appreciation for what we do. Ultimately our life is a matter of worship and devotion to God. From Him alone do we come and to Him alone is all our praise and life.
Things to Ponder:
How can we realize the fruits of true repentance? Are there any obstacles or challenges that we encounter?
