Repentance that unites us with Christ

By Fr Georgios Lekkas

Jesus Christ begins His work in the world precisely where John the Baptist left off, as evidenced by the fact that He starts His teaching ministry with the exact words of John: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17).

Throughout the previous centuries, the preaching of the Prophets of Israel had been a call to repentance,  in preparation for the coming of the Messiah. John was the last Prophet to preach repentance, knowing through the Holy Spirit that the Messiah had already come into the world. Thus, when the Messiah, Christ, begins His mission to enlighten the world, He uses John’s words to affirm the work of the Prophets and progressively reveal to humanity that He is the One awaited since the creation of the world.

Before Christ came into the world, repentance was possible, but salvation was not. Repentance now makes salvation a possibility because God has come into the world and healed the rift that had formed in the relationship between God and the world, primarily due to the Fall of Man. The repentance that saves us now is the one inspired by our faith in Christ as the only true God, who became man for the salvation of humanity and the world. This is the repentance that gives us access to the Life of the Holy Trinity, for wherever Christ is, there also, “without confusion and without division”, are the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Christ completed the work of human salvation, and it remains for each person to unite with Christ if they wish to be saved. We actively participate in the Sacraments of the Church and strive to keep Christ’s commandments, not to overcome evil—for Christ has defeated it once and for all—but to unite ourselves with Christ as fully as we can. The closer we draw to Christ, the more we become aware of our  own darkness and desire to repent further; the more we repent, the closer we come to Christ. This continues throughout the entirety of our earthly life.

As members of Christ’s Body, we desire that nothing will separate us from Him. We seek to draw closer to Christ daily, for only He can completely free us from our sinful selves—which, out of love for Christ, we learn to hate. The more we unite with Christ, the more we learn what it means to live within Christ’s “camp,” discovering our true selves as God created us to have eternal life with Him. We now begin to taste Paradise so profoundly that we would never accept losing it for any reason. We love Christ because Christ is everything to us, and without Him, we are nothing.

January 10, 2025

Archpriest Dr Georgios Lekkas is a priest of the Holy Orthodox Metropolis of Belgium.