The Shape and Power of Repentance (Matthew 3:1-17)

The Shape and Power of Repentance 

January 11, 2026

Matthew 3:1-17

By: Pastor Mike Conner

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One of my favorite American poets, James Longenbach, has a poem that starts with this question: “How do you imagine the shape of one lifetime? / A circle, a tangle of lines?” The poet is reminding us that life’s journey does not feel the same to each of us. Depending on our personalities and what we’ve been through, a lifetime might feel like a unified whole, a journey that has brought about a kind of return to or reconciliation with the major themes of our early years. Others of us might feel more fragmented, experiencing life like a “tangle of lines.” And the many forays we’ve made into becoming this or that, loving this and that, don’t harmonize neatly but nevertheless comprise who we are. Surprising symmetry or creative chaos? It depends! And on a morning when we hear in Matthew’s Gospel this good old word repentance repeated three times, I want to modify the poet’s questions to ask:

How do you imagine the shape of change?

Change. That’s what repentance fundamentally means: change at a deep and lasting level. The Greek word for it, metanoia, literally means a transformation of the mind, a shift in how we perceive, understand, and tell stories about God’s world and our place in it. In verse 1 of this chapter, John the Baptist preaches, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” In verse 8, as John criticizes the Pharisees and Sadducees for their religious posturing, he calls them to “bear fruit worthy of repentance.” And to clarify his role as the forerunner to a more powerful preacher who is soon to come, he says in verse 11, “I baptize you with water for repentance, but the one who is coming after me…will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” John’s baptism of repentance is connected to immersion in water, the confession of sins, and the call to bear fruit that aligns with God’s justice. These all speak to cleansing, fresh commitment, and new beginnings. And lest we over-associate this call to radical change with John’s ministry, Matthew places the very same sermon on Jesus’ lips when he emerges in Galilee for the beginning of his public ministry after his baptism and temptation in the wilderness: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matt 4:17). 

So, again, the question: If we are all called to change in order to begin again with God, how do you imagine the shape that change?

Perhaps this change is like a sharp turning—we’re going one way and then God intervenes and we have to pivot to go another way. That’s the visual I was always given as a kid in youth group. Repentance as a kind of U-turn. What I like about that shape is the way it emphasizes a turning point, a moment when everything was different. It also reveals that we are always moving toward a goal, and if the goal is knowing God and loving God then I have to pursue that with intention even if it means letting those other destinations go. 

Or perhaps the shape of change is like open hands, open cup, something like a closed circle that’s been broken open. Maybe where we once experienced ourselves as isolated, self-sufficient, complete, safe in our bubbles or masters of our little universes, a kind of rupture is required. And with that cracking open comes a rush of freedom to release old things and be filled with new things. Maybe repentance feels like release, embrace, waking up to new love. Others can suddenly find a way in, and we can suddenly find a way out. 

Or perhaps we’d chart out change as a pair of glasses, as a kind of lens. This is change at our capacity to be present to our lives. Maybe we’re right where we need to be, but we’ve lost the joy of our commitments, lost sight of the beauty around us; we’re rushing past our neighbors, struggling to see our kids or spouses or friends or coworkers as the three-dimensional humans that they are. Perhaps repentance is like the sudden refining of vision, making vivid and beautiful and worthy of renewed devotion what was always already there. We cook dinner, or we take a minute to consider the stars, as if these acts might change the world. Change as a light that illuminates and wakes us up. 

A fourth possibility, if I may. Perhaps the shape of change is like a V, going down in order to come up again. This is the choreography of baptism: immersed in the water. Repentance might mean a humbling descent: returning to the earth, seeking solidarity with the poor who are trodden down, giving away our stuff or choosing not to operate out of our privileges, laying aside activity to seek God in silence, serving the visions of others. This is change as a kind of stripping away, a return to simplicity. The trees yielding to the cold air, letting the outer splendor of their leaves go, and trusting the strength of their roots.

And finally, perhaps the shape of change is like the poet’s “a tangle of lines,” a confused  and meandering squiggle, that suddenly straightens itself out. This is what the prophet Isaiah envisioned when he proclaimed, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight’” (Matt 3:3). This is change experienced at the level of desire and commitment. I’ve wanted so many things that I’ve gone nowhere. Not knowing who I am, I’ve been stuck in place, or I’ve been running to this and that with no real intention. This is repentance that “seeks first the kingdom of God.” It is “purity of heart.” The gift of a singleness of desire. It’s as if all our confused and congested energy suddenly has an open channel. It doesn’t resolve all the tensions but transcends them. The heart is fixed on God alone. 

How do you imagine the shape of change?

Going a different direction? Cracking open? Seeing clearly? Descending? Straightening?

It’s important that we each find our way into the meaning of repentance for ourselves, because it’s not meant to be one of those churchy words that is either overly familiar and safe or overly strange and off-putting. Repentance is a vital reality to be lived, an inescapable part of our life with God.

Notice that there are two voices crying out in this story from Mathew. There is the voice in the wilderness, and there is the voice “from the heavens” (Matt 3:17). Every one of us is created to hear that voice from the heavens as personally addressed to us. We are God’s Beloveds, with whom God is well pleased. We are destined to know ourselves in Christ as God’s most precious children. But to hear the “voice from the heavens” (3:17) in trust and security, we must first respond to “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness” (3:3). We must first prepare the way of the Lord. We must welcome change. 

There is so much that keeps us from resting securely in our identity as beloved creatures of the Great Creator. Our own mistakes and regrets, things we’ve done and left undone. The insecurities or harsh words and actions that filled our childhoods. The great losses we’ve endured that don’t make any rational sense. The daily onslaught of the world’s pain: countries at war, children hungry, cross-wearing politicians cutting away the social safety net, climate change. 

Given the harsh realities of life, no matter the shape of our repentance, the power of it has to be immense if it is to achieve a lasting rootedness in God, a lasting commitment to grow in love and justice. The power at work in repentance, like the power at work in faith, far exceeds what we can muster through our own will and conviction. This isn’t change that comes by reading a book or listening to a podcast or making a New Year’s resolution. This is change that comes by way of a miracle! 

And God has given us the miracle! God has given us Jesus!

Jesus, who has come to bring us inside his Belovedness, who has come to set his way of justice and generosity before us; Jesus, whose privilege it is as the eternally begotten Son of the Father to the hear the voice of heaven – he comes and stands among us and for us in response to the voice of the wilderness. He takes his place among the repentant. He goes where all broken humanity must go before it can put down roots in its belovedness. He comes to the water that cleans, strips, purifies, and claims.

And this is precisely what John the Baptist has such a hard time accepting at first. He cannot understand why Jesus would submit to a baptism of repentance. John sees things very clearly: he needs Jesus’ baptism. Yes—and: Jesus came to redeem us from the inside out, to infuse every crevice of our experience with the light and power of God, to leave no need in us unmet by his grace. So he says to John: “Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness” (v 15). Oh, the kindness of God—that before any of us is ever fully ready for or capable of change, Jesus has already gone ahead of us into the water. 

Friends, if God has drawn near to you for the first or the thousandth time, and you stand at the shoreline of a necessary change that is far beyond your capacity or courage, Jesus is there, and he will help you to make that new beginning. Jesus is there, bringing about the miracle of a fresh start, a new commitment, of clear vision, of humbling descent.

As Paul writes in Philippians 2:13, “For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him” (NLT). We can yield to the shape of change, because Jesus’ grace has gone before us. 

Hear the voice of the wilderness! The voice of the wilderness says, “Come and be stripped of what isn’t working for you. Come and face why the good fruit is growing. Come and be broken open. Come and see things for what they really are. Come and stand on equal footing with everyone else, with equal need. Come and say I want God to be first in my heart.”

Hear it, and know that Christ is also hearing it; in his faithful response, you will discover your own faithful response.

Ask for his help, and he will help you.

Abide in him, and he will carry you. 

Thanks be to God. Amen.