This Season of Repentance Find New Courage.
At first, repentance
appears simply to be an "owning up" to one's obvious shortcomings. One
discovers that some behavior, attitude, or inclination is not what it should
be. It needs to be admitted, and then identified as undesirable, one way or
another, and for a time it is burdensome, but eventually gets on with his life,
often simply adding to a growing awareness of general shortcomings that keep
recurring.
As life wears on,
repentance comes at a higher and higher price. Repentance means more than admitting
a mistake, or two. It has more the flavor of changing sides in the struggle
over what would dominate one's life. Changing one's mind is not some easy act
of the will, but sometimes an excruciating confrontation with a failed promise
or a squandered enterprise. The painful reality dawns on us that the stakes
have gone up when we realize that we have likely become the victim of own
deliberate choices.
It becomes clear
that repentance is not a short-cut simply to go back and get a fresh start. To
repent, one needs to deal with all the unwanted momentum of a direction that
has to be abandoned, or a habit that has to be rooted out. Sometimes our
companions and associates do not tolerate or understand the changes, and are
not either sympathetic or pleased.
There are
some things that repentance cannot alone undo. One cannot get back the days
wasted, or restore the opportunities lost. Life emerges as a once-only trip,
and repentance does not mean that resources would be quickly restocked for
another try. Repentance is far more than mere remorse...it has to do with
reclaiming some good that has been lost... right directions from which one has
wandered.
For Christians, it
means to claim in Christ the life-changing allies and resources that loosen the
grip of regrets and uncertainty, and doubts about the ways of God. It means to
be able to break through the societal habits of our time and the mind-bending
weight of the troublesome messages that fill our senses and intimidate our
spirits. It means to soak our consciousness in the majesty of God's word in
Christ.
This coming Lent, we
are invited to explore the ‘seven wonders of the word’, to reach into our
hearts this season of repentance and find new courage and purpose to equip
ourselves with the candor we need for repentance. We need to put life-giving
hope and trust in God's grace through Jesus Christ, our savior and powerful
ally, offering a new grasp to our situation and our way through the broiling tumult
of these days.
In Christ,
Pastor Jansen
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