“I had heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes. I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance.”
- Job 42:5-6
Most people have probably heard about Ash Wednesday, which will happen this coming Wednesday; February 17th. Most also probably know it marks the start of Lent and one’s personal preparations on the road to Easter. This is more practices in Catholic traditions but the big idea about it transfers into other traditions well, and I believe we can be greatly enriched by it.
Ash Wednesday and Lent are about a lot more than simply starting some form of fast, for even in the practice of fasting there is more going on than simply giving something up. It’s about a practice of self-denial, repentance of sins, and preparing one’s heart for the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Repentance is entirely necessary for our lives and yet so seldomly spoken about. I also find that those who do frequently talk about repentance have a tendency to make a lot of issues back to sin and our only solution is repentance.
I hope to balance these two out a little. Repentance is entirely necessary. It’s about confessing our sins, revealing our misunderstandings, and starting to wrestle with our own humanity. It’s a realization that I am wrong, or incomplete, fallen, broken, and am in need of the God who can make me right, complete, lifted up, and healed. If we were to try to go about our faith journey without regular practice of repentance, we are simply stifling our connection to God.
On the other hand, if I were to always make things about sin and repentance, then the faith journey become self-defeating, self-righteous, pessimistic, and even hopeless. What is needed in those scenarios is a proper balancing and understanding of God’s divine justice (that is against sin) with God’s divine grace (that forgives and restores by God’s will). Further, if anything and everything becomes a sin issue, then you haven’t read Job thoroughly enough.
Job and Repentance:
Job lived the blessed life. He was faithful to God, worshipped and prayed with great devotion, and interceded on behalf of his kids. He was wealthy enough to have influence and friends in far off places. Life was good and its all because He was seen as righteous by God, so God blessed Him. Then Satan came on by to challenge it. Job never sinned or did anything to deserve such suffering unless you count have nearly perfect character as reason enough to face tribulation. God permitted the challenge to occur having full confidence in Job’s faith. Very quickly the challenges came, all his wealth and workers were taken captive or burned up; then his children were killed when a tornado stuck their home. To throw salt on the wound further, Satan covered Job in painful boils from head to toe. Job’s wife told him to curse God, and his friends thought he was a sinner.
Job easily went from the most blessed man alive at the time to the least. The cards were stacked against him, and he resisted the temptation to curse God and be angry with God for much of the book. Sadly, he cracked eventually and started questioning God’s justice and grace. God comes to him, rebuttals with his own sets of questions and our verses above provide Job’s response.
Job repents, taking back everything, he said that was wrong, and then he remained in the dust and ashes for show the repentance.
Showing Repentance:
If we fail in repenting, it most likely here, in showing that we really want to be different. For example, you sin against someone else, you instigate in a way that makes them angry, causing drama, throw dirt on their character, and cut off the relationship. That might be exaggerated example but bear with me. At some point, you hear a sermon the speaks against those previous actions, or you witness someone in public doing exactly what you did, and you feel convicted. Usually, the next thing we do is go to prayer and confess those sins to God. We fail to show we really want to be different though.
To show that in the above example, it may mean being bold enough to approach that person and seek forgiveness. If they don’t forgive you, that’s on them, but you must show you want to be different. That is what Ash Wednesday and Lent are for. In the time that you are giving something up, it is show casing your desire to be different, to be changed and prepared to be a child of God. Often the biggest barrier to overcome in these confrontations is our own ego and image of self. That in itself can be a repentance moment.
So, what are you going to be giving up? If anything?
It doesn’t need to turn into some legalistic push toward holiness, but these seasons in the church calendar allow us to focus on specific disciplines, like repentance, and actually live them out. Which is a good thing. Repentance is both confession (initial turn from sin) and show casing (focusing in on the right path of Christ). It’s important to deal with our actual sins, but simply be careful not to label everything as sin, and go about skewing God’s justice and mercy to the point you sway the Job’s into being angry with God.
Final Blessing:
So let us, this coming Wednesday think about what we can do to grow closer to God, I doubt any of us are on Job levels of blessed, but how can we, like Job, have a repentant heart and a deep love for God. In so doing, let us not only correct our selves spiritually but go out and make the appropriate reparations for our sin. In so doing, you lean into God’s grace in ever deeper ways.
Now may the Lord of Life and Redemption be with you in every step, every breath, and every heartbeat of your journey.
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