Repenting lessons

Say you’re sorry and mean it. Look him in the eye and tell him you are sorry. I would stand the angry boys face to face and make the guilty one say it. And it always played out the same way. The offender would kick the dirt and try to squirm out from under my grip on his shoulder. But I didn’t mean to. He started it. It’s not fair. I would persist until I elicited a mumbled, I’m sorry out of the guilty boy. The injured boy would then be forced to say I forgive you. You boys are going to be thankful for each other’s friendship one of these days, I would remind them. They would stare at the ground begging to be released back into the world of the cul de sac. I’m pretty sure this exercise went a long way in teaching them how to say you’re sorry and not mean it. I’m also sure that as soon as my watchful eyes turned elsewhere they settled the argument on their own. Turns out, nothing bonds brothers faster than trying to avoid getting caught by mom. Parenting lesson #1,237.

As this Ash Wednesday dawns, and we begin our journey into the Lenten season, I find this crazy scene from my boys’ younger years playing on repeat in my head. Lent with its somber mood and its call to repentance sends me searching for warmer days and easier words. Like the guilty boy who doesn’t think he has done anything wrong, I push back against the need to repent with my list of good deeds and explanations about how hard this year has been. As if my goodness and circumstances could cancel out the darkness in my heart; as if I could earn my way to a Savior who seems to be asking more of me than I have to give. I have reasons and justifications and ways of forgetting my sin that keep it covered and hidden.

Repenting is hard.

“Come now let us reason together, says the Lord, though your sins be like scarlet; they shall be as white as snow.” The Lord of heaven and earth grabs my shoulder and turns me toward him even as I squirm and try to explain.

I didn’t mean to … It isn’t fair … I didn’t know that was going to happen … the list of excuses goes on. I barter and promise to give up things; to try harder; to even the score.

But his grip is firm and his eyes are steady. He does not want my half-hearted acknowledgments or my promises to do better.

“I’d rather for you to be faithful and to know me than to offer sacrifices” The CEV Bible translates Hosea 6:6 this way and it stops me in my tracks. What if repenting were not so much about me trying to convince the Lord that I didn’t do anything wrong, but instead a way for me to know him more? What if instead of running from it I turned toward it?

Repent literally means to turn around. And when the prophets of old walked through the pagan towns and called, “Repent! Seek the Lord and live!” to the people bowing and bending their lives in the direction of lifeless statues, what they were really telling them to do was to change their posture. It was a call to reverse their course; to quit chasing the wind and the irrational demands of these false gods and to come back and to stand face to face with their Maker. It was a reminder that nothing else was going to work.

“Take with you words and return to the Lord,” the prophet Hosea tells the people. “Rend your hearts and not your garments” Joel instructs them. “Return to the Lord for he is gracious and compassionate abounding in steadfast love”

But what did the Lord want from his people back then and what does he want from us now?

As the ashes mark our foreheads today and we contemplate our mortality and run smack into the idea that we cannot save ourselves, it is those sullen little boys with their dirty hands and faces attempting to squirm away from my correction that helps me see it better. Our Lord wants to restore our relationship. He wants us to say we’re sorry so he can forgive us and we can go back out into the world healed, restored, and whole.

And what I really want is to out get out of it. I try to circumvent my sin and explain it away. I am certain that I can do better. I search for ways to even the score and prove my worth; escaping from the whole conversation with a load that is too heavy. Relationships cannot hold up under that weight.

And the thing that God wants most from me? Is me. The thing that he wants most from you? Is you. Not our words, not the chocolate we try to give up or an improved health plan, or cleaned up language or better habits. No. He wants our hearts in the correct posture. Turned around. Fully facing our Creator uninhibited by the sin we are trying to hide.

He died so we wouldn’t have to carry it around. He paid the price so we wouldn’t have to keep charging ourselves with all of the wrong. It wasn’t a cause or a purpose that held him to that cross. It was you. It was me.

The ashen crosses remind us. They mark us. This relationship cost him dearly.

And for me, it is often in the turning that I am reminded of why it matters. In the repenting that comes when I give up my constant striving to be good. That’s when I hear it. “I have loved you with an everlasting love, I have drawn you in with unfailing kindness.”

For the love of us Jesus stands and shows his scars and bears our sins before God. Because he is good. Because he desires mercy not sacrifice. Relationship; not proof of goodness. And the depth of his mercy is deeper than we can fathom.

As this season of repenting begins today, may we let him hold our shoulders just a bit longer, may we stop squirming away and stay in the turned around posture long enough to admit that life is more than we can bear on our own. And as we give meaning to the ways we ask for forgiveness, may his promises wash us clean and send us out changed.

“As far as the east is from the west so far has he removed out transgressions from us”. (Psalm 103:12).

Alleluia. Amen.