Repentance

I love driving in North Dakota the roads are so flat, straight and empty that it is possible to drive 60 miles using only your knees to steer. I got so accustomed to being able to drive 70 miles in 50 to 60 minutes that when we moved to California I made one disastrous navigational error. We were in Oregon and I noticed that Crater Lake National Park was only 70 miles off the road. I thought that it would be a nice, brief detour. I knew that Crater Lake was on the top of a mountain so I should have known the road would be steep and windy, but I was so accustomed to the roads of North Dakota that I never even thought about it and I suppose I can be a bit naive. An hour and a half into my brief excursion we were only 20 miles down the road. Two hours into my excursion we were only 30 miles down the road, Edith was throwing up in her car seat, Emily (who was pregnant with Gunder) was turning green and I was starting to get sick. We never made it to Crater Lake, but if the mountains had been lowered and the valleys filled in, we would have!

Travel in Israel is like traveling in the Cascade Mountains to Crater Lake, the roads are steep, narrow, treacherous, and nauseatingly windy. For instance, Jerusalem is about 2,400 feet above sea level and within 10 to 15 miles the elevation drops 3,710 feet to the Dead Sea. Travel in the hot and mountainous country, especially in Biblical times was very difficult. Few men spoke so eloquently and metaphorically of the difficult realities of travel like the prophet Isaiah. When Isaiah spoke of the redemption of God's people he said, "a voice of one calling: "in the desert prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain." (Is. 40:3, 4) Isaiah envisioned God's redemption as supernaturally removing all those obstacles (mountains and valleys) that prevented His people from traveling to him. Thus, when John the Baptist quoted Isaiah 40:3, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way of the Lord,'" he was explicitly claiming to be preparing God's road of redemption, the road that would be completed by Jesus, who would level the mountains of sin and fill in the valleys of death removing those obstacles that kept us from traveling to God's presence.

There are many things that could and should be said about John the Baptist's preparation and Jesus construction and completion of the road to redemption. I would like to single out one item this morning: repentance. Repentance was the theme dominating John the Baptist's preaching, thus it was one of the major tools John used to prepare people to walk on the road Jesus built. Because we are not much different from the people in John's day, repentance is still one of the tools the Holy Spirit uses to prepare us to walk on the road to redemption.

What is repentance? It is a word we often hear, indeed we hear it every Sunday in our Invitation to Confession, "Ye who do truly and earnestly repeat…", but what is it and what does it mean? John Calvin envisioned repentance to be a spiritual race. He said, "God assigns to [Christians] a race of repentance, which they are to run throughout their lives." (Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 3, Section 9). Calvin, then, defines repentance as "the true turning of our life to God"¹ (Calvin, ICR, Book 3, Chap. 3, Sect. 5). I like Calvin's definition of repentance because it evokes a powerful image of turning away from the darkness sin to face the light of the God. What is repentance? Repentance is when we turn away from the darkness of our old self and the sin that entangles and turn to face the light of God. There are at least life changing implications of repentance: mortification, vivification and trust.

I love the word mortification. It is such a dense sounding word, but has a simple meaning. It means to put to death and in the case of repentance it means to put to death our old self and the sin that entangles us. Our old sinful nature loves to live with its back toward God because then we can live in darkness. Our old self is very good at creating and sustaining powerful delusions and these delusions are often selfish delusions of grandeur. In the dark, I can easily imagine that I look like David Hasselhoff, have the body of our Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (in his younger years of course) and have the literary skills of Shakespeare. In the dark I can delude myself into thinking I have the intelligence of St. Augustine or Thomas Aquinas, the courage of Martin Luther and the piety and spirituality of Thomas a' Kempis. We are tempted to live unrepentant lives because it means we can define ourselves in any delusional way we want. Repentance means to expose our sins and delusions by turning toward God's light. Our delusions and sin cannot live in the fiery light of God, they are like chaff and thus they are mortified. To run the race of redemption we need to mortify our old self with its delusions of grandeur and sins through repentance.

Vivification is another delightful word that dances off the tongue. It means to be given life. Repentance mortifies our old self and vivifies our spirit. We humans love control and authority. One of the delusions concocted by our old self is that we possess control and authority over our self. This delusion is very easy to produce for if our backs are turned away from God, the source of light, all we can see of our self is a shadow. The shadows of our self are completely dependent upon us; they are weak and spineless creatures that we have complete control and authority over. I have complete control over my shadow, I can make my shadow do what I want and if I don't like it, I have the power to change it; it is my little puppet. However, the longer we stare at our shadow the more likely we are to associate our shadow with our self, our being. When that happens we become a puppet of our self, mere shadows of our self and soon become lifeless, loveless, spineless blobs of darkness. Repentance vivifies our spirit because when we turn to face the light of God we can see our true self and being. We might not like what we see but through time the Holy Spirit will vivify and beautify our spirit until one day we become immortal, beautiful children of God.

Finally, repentance means trust, unequivocal trust. There is no empirical evidence that our sins are forgiven. There is no rational argument or proof that will always convince us our debts are paid. There isn't even an existential experience guaranteeing we will feel forgiven. Repentance means we must turn away from our selves and trust God. We must trust that God the Father will forgive our sins, debts and trespasses as he has promised. We must trust that Jesus' sacrifice will be sufficient to cover our sins as he has promised. We must trust that the Holy Spirit will lead us, guide and define us as we run the race of repentance as he has promised. All we can do is trust, so take comfort in the words of St. John, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."

Most people who have driven through North Dakota on those straight, flat and empty roads complain bitterly about the boring scenery. There might be some truth to that, but I see things differently. I think travel in North Dakota is travel how it was meant to be: fast and safe. I also find the scenery to be far from boring but full of strange beauty and endless delight. Most people would prefer to drive through the intoxicating beauty of the Cascade Mountains, but I find that scenery to be an illusive temptation because the roads through that scenery leave me sick and nauseous, so sick and nauseous I cannot enjoy the beauty or find pleasure in the view. Sin and our old self always tempts us with the illusions of beauty, pleasure and excitement but will only leave us nauseous. If we pursue sin by turning our backs toward God, we will find no pleasure or beauty in life. Those things, pleasure and beauty, can only be found through repentance when we turn to face the light of God. Only in God's light will reveal true beauty and true pleasure and God our Father has promised to give us hearts softened by his love, hearts receptive to his light and hearts that will turn toward him in repentance. Therefore, in the words of an old Anglican preacher, "let us earnestly pray unto the living GOD our heavenly Father, that he will vouchsafe by his holy Spirit, to work a true and unfeigned repentance in us, that after the painful labours and travails of this life, may live eternally with his Son Jesus Christ, to whom be all praise and glory for ever and ever. Amen." (from the Homily on Repentance in the Book of Homilies)