Lent #8: Discipline 2 of 7 – Repentance

Repent and Believe

(Mark 1:15)

Repentance doesn’t come to us out of nowhere. Something has to happen—something big. Something bigger than “I’m sorry”. Though “I’m sorry” is a good thing, it usually doesn’t cost us much—some embarrassment maybe; or, even recompense. But repentance itself has to do with our belief in God as our Creator and Redeemer. Repentance has to do with a strange sorrow that comes to me for becoming something other than what God created me to be.

Belief and repentance are inseparable. It’s all in Psalm 51: “A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” There is sorrow in repentance, but it comes with a good dose of joy: “Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.” Anything that is mechanical and spiritless, such as contrived penance, is not repentance. Repentance requires God’s spirit mingling with our spirit. In short, the whole of our big and spacious triune God is in on it: God the Father who created me, God the Son who redeems me, and God the Holy Spirit who “sustain[s] in me a willing spirit” (vs 12).