When growing up in the Catholic church, and attending Catholic grammar school and an all boy high school, I resisted much of what I was hearing and experiencing. Sadly, it turned me off from God and even Jesus to some extent.
The image of God as a judgmental, dysfunctional bearded jerk in the sky just stuck in my head for decades. I still loved Jesus, but he slipped also out of my mind and heart.
I vaguely recall teachings about repentance, but like other words—sin, hell, judgment, etc.—I resisted and turned away from the church. These last few years, I am revisiting the church, and in this blog we will take a look at this word and theme, repentance.
The dictionary says repentance is the action of repenting; sincere regret or remorse. Another says the action or process of repenting especially for misdeeds or moral shortcomings, but neither of these are answering what repentance actually means. What were John the Baptist and Jesus saying when they called people repeatedly to repent?
As I see it, repent is not just words, “I’m so sorry” to God or another person, and more than a heady exercise to clear the plate, often going right back to the same behaviors and actions.
Repentance is, basically, turning from evil to good. It is turning back to God. It is more than words, which can be a good start, if sincere. It can be very healing to hear someone earnestly say, “I am truly sorry,” when you feel in your heart that the person means it, and will do their best not to do it again. And it is perhaps even more powerful when combined with a sincere effort to make amends.
While repentance and apologies can be great with humans, repentance is mostly about getting right with God. It’s about turning from sin or wrong doing, choosing God over Satan and his countless tricks: distraction, lust, gossip, violence, inappropriate anger, meanness, and other deceptions.
In Isaiah 1:16-17 God seems to define repentance pretty well: “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from My sight. Cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, reprove the ruthless, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.”
The Hebrew word for repentance is teshuvah, but the word literally means to return, which would imply changing from our evil ways, turning back to God.
The Greek word most often associated with repentance in the New Testament is metanoia, which means “change of mind.” But again, repentance is not just changing your mind, but also your behavior and actions as well.
The process might look like this:
1.acknowledge your sin or wrong doing
2.sincerely confess it to God
3. commit to not doing it again (the best you can)
4. make amends if possible
Of course, we can refuse to repent. In Matthew 24-28, Jesus says “Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.” If we continue in our wicked ways, we are counted among the dead. Not a great choice!
But God is doing everything in His patient mercy to help us make a better choice: 2 Peter 3:9: “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance”.
The good news is that God is on your side! He truly wants all to repent, not because He is an egomaniac, but because He does not want us to suffer. Jesus affirms in Luke 15:7: “Just so, I tell you, there is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance”.
I guess one good way we can relate to this is when we watch a movie when there is a nasty bugger who ticks us off, triggers us. There is part of us that wants to see this guy pummeled or punished. But in our heart, what gives us the truest satisfaction is when the person sincerely reforms and repents and goes through a healing and transformation. It cracks our heart open. We can witness and feel the healing, not just for the evil doer but all involved, especially any victims.
There is more good news! (isn’t that what the word gospel means: good news). Acts 2:38: Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”. Wow, when we repent, we receive the presence, guidance and gift of the Holy Spirit. That’s quite a gift or reward and incentive to get things aligned.
I leave you with yet one more bit of good news: from 2 Chronicles 7:14: “if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land”.
So, repentance brings peace. It forgives our sins. We receive the Holy Spirit. It heals our relationships, mostly with God.
Back to my catholic upbringing; at that time I had had it with talk of sin and judgment and guilt. I could not hear talk of repentance. When I heard, “repent!” all I could hear was judgment. I was tired of hearing about how bad I was and how I needed to repent. I took it personally.
Now, I see repentance as healing. I better understand what a fallen world we live in. If sin is simply “missing the mark,” or being out of touch with God, or not living in our highest integrity, well, none of us is perfect. None of us is living in perfect alignment with God. We can all use come present moment or continual repentance.
It is a wise, humble and profound act to pray each day–as I now try to do–and ask for forgiveness, to repent, to ask for guidance and support in aligning with Divine intelligence and purifying any evil within us and living a more righteous life.
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