Category: Lent

Sackcloth and Ashes, Part 2

In my previous blog, I talked about this season of Lent, its meaning, and some of the ways Christians observe these somber weeks. The overall theme is God’s call on us to repent of our sins, sins for which Jesus died to bring us forgiveness and eternal life. I illustrated this call to repentance with the story of Jonah, the reluctant prophet whose half-hearted warning to the people of Nineveh still resulted in their repentance and forgiveness. Their story is important to know, but how does that affect us and God’s call on us to repent?

Let me suggest that our repentance can be described with the following, all beginning with the letter, “C”.

  1. Conviction – This is about recognizing and admitting that we are sinners and stand before a holy God, deserving of his punishment. This, the very beginning of all repentance, is probably the hardest for many people to accept. In our own hearts and minds, we are basically good people. Sure, we occasionally mess up, but it’s not really our fault, and besides, we don’t do that badly, right? After all, we’re not bank robbers or murderers or terrorists, are we? Like the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable, we thank God we are not like those sinful tax-collectors over there!

Even when we know our actions don’t match up with God’s commands, we often find excuses by which we rationalize what we do: “I took it because I deserve it; I gossiped because everyone needed to know what happened; I cheated on my taxes because the government was just going to waste it anyway, I cheated on my spouse because he/she doesn’t really understand me, etc.” We try to justify ourselves in order to keep our self-esteem high, because to admit we actually did something wrong may make us look bad to others – or to ourselves.

But scripture is clear that we are all sinners who stand convicted and guilty before God. In our weekly services we hear the words of 1 John: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” We read in Romans 3:23, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” And both testaments affirm “there is no one righteous, no not one.”

At the Last Supper, Jesus promised the coming of the Holy Spirit. He said that the work of the Holy Spirit would be to convict the world of sin. When we truly know in our hearts that we are sinners and have sinned, it is because the Spirit has convicted us of our guilt through the hearing of God’s commandments in his word.

This is what hit the Ninevites so hard: they heard God’s word spoken by Jonah, and God’s Spirit convicted them that they were truly guilty and deserved God’s wrath. Likewise when we hear what God expects from us and what he forbids us to do, we become convicted that we have sinned and deserve the same wrath God almost poured out on Nineveh. That prepares us for the second part of repentance.

  1. Contrition – This is sorrow for what we have done – against God and others. It comes from the Latin word, contritus, which means, “ground to pieces,” as in being crushed by guilt for what we have done. It goes beyond just admitting our guilt – contrition is sincere sorrow, regret, and remorse for sins we’ve committed.

We feel sorry when something bad happens to us and our loved ones, but do we ever feel sorrow for the bad things that we do? How many public officials and politicians hold tearful press conferences about how sorry they are for their bad behavior before their sin is exposed by someone else? They seem more sorry to have been caught than to have done it in the first place. Likewise, are we more sorry for the consequences of our acts than we are for our sinful desires and attitudes that led us to do them? Are we truly sorry that we have thumbed our noses at God and his commandments? Are we just “sorry” because we know we should do better, or do we feel true contrition, that is, heart-felt sorrow for “our failure to live as God’s people in this place”? When the Ninevites put on their sackcloth and ashes, they were expressing the change in heart they felt for their sins: they were showing outwardly the contrition they felt inwardly.

True contrition leads to a “sackcloth and ashes” level of repentance, in which we grieve our sins and throw ourselves on God’s mercy. Gone are our excuses and rationalizations. Gone is our self-justification. We now depend totally on God and accept his judgment. David expressed this contrition in Psalm 51, following his sins of adultery and murder: “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”

  1. Correction – The mark of true remorse is to correct what we are doing wrong. How sorry do we really feel for doing something wrong if we keep on doing it? Do we cry “crocodile tears” when we are caught, only to go back to it when we think no one is watching? Repentance is turning away from pursuing sin and instead turning toward God and his ways; it means a change in the way we live. God saw this in the Ninevites, who did more than just dress and eat differently because of their remorse; they also turned from the violent and evil ways they had been living, and cleaned up their act. They showed in their more righteous living what Matthew 3:8 later commanded: “Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.”

As Christians, we know we are not saved by our works. We can live a moral life, give generously to the needy, serve the church night and day, and even become a wonderful pastor, but all our good actions will not undo even one of our sins. We depend totally on the grace and mercy of God, and yet having been saved, we are called to live differently than the world lives, to live better and more in keeping with God’s will and commandments. And the same Spirit who convicted us also empowers us to desire God and his will for our lives, and to do it.

  1. Christ – the fourth “C” involved in repentance is Christ, for without him and his sacrifice for us on the cross (is that the 5th “C”?), all the conviction and sorrow and change of behavior would not satisfy God’s call for repentance. Conviction does not save us – it just shows we’re guilty; contrition does not save us – it just shows we’re sorry; correction doesn’t save us – it’s what we should be doing anyway. Only Christ provides the forgiveness we need; only faith in his atonement on the cross is sufficient for salvation. That’s because true repentance involves both turning from sin, and turning to God through faith in his Son, Jesus Christ.

So let us move forward through Lent, repenting of our sins, all the while looking forward to the day when Christ himself shall trade our sackcloth for his robes of righteousness, and our ashes for his oil of gladness. And let us give thanks that Jonah was right about one thing: for God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love!

Now may the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.

Read: Jonah chapters 1-4 again!

 

Sackcloth and Ashes

Today begins the 40 day observance of Lent, the somber season in which we Christians traditionally consider our sins as the reason Christ died. Our observance often includes wearing ashes on our foreheads (hence the name, Ash Wednesday), worship with confession and repentance, fasting, and service to others. In our liturgy, we replace the singing of the “Alleluia” with what is called the Lenten Sentence, which calls us to “Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.”

These Lenten practices have their basis in Scripture, especially, if surprisingly, in the Old Testament book of Jonah. We would do well to consider his story as we journey through Lent toward the Cross and the Empty Tomb.

Jonah was not happy, for he was having a bad week. It all began when God called him to go preach a warning message to the huge city of Nineveh, which happened to be the capital of Israel’s mortal enemies, the Assyrians. Then when Jonah tried to get out of the task by sailing in the opposite direction, God sent a violent storm, and he was thrown into the sea by the pagan sailors who realized Jonah’s God was angry at him for something. Jonah almost drowned, sinking down to the depths of the sea and being entangled in seaweed. But even as Jonah’s death seemed imminent, along came a great fish that swallowed him whole and kept him alive for three days and nights in its belly. Not a pleasant experience for sure: even if you like seafood, the term, “sleeping with the fishes” is not something you really want to do! Finally, the fish spit Jonah up onto land.

Again, this was not a good week for Jonah, because even though he survived that ordeal, from his perspective, things were about to get worse. God came to him a second time and repeated his command for Jonah to go preach to Nineveh. This time, Jonah obeyed: he proclaimed to the city a simple message, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” and then he sat down and waited for God to pour his wrath upon the Ninevites and destroy them.

But something dramatic happened. The people of Nineveh, from the king on down to the lowliest peasant, believed God, and turned to him in repentance for their sins and violent ways. They fasted and wore sackcloth – think burlap bag. The king himself took off his royal robes and put on sackcloth and sat down in ashes to mourn what he and his people had done and what was likely to happen to them if God did not forgive them. The king ordered that man and beast alike must fast and wear sackcloth, in hopes that God would spare them.

And then, to Jonah’s dismay, God accepted their repentance and forgave them. Jonah complained to the Lord, saying why he fled from God the first time: he didn’t want Nineveh to be spared, and was afraid they might repent and be forgiven. He said to the Lord, “For I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.”

So why did God spare Nineveh, when centuries earlier he had destroyed other wicked cities such as Sodom and Gomorrah? Jonah 3:10 tells us: “When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.”

Now did you notice what was missing from that explanation for the Lord’s mercy towards Nineveh? It does not say, “When God saw what they did, how they put on sackcloth and ashes and fasted, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them.” What it says is, “When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them.” It was not a change of clothing that saved them; it was a change of heart, which showed itself in their new, more righteous way of living.

The main effect of sackcloth and ashes back then, and of all the Lenten disciplines of prayer, worship, service to others, and fasting today, is not on God. He already loves us; he already is by nature gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love; and we cannot manipulate him into forgiving us by what we wear or what we eat. Instead, the main effect of the Lenten disciplines is what those disciplines do to us.

We are the ones who need to be changed. We are the ones who sin and stand in danger of God’s righteous judgement; we are the ones for whom Christ died, and we are the ones called to turn to God in faith and repentance. Lenten disciplines remind us of these facts, and help us to focus on them more than we usually do in our daily lives.

Repentance is what the Lord desires from us. 2 Peter 3:9 says the Lord is patient toward us, “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” Matthew 4:17 tells us that from the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, his message was, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Then, just before Jesus ascended to heaven, Luke 24:47 says he taught “that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” And on the great day of Pentecost, Peter told the crowd, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. . .” (Acts 2:38)

God’s word clearly says so many times that he desires us to repent. But what does that actually mean? In Part 2 of this blog, I will suggest four things that are essential to true repentance. In the meantime, see what you come up with on your own.

Now, may the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.

Read: Jonah chapters 1-4