When Jesus sets out on his earthly ministry, his first recorded words are not “God loves you” or “Love one another,” supremely lovely as those teachings are.  About the first word Jesus speaks, the message of his ministry, is repent.  “From that time Jesus began to preach and say, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’” (Mt 4:17, Mk 1:15).  He tells people he did not “come to call the righteous to repentance, but sinners” (Luke 5:32).  So, is Jesus saying there are people who do not need what Christ offers?  You here this evening of all evenings would not be here if you did not believe you need what Christ offers.

Before we can know or accept God’s love, before we can know or show the love for one another worthy of the name, we must repent.  Repentance is love for God.  Repentance is love for one another.  As those who have received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, King and God, we might tell ourselves that we are not now in need of repentance, that we took care of all that when we were baptized, or when our parents had us baptized.  Now, we’re forgiven; we love God and pray and go to church, so all is well.  Maybe.

Our forty-day journey to the Cross and beyond the Cross begins now, as daylight goes to dusk.  I’m not here to make much of Lent, as though there were any special merit in doing things differently over these next weeks, as though God anywhere said, Thou shalt keep Lent.  Jesus did say repent.  For a long time indeed, the Word has been calling God’s people to repent, to turn, return.  Repentance shows in a penitent life, a life continually being completely surrendered to God.  I know, and you know, that continual, complete surrender is a fierce battle we wage against ourselves.

There may be seasons of the year, and seasons in life, in which God specially calls us to take inventory with Him.  It was those pagans, the ancient Greek philosophers, who taught that the unexamined life is not a life worth living.  I sense the Spirit’s work, in that.  Apart from the guidance and counsel of the Spirit, we cannot and will not take stock, not honestly, candidly, and certainly not through the unclouded lens of Scripture.

Repent.  Turn.  Well, I don’t need to: my heart, mind, and soul are all already set on God.  And Amen!  There’s also a reason why, every Sunday, we are called in worship to confess our sin and our sins, our own, personal missteps, our corporate failures to live as God has asked.  It’s not the happiest moment in our worship service, but no one can worship God truly without first confessing his or her innate, inherent, unworthiness to be anywhere in the vicinity of God.  We don’t like to think like that, though.  We sort of bristle.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; let us gain and practice wisdom.  Our time of confession may not be the happiest moment in our weekly worship service, but it can be, each week, the prologue to supreme joy, because God gives us constant assurance that He is merciful and will forgive all who repent.  As we examine ourselves, we come to realize repentance is ongoing, takes effort—a lot of effort!  It is a costly but also potentially glorious exercise in self-knowledge and knowledge of God.  No pain, no gain.  Let each of us meditate upon that in relation to the Cross.

Solomon, renowned for his wisdom (though all his wisdom seems to have been of no help when he loved his many wives more than his God and built temples for the gods of his wives’ nations on the hills outside Jerusalem)—Solomon, when he was young and his zeal for the Lord was strong, prayed a long prayer on behalf of God’s people, at the dedication of the Temple about which his father, David, had dreamed and planned, and which Solomon built.  In his prayer, Solomon, almost prophetically, prayed: “if [Your people] take it to heart in the land where they have been taken captive, and repent and implore Your favor in the land of those who have taken them captive, saying, ‘We have sinned and done wrong, we have acted wickedly,’” then, Lord, please hear and, hearing, have mercy  (1 Kings 8:47).  You and I, knowing God because we know Jesus Christ, because the Spirit has come to us to cause Him to be known—knowing God, we know He shows mercy, has patience; we know He forgives and sends the Spirit to make good on His forgiveness.  “Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit’” (Acts 2:38).  Repent and you will receive.  Turn, and live.  Forgiveness is for those who repent; that is, for those who realize the critical urgency of their need for forgiveness only God can give.  Forgiveness is for those who, with full, broken hearts, desire what God only can give.

There is no repentance without confession.  Confession is the easiest most difficult thing of all: we admit, to ourselves, perhaps before others, and in God’s own hearing, that we not only have sinned, for all sin, but that in and of ourselves, we are incapable of doing otherwise, unable to do any different.  That’s not so flattering!  We kind of don’t like to think like that.  We need God’s help.  We need God’s love.  We need the change only God can cause.  We need God.  The mystery of it is that it is the Spirit already present with us, at work in us, who brings us to confession and clears the way for our repentance, takes us by hand and heart to repentance, and who then journeys with us all through this life of penitence, both as we walk with confidence and still when we miserably stumble.  With us through it all.  God always takes the initiative.  Our pride is not in our walk but in the one who promises to walk with us, always.  Our confidence is not in ourselves or our walk but in the one who, when we stumble, when we fall, is still and always there to lift us up, care for our wounds, those old weeping wounds, and resume the walk with us.

Scripture makes painfully clear the non-negotiable necessity of repentance.  God shows His goodness even to those who do not and will not repent: sun and rain come to the wicked as well as to the justified.  Salvation is for those who turn to God.  For those who do not, will not, there can only be punishment: the righteous, just punishment for sin.  God does not love sin; He is patient and long-suffering.  The psalmist sings, “If one does not repent, [God] will sharpen His sword; He has bent His bow and taken aim” (Ps 7:12).  We don’t much like that sort of talk and tend to avoid those parts of the Bible—God is love, and we just love love.  And the supreme manifestation of God’s love, Jesus Christ, is the one who tells anyone who has ears to hear, “unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3, 5).  God is just.  Justice requires the punishment of wrongdoing.  Unless we prefer the sort of justice where wrongdoing is indulged with impunity: do as thou wilt.  Unless we prefer punishment for others but plausible alibis and excuses, exonerating circumstances beyond our control, for ourselves.

Scripture doesn’t sugarcoat the truth.  Scripture reminds us there is punishment.  I put it to you that Scripture does so as an incentive to seek the Lord while He may be found, to fall on our faces in His presence and implore Him to have mercy.  When you and I, in Christ as we are, fail to reflect Christ, fail to demonstrate Christ in our own living—it’s not as if this pleases God, or as if God is indifferent to this failure.  Christ is pleading for us; the Spirit is pleading with us.  Let us avail ourselves of all this abundant grace!

O, the awful mystery of our shattered wills being renewed.

The sword that God sharpens is His Word.  By His Word He subdues us; by His Word He causes us to recognize ourselves, and repent; by the sword of His Word He saves us.  Mysterious judgment, blessed sentence.

Christ is not our Get Out of Hell Free card.  Christ is truly our Savior who shows us how to live and who, through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, offers us daily help to life that way.  No, we do not walk perfectly in this life, yet there is growth, some progress—costly, slow—with a will being renewed and renewed awareness both of our inability and God’s perfect ability and willingness to help those who will be helped, who earnestly pray for the help God alone can provide.  Help is for those who repent.

The prophets told us.  Isaiah writes, “Zion will be redeemed with justice / And her repentant ones with righteousness” (Is 1:27).  Justice—we can’t avoid it.  Love and justice.  Love and righteousness.  Love and holiness.  And the redemption of righteousness is for those who repent.  Those who repent will be redeemed by righteousness; with righteousness they shall be saved.  Whose righteousness?  Does repentance count as righteousness?  Well, repentance is necessary and commendable, but repentance is not righteousness.  Repentance is the Spirit-prompted confession of an entire lack of righteousness, an entire need for righteousness.  And God, who is righteous, sends His righteousness, Christ Jesus, to redeem the repentant.  To do for them what they could not do, what they would not.  Justice will be done; there is salvation.  Our redemption is entirely, inseparably interwoven with God’s justice.  God’s justice, beloved, is a wonderful, terrifying thing.  No preferential treatment, no sweetheart deals, no rules for thee but not for me.  Contemplate the Cross.

At the cross, near the cross, in the cross.  The cross is for those who repent.  Isaiah tells us, “this is what the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has said: ‘In repentance and rest you will be saved, / In quietness and trust is your strength” (Is 30:15).  God calls us to rest in Him, rely upon Him, in faith and confidence.  What we cannot do, He can do and shall; yes because He is love, even more because He is holy, and will tolerate nothing that would obscure His glory.  We do not go in our own strength; our own strength has never kept us from sin, quite the opposite!  Our strength—our ability to endure, to bear suffering, reversal and failure, to persevere, our ability to turn from temptation and hold for dear life to righteousness—our strength is our trust in the Lord.  Trust and strength—God provides both.  Be still and know I am God.  In quietness—self-discipline, prayer, humility, service, confident trust—we discover strength: God reveals the strength and love of His arms stretched out for us, and we are saved, healed, forgiven, restored.  Yes, let us stay near the cross.

“The Lord [. . .] is patient [. . .] not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance” (2 Pet 3:9).  “‘For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies,’ declares the Lord God. ‘Therefore, repent and live!’” (Ezek 18:32).  Over the centuries, Christians, under the well-meaning auspices of the church, made the journey to Easter a time for giving up something, some sacrifice for Christ.  This is good, but not if it is given up just to take it up again with the arrival of Easter morning: oh finally, thank God!  God is calling us to a greater Health, a new life.  Whatever it is God is telling you you must give up, know that here, today, you can begin to let it go, and let it go.  You know it won’t be simple.  It never has been.  There will be relapses, more self-inflicted wounds.  We know it won’t be easy—it can’t be!  It shall be costly; it will feel as if some necessary part of your life is being taken away.  We grip hard what we tell ourselves we need.  God is telling us we don’t.  It isn’t serving you, isn’t helping you, isn’t healing you.  You know this is true only because you know Christ.  Help and healing come with the ministry of Christ.  We need Christ, who is life: our life.  Let us, here and now, recommit ourselves, together, to this walk with our Lord, our Savior, our Lamb.