REPENT WITH YOUR WHOLE BEING.
In the name + of Jesus.
The prophet Joel wrote scathing words of
judgment against the people of Israel.
He was not alone. If you read
through most of the Minor Prophets, you will see similar pronouncements of God’s
wrath, warnings of coming judgment, and earnest calls to repentance. Why was such harsh preaching aimed at God’s
people? Was Israel actually worse than
the nations around them which practiced child sacrifice? Were the people of the covenant more
debauched than others whose worship involved sexually perverted acts? Was Jerusalem even more faithless than Egypt
or Assyria or Babylon? To hear the Minor
Prophets, you would think so.
Even if Israel was not worse, they did not
seem to be any better. The difference is
that Israel was given so much more than the nations around them. The Lord had claimed Israel as his people. The Lord had given them his word so that they
could distinguish between good and evil, clean and unclean. They were set apart for God; therefore, their
lives were to be set apart as godly. Much
had been given to them; much was expected of them. Despite their privileged position, they
proved to be lazy, negligent, indifferent, and rebellious. They found the perverted ways of the people
around them to be attractive. They forsook
self-control. They gave way to sinful
impulses. Perhaps they felt they had
license to abuse God’s grace. Perhaps they
thought it did not matter.
Despite all this, the Lord sent the prophets
to them so that they would not forfeit the privileges they had as God’s people. The prophet Joel made the plea: “‘Yet even now,’ declares the Lord, ‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping,
and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments’” (Joel
2:12-13). Repent with your whole being.
You and I share the privileged position of
being the people of God. You have been
rescued from your bondage to sin and death.
Jesus has removed your guilt from you so that you will not face the wrath
of a righteous God. Rather than stand in
terror before the Lord, you are received as the beloved children of your good
and merciful Father in heaven. Rather
than be haunted by the fact that you are going to die, Jesus enables you to
taunt death and the grave. Since Jesus
has overcome the grave by his resurrection, he holds authority over death. And since you belong to Jesus, he will raise
you up from the grave to live forever with him free from pain, sorrow, and
fear. You have been set apart as God’s
people. You live as beneficiaries of God’s
grace. Therefore, you are also set apart
to be godly people, living like Jesus for the glory of Jesus. You have been given much; therefore, much is
expected of you.
How easy it is to become lazy! We grow tired of self-control. We forfeit many battles against our sinful
inclinations. We use our weakness as an
excuse because it is easier to make excuses than it is to fight off temptations
and kill off sinful habits. We are also
envious of people who have cast off self-control and give themselves over to
whatever impulse they have. They are swept
away by their sins, but it looks like they are having a blast. They are like the singer of the Grateful Dead
who said, “I may be going to hell in a bucket, baby, but at least I’m enjoying
the ride.” At least Jerry Garcia acknowledged
the possibility of hell; most don’t. And
we envy them! We would like to enjoy the
ride with them. What should God do when
his grace is abused, when his people despise their privileges, and when we
would rather blend in than be set apart?
The prophet Joel urges us to consider: “The Day of the LORD is great. It is
terrifying. Who can endure it” (Joel 1:11,
EHV)? The judgment is deserved.
Joel cries out: “‘Yet even now,’
declares the Lord, ‘return to me with all your heart, with
fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and
not your garments. Return to
the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to
anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster’” (Joel
2:12-13).
Repent with your whole being.
The prophet Joel does not reduce
repentance to an outward ritual. Sure,
they could rend their garments. That was
an expression of grief over their sins.
But if it were only an outward act, it was useless. That is why Joel declared, “Rend your
hearts and not your garments” (Joel 2:12).
The same could be said for putting the ashes on your forehead. If you reduce repentance to getting a smudge
of ash, it is pure showmanship. People
may commend you for it, but then you have received your reward in full.
On the other hand, Joel does not limit
repentance to a mental exercise. He
calls on us to engage our whole being in repentance. He calls for fasting, weeping, and
mourning. We do not do these in our
minds, we engage our bodies. This is the
purpose of ceremonies. We do with our
bodies what we confess with our mouths and feel in our hearts. After all, our sins are not limited to our
hearts. Sin may have corrupted our
hearts and minds, but sins pour out of our mouths and hands and bodies. We commit sins with our eyes and ears. Our sins are observed in our actions. They are heard in our words. They are considered in our minds and schemed
in our hearts. There is no part of us
which is immune to the corruption or free from the guilt. Therefore, Joel urges: Repent with your whole
being.
Repentance comes from godly sorrow, but it
also means turning away from sin. This
is the discipline of self-control. We
engage our mouths to reject bitter, sarcastic, or obscene words. We engage our hands to refrain from spiteful or
fraudulent actions. We close our ears to
gossip. We turn our eyes from illicit
entertainment. We discipline our bodies to
show that we are not ruled by our stomachs, our wallets, or longings, or our egos. This is the purpose of fasting. When you fast, you are denying yourself the things
that want to own you. It is not done to
win God’s approval or to earn points.
Rather, it is discipline so that sin will not draw you away from a good and
godly life, so that you are ruled by faith and not the flesh.
When God’s people become lazy, negligent, or
begin to adopt worldly attitudes, we become the objects of scorn—and not just
from the Lord. Even the godless will
charge us: “You do not take your God or your faith very seriously, do you?” Therefore, we repent with our
whole being. Especially during
this penitential season, we intensify our discipline. It is not forced upon you. We take up this discipline willingly; for it
is part of the answer to Joel’s prayer: “Spare your people,
O Lord, and make not your heritage a reproach, a byword among the
nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God’” (Joel 2:17)? If we are mocked for our lack of self-control,
it is deserved.
Repent with your whole
being—turning from sin and turning to the Lord.
Joel summons us, “Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster” (Joel 2:13). The Lord has relented from the disaster that
comes as a result of sin. He does not
treat us as our sins deserve.
Nevertheless, he cannot overlook our sins, either. Therefore, Jesus has come to suffer the
disaster we had brought upon ourselves.
Just as our
repentance is not merely a mental exercise, neither were Jesus’ sufferings and death. Certainly, there was mental and spiritual
anguish for Jesus. In Gethsemane, Jesus “said to (Peter, James, and John), “My soul is very
sorrowful, even to death” (Mark 14:34). On the cross, Jesus expressed
the anguish of his soul when he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me”
(Mark 15:34)? God’s wrath and judgment were absorbed by Jesus’
entire being. His back was rent by flogging. His face received the punches and the spitting. His head was pierced with thorns. His wrists and feet were torn by nails. His body was given into death. All of it is the payment for our sin—sin
which has corrupted us completely in body and soul, heart and hands, mind and
mouth.
Repent with your
whole being. Your body and soul Savior
has been gracious to you. He has redeemed
your entire being. He has cleansed your
heart. He renews your mind. He moves you to offer your body as a living
sacrifice, casting off wickedness and dedicating yourself to good works. Jesus does not merely save your soul. He took on a body to rescue your body from
death and the grave. You get to look
forward to a resurrection where you will dwell with the Lord, body and soul, as
he created you to be. This is why we
return to the Lord. He alone delivers us
from fear and shame in our hearts and from death and destruction for our
bodies.
Repent with your
whole being, and engage your whole being in worship and praise. For, when the Lord applies his grace to you,
he engages your whole being. Forgiveness
of sins does not come to you just by thinking about it. It is applied to you through words delivered
from a mouth and received in your ears. Salvation
comes to you through water which is poured on a body. We do not baptize souls, but bodies. The body is washed, and the grace of God is
given to a whole person. In the same way,
you do not commune with God through some vague spirituality. He who came as your body and blood Savior
gives you his body and blood in the sacrament of the altar. The living body and blood is taken, and
tasted, and consumed. By this eating and
drinking, Jesus sustains you, body and soul, in the true faith unto life
everlasting.
If you have chosen to receive ashes on your head, it is because you are demonstrating that you are marked for death. If you have chosen to not receive ashes, you are still marked for death. Either way, you repent with your whole being. And your whole being has been redeemed by Jesus. “The Lord answer[s] and sa[ys] to his people, ‘Behold, I am sending to you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied; and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations’” (Joel 2:19). He has anointed you with the oil of gladness. He has bestowed the grain and wine by which he gives you his body and blood. Jesus delivers you from the sins that corrupt you and from the grave that claims you. Repent with your whole being. Rejoice with your whole being. Praise him, serve him, and worship him with your whole being. For, Jesus has invested his whole being to redeem you, and he has set you apart wholly for himself.
In the name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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