Relent & Repent
Starting the Lenten Journey
My sermon notes from Ash Wednesday, albeit preached much differently.
The Temptation of Jesus, Rembrandt
What is Lent?
Is it a race to be run? Is it a challenge to overcome?
No, it is a surrendering and a death. A death to the old Adam, so the New Adam shall reign.
But before we proceed to discuss what Lent is, we need to know what Lent is about. What is it for? Because if we look at Lent wrongly, then it will serve no purpose for us, indeed it can even be harmful.
For those of you who came into this Church, not knowing Christ, that is the first step before taking on Lent. For those of you who have long been in the Church but have forgotten Christ, again, this is the first step. We must know Jesus before journeying with Him in Lent. Otherwise, we sow the seeds of our own destruction and mishear and misunderstand Lent as a “holy trying” and end up becoming twice the sons of hell like the Pharisees’ proselytes. If we decide to Lent before we relent, if we Lent before we repent, then this season will do us no good.
Therefore, listen to the reading from Joel.1 It serves as a warning and as a bookend to this season and its conclusion in Holy Week. In Joel, we hear the warning, “Let all the inhabitants tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming; it is near, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness.” Indeed, the day of the Lord is a dark day for those who are unrepentant. We remember that we are but dust and ashes, deserving of God’s wrath. We use this season and this First Day of Lent to remember our deaths, so that we may remember our new lives. Remember death, and recall your baptism.
Yet there is another bookend coming. A bookend to this season that comes during Holy Week, when we see a day in which darkness overtakes the light. A day in which the sun in the sky is blotted out, so that the Son who hangs in the sky upon the Cross will blot out our sins. Hence, we repeat this day the cry of Psalm 51:9, where David sings,
Turn your face from my sins *
and blot out all my misdeeds.
Dear sinner who knows not Christ, today is your day. For we are all sinners, but do not neglect to hear the Gospel - that cleansing is here for you, and for me, weak and weary as we are in our sins. Beloved Ones of God, as St. Paul tells us, “Behold, now is the favorable time; behold now is the day of salvation.”2 Today is the day to “be reconciled to God,” because Lent is a journey for sinners to follow the Master and behold how in His great love He saves us. The Master goes into the desert to face Satan for us. He perfectly fulfills the Law by His merits, He atones for our sin by putting it on His whipped back, and He dies so Death has no hold over us. “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Therefore, before you Lent, relent and allow the Holy One of God, who relentlessly loves you, overtake you and make you His own. How can you do this? By confessing your trust in Jesus the Christ, Jesus the Son of God, Jesus the Savior who came to us at Christmas as the babe in the manger and walks now into the demon-infested desert and pit of death to defeat our sin and defang Satan.
As the prophet Joel foretold, regardless of the sins you bring, confess them. “Yet even now, declares the LORD, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.” This season is not about doing better; it is a season to give up and give yourself over to God, who receives you as you are, so that you will not be left as you are.
“How do I do this?” you may be asking yourself. The Lord tells us in Joel, “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.”
Rend (your heart), Return (to the Lord), Relent (to Christ’s call), and Repent (from your sins). This is the season we enter.
First, come to know Jesus. Confess your sins and confess Him as Lord. Be baptized and washed in His blood and then feast upon Him at Holy Communion by faith.
Next, (I turn to you, fellow Christian), whether this is your first Lent or your fiftieth, do not let this become a marathon to endure, but allow Lent to be a response of faith. Lent is a season of intense spiritual workouts so that we may continue lenting year-round and relenting to God’s hold over our lives so that His Holy Spirit may enliven us and make us into the new creation He has promised us. It’s not pull-yourself-up by your bootstraps, but faithfully looking up to Jesus every moment, even - no, especially - when you fall. Our Lord is faithful, and He will pull, drag, and carry you across the desert of your life and bring you from wilderness to Promised Land.
We live in an unrelenting world that will not lift its grip off our shoulders. Like a predator, sin crouches ready to pounce and sink its teeth into us. Death awaits and haunts us. Satan laughs and enslaves us.
So for the Christian gathered here this evening, if you came to kick off your 40 day battle against sin, you will end up failing and dying. But Christ came to take on your sin, He goes before you to destroy death, and He conquers Satan on your behalf.
Lent is not about striving or trying harder. Lent is getting the hell out of the way of the Holy Ghost so that He may sanctify you. Lent is about stopping and quitting - resisting sin and simply not acting and not moving an inch unless the Spirit is pressing you. Lent is relenting to Christ and allowing Him to live within you, surgically removing that callous stone we call our hearts, and giving you a new one. We must repent and turn towards Christ and relent from struggling against His Holy Spirit, who is trying to sanctify you into the new son and daughter of God that you were saved to become.
Alright, I’ve kept you all in suspense long enough. What is Lent about after all?
Lent is about dying.
Dying to yourself.
Dying to the world.
Dying to make room for the Holy Spirit to live within you.
Jon Foreman, lead singer of the band Switchfoot and solo artist, makes this very clear in his song, Learning How to Die. In this song, there’s a man and a woman in dialogue. The man, in denial like many in the world and within the church, does not want to contemplate death. But as Christians, until we understand we are called to a holy death today, we will never know what it is to engage in holy living. In Foreman’s song, the man laments, saying:
And I said, please
Don’t talk about the end
Don’t talk about how
Every living thing goes away
The woman responds that she used to think the same, singing:
All along I thought
I was learning how to take
How to bend, not how to break
How to live, not how to cry
But really I’ve been learning how to die
Lent is about learning how to die.
We take and demand more.
We bend and sin breaks us.
We live in a world of tears.
Yet Christ gives us what we truly need.
Christ takes us broken and makes us new.
Jesus wipes away every tear.
We must learn to die to ourselves. We cannot strive to live like Christ while clinging to our sin. We have to let go and repent. We must relent and give way to the relentless pursuit of our lover, the Lord God Almighty. Therefore, when you heard the Gospel lesson,3 do not hear it as Jesus giving you new laws when He is giving you the remedies for responding in faith to living the new life. Listen to the prescription from our Great Physician in Matthew’s Gospel:
1) When you fast …
Not if, but when. We are called to fast with our mouths and with our souls. We fast from sin so we may feast upon Christ each Sunday and Holy Day in the Lord’s Supper. We are called to deny the flesh, and it is hard. It’s hard because we have stored up too many treasures on earth. Lent is a season when our hearts are exposed, and if you engage in attempting a holy Lent, then you will inevitably fail. But even this failing and falling is good for your soul, for you shall soon realize what false gods lurk buried in your stony heart.
2) When you give …
Our Lord Jesus expects us to give and give freely. Giving to the needy and those who are struggling is what the Lord expects us to do because He has loved us in His poverty in order to lavish us with His riches. Therefore, today is a day not to take into account what others owe you, whether in money, respect, honor, or glory. No, today is a day to give it all away. This is a season to see where you have been hoarding from your neighbor and to give it up: the extra cloak, your time (to serve them), in addition to monetary alms. Ignore the whispers of the flesh and Satan to take more and more and instead give it all away. Discover where you have been burying the stolen treasures of the world in your soul and root them out. Get rid of those buried sinful treasures of the heart and lay the axe to their roots. You have much to give, much more than you think, for time is money so they say yet how little time do we spend loving our neighbor as ourselves? Your giving starts with monetary alms but is so much more, for God wants every inch of you for His Kingdom and you have so much to give! Give to those in need – both materially and spiritually. Yes, use this season to build a holy practice of not saving for this world where your treasure and soul shall rot, but investing and spending your time and possessions for the eternal Kingdom that reigns in our lives. Use Lent as a season to stop hoarding the Gospel for yourself and give away Christ’s good news to all those within your reach.
3) When you pray …
I doubt any of us prays as much as we think we do. St. Paul commends us to pray without ceasing. I only ask that we start praying. When you struggle to give alms, pray for God to give you a new heart. When you are tempted to break your fast, pray to the Lord to feed you by the Word of God. When you inevitably fail in all your Lenten disciplines, do not buck up and try to pull yourself up. Learn how to die. Go back and pray to the Father who loves you relentlessly. Pray for the Father to keep your eyes set on the author and finisher of our faith, Jesus Christ.
Jesus has set His face towards Jerusalem; set your eyes upon His face. Let Lent be a time of preparing for Pascha, Passover, the Great Easter Vigil. Like the Hebrews of old, heed the Lord’s command and prepare yourself for the journey in the wilderness. Just as the Israelites baked bread for the journey, pray for the journey ahead. But do not for a moment keep your eyes off Jesus, for Lent is not about navel-gazing and looking at your old sins; it is about dropping off your pride, your greed, and your lusts, and letting Jesus carry them as a beast of burden in the desert of our lives. Watch Him, He who once went as a cloud by day and pillar of fire by night ahead of the Israelites, now goes before us bearing our sins.
Look up and look to the Cross that casts a shadow upon us. A shadow of judgment for those who reject their God, and a shadow of sabbath rest for those who repent unto their Savior.
If we are to feast, we must fast. Let us therefore fast from ourselves, deny ourselves, die to ourselves, and put on the righteousness of God given by faith and fully clothed to us in our baptism in Christ.
We forgetful sinners need encouragement to keep our eyes on the merciful Savior. The old prayerbook knew this and asked that every day in Lent we pray the collect for Ash Wednesday. Together, Church, let’s pray this collect daily, reminding ourselves of the loving God who takes away our sins when we relent and repent.
Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made, and you forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
- The Collect for Ash Wednesday, 2019 ACNA BCP.
The Old Testament lesson for Ash Wednesday in the 2019 ACNA Book of Common Prayer, and the Epistle lesson for traditional prayerbooks.
The Epistle lesson for the 2019 ACNA BCP.