Repentance and Forgiveness Proclaimed
Luke 24:44-53
It has been just two weeks since Boonville High School’s graduation. I suspect that for most of the graduates, even though they can celebrate that they are graduates, they are still not entirely sure what it means to be a graduate. These past two weeks after graduation are nearly the same as the two weeks after they completed their junior year of high school.
The main difference between those two weeks is probably a party, some cards and gifts, and a certificate with their name on it that says they are a graduate. But otherwise, there isn’t much difference between being a graduate and being someone with one more year to go.
As important as the event of graduation is, you usually don’t feel like a graduate until you take the next step that only a graduate can do. That next step might be shipping off to boot camp. It could be moving into your own place and starting full time employment. Or it might be when you move into a dorm to begin even more schooling. Whatever it is, there comes a moment that confirms that you really are a graduate.
The ascension of Jesus is the moment that acts as the confirmation of the resurrection. For 40 days after the stone was rolled away and Jesus appeared to Mary and the disciples on Easter morning, Jesus has been making appearances on the beach, in homes, and at other places. And for the disciples this is exciting and a little unreal, but it really isn’t that much different than before Jesus was crucified. Jesus is still their teacher, opening their minds and helping them become the people God has always intended them to be. There might even be some who think that Jesus must not have really died at all, because it all seems to be much the same as before.
Some preachers, feeling the burden of enlightenment and needing to explain away the miracles of the Bible, have suggested as much. But there is a good answer to that, as suggested by an advice column in the magazine "Christianity Today." The answer was written by someone who used the pseudonym“Eutychus.” As the Bible scholars among us know, Eutychus was the young man who fell asleep and then fell out of a third-story window while Paul was preaching a very long sermon.
The letter read, “Dear Eutychus: Our preacher said, on Easter, that Jesus just swooned on the cross and the disciples nursed Him back to health. What do you think? Sincerely, Bewildered”
Eutychus replied, “Dear Bewildered: Beat your preacher with a cat-of-nine-tails using 39 heavy strokes, nail him to a cross, hang him in the sun for 6 hours; run a spear through his heart; embalm him; put him in an airless tomb for 36 hours and see what happens. Sincerely, Eutychus”
The disciples had seen Jesus risen from the dead, yet they still needed an event, as do we, when there is no doubt that the resurrection is real and completed. And that’s what we get in our reading for today. Jesus blesses the disciples, reminds them of all that has happened in accordance with the scriptures, and gives them marching orders to fulfill their ministry. And then he takes them to a mount in the area of Bethany, and he ascends into heaven.
The disciples find themselves in much the same place that we find ourselves today. They believe that Jesus has conquered sin and death through his resurrection and ascension into heaven, where he sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. And that is the rub. He sits there in heaven, and not across the table from them sharing a meal, as he did at the Last Supper. He sits there at the right hand of God, and not in the synagogue, where he had taught them so many truths and parables before. He sits there where he will judge the quick and the dead, and not walking with them on the road where there was plenty of time to ask questions and get clarification about what it means to be perfect in love.
Jesus knows that this will be their condition after the ascension. So, Jesus sums up what the disciples need to know to continue. First, he tells them that he has done all that was required for the messiah, in accordance with the scriptures. And second, Jesus tells them that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations. This is the job of the disciples, then and now – this is what it means to be a witness of the resurrection.
That job description may surprise people today. It surprises them because some people act as if being a Christian is all about judging others. Some people act as if being a Christian is all about singing and dancing in worship, giving thanks for our blessings in this life and the next. And some people act as if being a Christian is proven by making a pledge so that this television ministry can continue.
I think some people believe this is what it means to be a Christian because they can understand these things. We can be clear about sin in the world. We have reasons to rejoice and celebrate. And we know the importance of sharing the good news with as many people as possible, and the commitment it takes to do that. That’s not so hard to understand.
But I also think we believe this is what it means to be a Christian because of what we have done to repentance and the forgiveness of sins. We have reduced repentance to a pledge to try our best not to do wrong again. And we have trivialized forgiveness to little more than accepting someone’s apology.
We need to reclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins as a core belief and practice of our faith. We need to do this because repentance and forgiveness of sins are the holy responses we make for our failure to love God and our failure to love our neighbors as Christ has loved us. Repentance and forgiveness of sins are the signs that we are justified by grace, that we are in a right relationship with God and our neighbors.
We are called to the ministry of repentance because we have distorted our relationships with our neighbors. We are in a wrong relationship whenever we treat someone as “other” instead of as “sister or brother.” We treat someone as “other” whenever we see them as less than someone in whom Jesus could dwell. We treat someone as “other” whenever we believe that even Jesus couldn’t love them.
I have shared before that “serpent” means “to crawl away,” and that “repent” means “to crawl towards.” Repentance is about coming humbly to God, which means we don’t see ourselves as better than anyone else. It can even mean, as the Wesley brothers said it, that we see ourselves as “the chief of sinners” because we know better – we know we are supposed to love God and love our neighbors, and yet we fail so often at living into that love.
Jesus didn’t have to explain what he meant by repentance because this was a concept that would have been well understood in that day by the faithful. Rabbinic teaching in the time of Jesus said that repentance requires five elements: 1) recognition of your sins as sins, 2) remorse for your sin, 3) desisting from sinning further, 4) restitution where possible, and 5) confession of that sin before God and the community. The rabbis taught that all of these steps are necessary for repentance to be genuine. They are necessary becausethey help form us as the chosen and redeemed children of God, so that we may continue to bein a right relationship with God and our neighbors.
Repentance may begin with any one of these elements. It can begin with action, analysis, remorse, restitution, or confession – but it is clear that we need to do all of it in order to be conformed to the image of God revealed in Jesus Christ. And as we repeat the steps of repentance each time we sin, we will find that our analysis and remorse deepens, our restitution and commitment-to-desist become surer, and our confession becomes more profound. Through the practice of repentance, we return to a right relationship with our neighbors, a relationship that will bring glory to God.
We are called to the ministry of the forgiveness of sins because we have distorted our relationship with God. We owe a debt of love and thankfulness to God for creating us in God’s image, for providing us with all that we need, for providing us the means of salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, for providing us the means of grace that we may grow in faith and love, and for providing us the Holy Spirit to guide and sustain us in our journey of faith. We have a great debt of gratitude to pay!
We distort our relationship with God whenever we fail to forgive someone who has sinned against us. This failure declares that their debt owed to us is greater than the debt we owe to God. This failure declares that we are above God in importance. And that sounds absurd, except that this was the original sin in the Garden of Eden – that we would decide good and evil, not God, because we are the final and ultimate authority. And despite what we rail against as the worst sins today, this is the sin that underlies them all – this is where our sin originates.
When we fail to forgive, we are saying that we want God to hold us to the same standard of accountability that we are holding others. This is what we pray for in the Lord’s Prayer, “Forgive us our debts, our sins, our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We are saying, “Don’t do any better by us than what we do by others.” It shouldn’t take you more than half a second to realize what a bad deal that would be for any of us. Forgiveness of sins is central to what it means to be saved, and what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.
Jesus didn’t have to explain what he meant by forgiveness of sins because this was a concept that would have been well understood by the faithful in that day. The rabbis in the time of Jesus taught that there were three levels of forgiveness. First, you could accept the debt has been paid. Second, you could offer mercy, and the debt is written off. And third, you could offer grace by paying the debt for them – and that is what Jesus did for us. Forgiveness is all about the grace of loving others as Christ has loved us.
Yet, as long as we believe and live as if a debt is owed to us, we place ourselves on the throne, distorting our relationship with God. Our forgiveness of sins is how we make our relationship right with God, and this is the witness Jesus has called us to make in his name to all nations.
There comes a time in our life when our salvation needs to become real, just as the ascension made real the resurrection of Jesus for the disciples. You may already be baptized. You may already be confirmed as a member of the church – that you have “graduated” as a member. But there may still be a sense that it is not yet quite real, that we are not really disciples, that we are not entirely sure what it means to be saved since so much of our life is just like it was before.
That time of reality and clarity comes in every event when we proclaim, through our words and work, the repentance and forgiveness of sins in the name of Jesus Christ. This is when our eyes are opened, and we see Jesus rise into heaven as our Savior and Lord. This is when we know the victory over sin and death for ourselves. This is when we take up our cross and truly follow Jesus.
Decide today what in your life needs repentance. You can come to the altar rail and confess your sin, but know that it does not end there. But what you will find there, if you ask, is the Spirit of God to walk with you in making your repentance complete.
Decide today who it is that you need to forgive in the name of Jesus. Even if they are not likely, even if they are unable, to repent of their sin toward you, you can forgive them. You can forgive them because it will put you in a right relationship with God, who provides for us all that we need.
We are called by Jesus to a ministry of repentance and the forgiveness of sins. May today be the day we see him rise!
UMH 312 “Hail the Day That Sees Him Rise”