2209AFC030422 – Lenten Reruns
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Sirach 17:24-29 – 24 Yet to those who repent he grants a return, and he encourages those who are losing hope. 25 Turn back to the Lord and forsake your sins; pray in his presence and lessen your offense. 26 Return to the Most High and turn away from iniquity, and hate intensely what he abhors. 27 Who will sing praises to the Most High in Hades in place of the living who give thanks? 28 From the dead, as from one who does not exist, thanksgiving has ceased; those who are alive and well sing the Lord’s praises. 29 How great is the mercy of the Lord, and his forgiveness for those who return to him!
E pili mau na pomaika‘i ia ‘oe a me ke akua ho’omaika‘i ‘oe, ʻŌmea! (May blessing always be with you and may God bless you, Beloved!) I hope all of you are well, or at least as well as can be expected. I want to give a little Praise Report here about MB who has been on the Intercessory Prayer List for “a while.” We have great news thanks in part to your prayers, her hard work, and her doctors. Recently we just learned that in just over a year three tumors have disappeared. And the right-side thyroid had partially grown back. The new sonogram was normal. Vision check showed that the hole in the right macula had healed. This is but one of the many positive reports we get from people listed on the Intercessory Prayer List. We all thank you for your prayers, and encourage you to send up a shout of ALLELUIA! AMEN! for those of us who have benefited from your prayers. Now let’s get to the business at hand.
I’ve had lots of “reflection time” over the last several weeks, and much of it centered on what we’re doing with these essays – are they important enough to keep doing? Are they too much? What’s the most important message over the last – say – three years? I am, admittedly, surprised by how the Spirit answered those reflections. It was one simple word, one that I’ve said over and over and over. This go-’round, though, I’m going to temper that message a bit with quotes and comments. The quotes will be from the 2019 Lenten Series.
Instead of just copy and paste, I want to reiterate what stands out as most important in those older posts. They begin with 1910AFC030819 – 2019 Lenten Series #1. The series was, and will be, about repentance. As I watched the news over the past 12 days, I felt a great burden to repent personally and as a nation – even as a Church – for the terrible things that are happening. The attempt to codify “abortion rights,” WAR, murder-suicides, citizen attacks on police and police attacks on citizens, clergy making statements that are clearly wrong, “progressive Christianity” spewed throughout many denominations, satanic conventions – what a MESS! So, we are going look again at repentance and metanoia. (Originally posted under Aloha Friday Messages at http://www.aloha-friday.org – The Moon Beam Network).
Today is the first Friday of Lent, 2022 and the beginning of a REPEAT series on the word metanoia. That word has come up before a few times, but in this series we will be using it often. It is a word Jesus used at the beginning of his ministry and the Apostle Paul also used it (although not always where we correctly remember him saying it.) Here are three examples. The first is from John the Baptist in Matthew 3:2, Mark 1:4, and Luke 3:3 – 2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” The Second example is from Jesus at the start of his ministry in Matthew 4:17, Mark 1:15, and Luke 5:32 – 17 From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” The third example appears first in Acts 2:38 in Peter’s Pentecost Preaching – 38 Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
REPENTANCE IS THE KEY that opens the door of the Gospel so we may enter into the community of the Church. The foundation of that Church is Love and the corner stone of that foundation is Christ. The walls are built of Faith and Hope, and the Roof is Charity. I’ve lost count of how many times we have said here, “Repent and believe the Gospel.” Is that redundant? Probably it is redundant but nonetheless repetitious. “Repent” appears more than 20 times in the New Testament. In my ripe old age, I begin to understand that if God keeps repeating something, it must be important. Throughout the Old Testament we have account after account of God telling Israel or even a specific individual to repent – to acknowledge sins and return to the Lord. We know that repentance is an integral part of God’s plan for salvation, and metanoia is the word most often used in both the Old Testament and New Testament for the concept of repentance. Let’s make a quick review of the definition for metanoia. The word in Greek looks like this: μετάνοια, – metanoia {met-an’-oy-ah}. It is a change of heart, a change of mind, or a change of direction as in a one-eighty turn.
Metanoia is to move beyond where our hearts and minds are and into a new paradigm, a new way of thinking and feeling and seeing everything in life. When we repent, we have a change of mind – not a renewing of mind (See Romans 1:12). Another way to think of it is we quash, break, nullify, defeat, or conquer a temptation that is repeatedly before us; we break a bad habit; we realign our values-system so that it aligns more closely with God’s values. WE make an effort to sin less even though we know we can never be sinless. Repentance restores our relationship with God, and often it also restores our relationships with community, family, and friends. It gives back to us the “whatever or the whomever” we lost because of sin; it even gives us back to us. It’s not a matter of time – how long we are away, or of intensity – how greatly we’ve sinned. It is a matter of turning around and going back, repenting.
Repentance restores us back to God. God doesn’t move away from us, he doesn’t take off to some mountaintop and sulk because we’ve decided to ignore him. No, he stands at the ready, eager for us to turn around and say, “Father! Abba! I’m back!” We have come back 
to God, and suddenly we discover God is “back with us.” He watches for us, reaches for us, comes out to meet us like the benevolent father watching for his prodigal child. He made us and redeemed us for the sake of Love – his Love. God and the angels in heaven (and saints, too, I reckon) rejoice as a community over our repentance. Why? Because that means they will get to share eternity with us – with God and the angels and saints. But there’s one angel that will not rejoice. He’s the angel that says (and is always telling us), “What’s in it for me?”
“What’s in it” is receiving Eternal Life – first spiritually, then as a spirit, then as a resurrected child of God. Sounds like a mighty-good deal to me! Just make a U-Turn and get back to the Creator. Stop worshipping the creation and Worship the King (↔ Music Link – another repeat).The requirement of repentance is Contrition. Psalm 51:17 – 17 The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Contrite: Sorry; remorseful; repentant; regretful; apologetic; penitent; ashamed. Contrition is the a priori condition for repentance. If we only recognize our sin, we are aware we are sinful, but if we recognize and regret our sin – when we feel remorse, sorrow, shame for what we have done – we have achieved contrition. Add humility to that by understanding that regretting sin is not the same as repenting sin, (↔ Click Link) and we realize we must “go and sin no more.” We don’t ask God to change us, we don’t ask God to change the rules in the APP, we do command ourselves to turn around and give up the pretense that we can excuse our guilt because we “really didn’t mean it.” “PANTS ON FIRE!” We have the B.I.B.L.E. for our edification, and it tells us in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 – 16 All scripture is inspired by God and is] useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work. All we have to do is pay attention to what we’ve had all along – Logos – The Word.
Psalm 119:10-11 – 10 With my whole heart I seek you; do not let me stray from your commandments. 11 I treasure your word in my heart, so that I may not sin against you. When we choose to face the fact that we are sinners, we have to make an intelligent, objective assessment of what is in our hearts and for that “you have to use your head.” I’m betting that both you and I can say that often when we sin, it’s because we weren’t using our heads … or we were misusing our imagination! We use our mind to recognize the effect of sin. We feel the effect, but until we admit that our discomfort is the result of sin, we can’t repent. Why is that such a barrier? Well, we hate to admit we are wrong even when we know that being wrong is wrong and not doing anything about it is more wrong (wronger?) Why would we rather remain in sin? Usually it’s because the Great Liar is telling us all the “terrible things” we’ve done in our past, and that God can’t possible love or forgive such an evil person. “PANTS ON FIRE!” How many times are we allowed to repent? Is 4,357 (↔ Click Link) too many, or not enough? Does it take a lot of courage to admit we’re wrong? Not if we start with contrition. We must look for the circumstances, the stops on the Road Home, where we sin.
“Where” we sin is in our hearts, and that is where our repentance must begin as well. Our μετάνοια – metanoia – must begin there to be effective. Turn back to the Lord and forsake your sins; pray in his presence and lessen your offense. God himself has told us he will forgive our sins and remember them no more (Jeremiah 31:34 – 34 No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. (See also Hebrews 8:12, 10:17). That’s a pretty good deal for just turning around and going back! And it’s not really all that much trouble, either. The Word is right where God left it and we treasured it – in our hearts! Deuteronomy 30:14 – 14 No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe. Listen – he is calling us Come Back to ME. (↔ Music Link) Can any of us ever say, “I never left.” Only God can say that, and he says it to us every day – if we listen to his side of the conversation!
When we listen carefully, we will hear him plainly say, “PAID IN FULL. FORGIVEN!” (↔ Music Link) How great is the mercy of the Lord, and his forgiveness for those who return to him!
In the 2019 Lenten Series we presented “A Frank and Earnest Conversation.” You can find that at Catholic365 or at The 2019 Lenten Series Part 2, Series Part 3, and Series Part 4 (it’s a “3-act play”). Next week we will do a summary of those 3 articles, and for week three of 2022 Lent we will do a quick review of The 7 R’s. For the Middle Week of Lent, we’ll do something special for Laetare Sunday.
Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!
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Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
