Repentance and Faith
“...A lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “ Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment.”
Matthew 22:35-39
In Matthew 22, Jesus is approached by a “lawyer” who asks Jesus, “Which commandment in the law is the greatest?” Jesus’ responded by saying: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." Simple enough, right?
I remember when I was learning to play basketball. My coach taught me—and this is counter-intuitive—that when I shoot the basketball, to “never look at the ball itself, but always to keep my eyes focused on the goal.” If you have ever played basketball, you know how difficult this is because we all want to look at the ball gliding through the air in order to gauge its trajectory. Yet, in order to shoot accurately, we must focus on the hoop—the goal.
As Christians, we are called not to focus on law-keeping, but rather on the one who has kept the law—Jesus Christ. As Paul reminds us in Romans 10, “For Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.” Jesus is not only the fulfillment of the law, but the solution to our inability to keep it. One of the great ironies of the Christian faith is that the secret to keeping God’s Law is admitting our inability to keep God’s law. This is what repentance is all about. Each week, during the course of our Holy Eucharist service, we have the opportunity to repent of our sins. However, it is important to remember that repentances is always met with a promise—a recognition that our sins have been forgiven. This is where faith comes in, which is the bright side of repentance.
The process of repentance and faith is an essential to the Christian life. Luther, in his first thesis of his famous 95 Theses, wrote: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, “Repent,” he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” For Luther, repentance is an apt description of the Christian life because it depicts a movement of turning from the bad (repenting of our sin) and embracing the good (faith in Christ).
If you are struggling with your faith because you think to yourself, “I’m not that great of a person,” know that this is a very human problem. We all wrestle with this. Luther wrestled with it—I wrestle with it. However, this is precisely why we need repentance and reassurance of the Good News. As you go about your day, may these powerful words of absolution resonate within you: “Almighty God have mercy on you, forgive you all your sins through our Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen you in all goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep you in eternal life. Amen.”
