By Drew Gilliland
Program Associate, G.L.O.B.A.L. Justice
This season is traditionally one of preparation for celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ – Easter! This season also emphasizes repentance and submission to Christ. Interestingly, this coincides with our current global crisis. The Bible gives us tremendous resources that help us enter into an attitude of repentance as we recognize Jesus’ death and our behalf and celebrate the hope in His resurrection. Three scriptures I have found (from the Common Book of Prayer) are Jeremiah 18:1-11, Romans 8:1-11, and John 6:27-40 are particularly meaningful for reflection in this season.
I find these passages to be particularly prescient in this time of crisis in our country. More than ever before, our cultural idols of the love of money, self-centeredness, and a “you-do-you” attitude are being exposed for everyone to see. And this isn’t just for people who do not claim to follow Jesus, but for many churches across the country as well. We, as the Church, must take responsibility for the sin of our brothers and sisters. In Daniel chapter 9, we see a biblical example of this. Daniel was morally upstanding, did justice, and was a true lover of God — and yet, in this chapter, we see him take painstaking responsibility for the sins of his people, owning his position as one of them. In the same way, we must repent for our own sins as part of this American Church.
Jeremiah shows us the importance of this as well. Like the stubborn Israelites, we have a tendency to say to the Lord, who calls us to repent, “It is no use! We will follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of our evil will” (18:12). This will lead to our destruction, as the church in Ephesus was warned in Revelation: “Repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lamp stand from its place, unless you repent” (2:5). Let us heed this warning and be like soft clay: repentant, with moldable hearts and attitudes, remembering our first love above all other loves: Christ and his kingdom.
Let us repent in boldness, because for in Christ Jesus there is now no condemnation, as Paul writes. Jesus welcomes our repentance with kindness and joy in his eyes. We are free from slavery to sin and death. We no longer need to be driven by the frenzied fears and desires of the world — greed, selfish ambition, economic & financial well-being, success, worldly pleasure, self-righteousness, physical safety from the “other.” Rather, as Christ has set us free and given us his life, we are now free to self-sacrificially serve others — an attitude and lifestyle desperately needed in this time of crisis. When we submit to Christ’s law, we paradoxically become the freest we’ve ever been.
As we repent and fulfill the law of love, Jesus himself will be our sustenance and resurrection life through this time of difficulty. In John 6, the Pharisees asked Jesus what must be done to perform the works of God. Jesus replied, simply, to “believe in him whom he has sent.” And who is Jesus, according to himself in this passage? The bread and water of life itself. When we do the work of God – believing in Jesus, putting our full weight on him – we receive him in his fullness, access the nourishment of his life until he comes again. As we die to ourselves in repentance, we experience his resurrection and new life. This is Easter: the conquering of sin, death, and injustice - abundant life, here and now, restoration in our relationships with ourselves, with others, with the created order, and with God himself.
This gives me hope today, in a time where I desperately need it. Let us repent — for ourselves and for our sisters and brothers across our country. When we do this, we can trust in Jesus himself to free us from sin and death and free us to life and love for him and others.