You must have asked yourself why the last number of our letter gave such a prominent place to repentance. Surely a rather old-fashioned emphasis? Isn’t it better to stress grace? Perhaps! But what effect does grace have for a person who does not first turn to God in a spirit of repentance? Let him who has ears . . .
It would take too long to explain why this morning I found myself in the book of Jeremiah. However, I can tell you that I was reading the astonishing passage in which the surviving Judaeans came to consult the prophet and ask him for a word from God (Jer 42). These escapees from disaster had nothing. The temple, the capital, indeed the throne had been swept away and the people exiled. Jeremiah turned to God and confessed to him the anguish of this substantial group,[1] and then God made him wait ten days before giving him a response, ten days of waiting and silence! I paused over and was held by this detail in verse 7, “After ten days . . .” What was it that was so precious or so difficult for God to say that he would hesitate in this way? I then examined, O so carefully, God’s answer in the following verses, an answer which is full of promises that don’t seem to justify so many days of waiting. Then suddenly I discovered at the heart of the promise something so surprising, something that sounds like an admission, a confession: “I repent of the evil that I have done you!” (v 10). These words were too strong for me, much too unexpected to be spoken by God . . .
“Lord, I have misunderstood here, this is the prophet speaking . . .”
“No, this was me! I repented of the evil that I had done them.”
“Lord, how could you say such a thing.”
“I had taken everything away from them: the temple, the capital, the country, their king, their brothers, their goods, everything that was the fruit of my promises and my blessings . . . I was repenting of . . .”
“But, Lord, it is man’s place to confess the evil he has done, his unfaithfulness, his misdeeds . . . But it is you who come to confess to them, before them!”
“I considered the thing for ten days before saying it; this was not lightly spoken!”
“Had you ever spoken like this before?”
“Never . . .”
“Did the people hear what you said to them?”
“No! They had other things on their minds, other worries, other things to attend to, a different opinion of me.”
“Did no one respond?”
“No, not one.”
I was confounded by this lack of attention to such an important statement, but still more by such humility on God’s part! Tears came to my eyes and I was silent for a good while . . .
“Lord, I am no better; I don’t know what to say! I have already read this passage many times and I had not understood this. Not until this morning with its silence and emptiness of all else . . . We are so little prepared to discover you like this, repentant! Or to hear you speak with such humility!”
The big trees around the house were still; some of the chestnut trees, among the oldest, bowed their heads and looked down; the stream ruminated the words it had heard; creation was suspended at this avowal of God’s. Who can understand God confessing? Who would be so bold, or better, so full of compassion and mercy, as to speak a word of love to him?
I was plunged into an abyss of thought. God is not a man that he should have to repent (1 Sam 15:29), and here is he doing so, freely! What a God! What humility! What transparency! What an overwhelming God! A wave of love engulfed me, but I felt in no way up to “consoling” God! Nevertheless, I was aware that the Hebrew verb “to repent” is a request for consolation. How can one respond to such a God?
“No one responded?” I repeated
“On that day, no one!”
Israel in exile hung up her harps by the river of Babylon, and God hung up his beside a river in the garden of Eden . . .
“Repent! Repent!” This cry resounded from a corner of the desert beside the Jordan. “Repent!” cried John the Baptist. “Repent because the Kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (Matt 3:2), as if repentance was the obligatory passage to enter the Kingdom. “Repent of the evil you have done . . .”
Then, among the penitent crowd, an unknown figure approached, coming out of Galilee, a man of thirty years of silence . . .
“No, not you,” the Baptist said! “You have no need to be baptized. You have nothing of which to repent!”
But the Galilean insisted and had his way, with the force of someone who knew what he was doing and that what he did was right. In fact he was the bearer of repentance for the people, repenting for them all, for the world; he was fully man. Still more though, he was also the bearer of God’s repentance, fully God. This man, the silent man from Galilee, had learned during his thirty years to hear and make his own the repentance of God, so much so that he now abased himself in humility beneath the hand of the Baptist. In his mercy and compassion, he asked for the baptism of repentance, for men and for God! This is justice indeed! “I repent of the evil I have done you.”
Then heaven was split open and the comforter came down; he had the appearance of a dove. Heaven opened and onto the repenting man descended the comforter. Heaven opened for the reconciliation of heaven and earth. Then a voice made itself heard: “O, my beloved! O you in whom all my pleasure is found! You, my Son!”
Then heaven was silent, and earth was silent; the Baptist was silent; the baptized was silent; the dove too; the Gospel stops as if suspended: a fullness of silence, presenting to contemplation an abyss of love and humility, an abyss of repentance, mercy and consolation . . . The heart of God was open!
When Jesus set out along the roads of Galilee, he began to proclaim, “Repent” (Matt 4:17). But in his mouth the words had a quite different depth, a totally different strength. He draws us after him, he who had repented for us and for God. “Yes, brothers, repent for the Kingdom is at hand!”
I know it so well — my pride makes the way of repentance difficult for me. And yet! And yet, no one can be closer to God than in the act of repenting.
Yes, we are to walk this road and there we will see coming towards as, without delay, the one who is at once the penitent, the merciful, the comforter, the three times holy.
May he draw us after him into the abyss of his grace.
[1] The French translates as “of these men.” Jer 42:1 says, “the captains of the forces . . . and all the people,” so we can say “of this substantial group.” (Trans.)
One thought on “The way of repentance”