Repentance from Sin and Evil - the invitation to a Holy Lent

It's Shrove Tuesday: a day of feasting before the Lenten fast begins tomorrow. At Grace Episcopal Church in Brunswick, our youth will host our annual Pancake Supper to help raise funds for our Youth Mission Trip this summer.

I always feel like I'm standing on the brink on this day about to plunge into the abyss of Lent with its ashes and penitence. I once thought of Lent as depressing ... but I don't think that way anymore. As a cleric, it's a time of calm and reflection after the crazy, break-neck pace of the fall's activities, Advent and Christmas. Even more than Advent, it helps me slow down and focus intentionally on what needs healing and renewal in me and in the world.

I've been online today and looking at liturgical approaches to Lent from different corners of Christianity. I confess I like our Book of Common Prayer's Ash Wednesday liturgy and wouldn't trade it for all the tea in China. I did, however, run across a liturgy that looked pretty good and included Taize chant for the music. I was intrigued until I found the confession prayer which had the following phrase:

"We repent of our humanity."

Wait ... what? Repent means to "turn around" or to "change your mind." It comes from the Greek metanoia which means "turn around." Repent is what we do when we, by God's grace, acknowledge and turn away from Evil and Sin - the powers of Death which will kill not only the body but the soul.

But "repent of our humanity"?! As if being human is inherently evil or bad? As if being human is something to be rejected? And, if repent means to turn around, what is the alternative? To repent of your humanity and ... become a jellyfish? It just makes no sense. It is theologically and ontologically bankrupt. The Orthodox say that Christ became human that we might become divine. Our humanity is blessed, sanctified and honored by Christ's descent among us as one of us. This isn't something to repent of at all!

What we need to repent of is Sin. Admittedly, this is not a popular concept among some Christians who feel it sounds "too judgmental" or "too harsh" and so avoid using the "S-word" in their liturgy. Hence repenting of "our humanity" becomes some sort of cheap, sophomoric way of avoiding the real truth. Theology of the cross demands we not "call good evil and evil good" but name the thing for what it is. The thing we need to name is Sin and it is that from which we need to turn.

This reflection by Dr. Derek Olsen speaks this hard truth well. There is evil in the world. Jesus never wavered in naming it during his time on earth. We have a heavy darkness in each of us. The Church Catholic teaches that Sin comes from "the world, the flesh and the devil." Our fragile human nature falls into Sin all the time. But the good news is that the power of Sin to destroy us who are claimed by Christ in baptism has forever been broken - Sin does not claim us forever.

This does not mean, however, that Sin has ceased to be a presence in our world or in our lives. It is ever there and we are called to self-reflective vigilance as Christians to look at it clearly and unflinchingly - not just in Lent, but always. We are to acknowledge and confess the sin that has crept into the dark corners of our lives and release it to Christ who brings light and healing to us.

I invite you, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent this year. Not by repenting of the humanity you bear, but the Sin which clings closely and from which Christ longs to release you.