2 Corinthians 7:8-13
8 Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it – I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while— 9 yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. 10 Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. 11 See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter. 12 So even though I wrote to you, it was neither on account of the one who did the wrong nor on account of the injured party, but rather that before God you could see for yourselves how devoted to us you are. 13 By all this we are encouraged.
Lent Is All About…
Lent is tricky. We have so many solemn, somber services. There are so many things that we do to make ourselves feel bad about ourselves. Just think about this service so far. We’ve confessed our sin in song and in the longest confessional rite that we will use this whole year. We have said or sung the words “Have mercy on us” more than 30 times in the last 15 minutes. Many of us came forward to let someone smear ash on our faces and remind us that we deserve to die for our sins. That’s pretty grim.
Not many people in this world will go to such great lengths – will have a special worship service on a Wednesday night – just to make themselves feel bad about themselves. But that’s kind of what Lent is all about, isn’t it? This is a season of repentance. This is a season of owning up to our mistakes and failures. This is a season of saying sorry for our sins.
If we feel bad about ourselves tonight, Lent reminds us that we have good reason to. Just think about those things we’ve said already:
For what we have done and left undone…
For sins that are known and those unknown…
For envy and pride, for closing our eyes; for scorning our very neighbour…
For hearts that are cold, for seizing control; for scorning our very maker…
We confess to you all our pride, hypocrisy, impatience, self-indulgent appetites, anger, greed, dishonesty, negligence in worship, indifference to injustice, contempt for those who differ from us.
The list could and does go on. If we feel bad about ourselves tonight, Lent reminds us that we have good reason to. We’re sinners. We have done what is evil and failed to do what is good. If you feel regret and shame and guilt tonight, then we’re doing something right.
But if regret and shame and guilt are your only takeaways from tonight – if an overwhelming awareness of your sinfulness is all you take away from Lent – then we have utterly failed.
Now, don’t get me wrong. You have to know that there are things you do everyday that are not just foolish or unwise. They aren’t just poor decisions or mistakes you’ve made. They are sins, i.e. damnable offenses, acts of rebellion against God and his commands. You have to know how little you deserve God’s love and how much and how often you have earned his wrath and judgment.
But that’s just one part of Lent. That’s just the first step in repentance. When Paul wrote to the Corinthians that he was happy that they were sorrowful, he wasn’t happy that they felt bad about themselves. He was happy that their sorrow led them to repentance. He says:
For you became sorrowful as God intended and… godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret.[1]
An important part of Lent is to acknowledge and admit our sin, and in more than just an academic sense. We have to be sincerely sorry that we did something God forbids or failed to do something God commands. To admit that something we did was wrong in God’s eyes but not feel bad about it – that would not be a virtue; it would make you a spiritual sociopath. These somber services, these ashes on our faces serve a very important purpose – they destroy whatever pride we have left in our hearts. They demolish any pretense of righteousness or worthiness inside us, and they leave us only one course of action – to throw ourselves at Jesus’ feet and do what we have done more than 30 times tonight – plead for his mercy.
That’s an uncomfortable place to be. It requires brutal honesty and raw vulnerability. But there is no better place for you to be than at Jesus’ mercy. The last verse of our hymn of the day puts it well. We haven’t sung it yet, but do me a favour – read it with me:
Although our sin is great indeed,
the grace of God is greater;
no loss we suffer can exceed
the help of our Creator.
Our shepherd good and true is he,
who will at last his people free
from all their sin and sorrow.
Lent isn’t about making a grand gesture of our guilt or wallowing in self-pity. It is about making a sincere confession of our sin, but then trusting in God’s mercy for forgiveness. And God’s mercy does not disappoint. As the hymn-writer puts it, no matter how great our sin is, God’s grace is greater. God’s grace put Jesus in your place. God’s grace clothed Jesus in the same dust and ashes that we wear, and condemned him to death for our sin, so that you could be free of both sin and sorrow.
Or, as Paul put it in his letter to the Corinthians:
Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret.[2]
That’s not to say that we don’t wish we hadn’t sinned. It just means that we don’t wallow in guilt or live in fear. It means that our sin doesn’t define us; God’s grace does. It means that God’s forgiveness takes away our guilt and shame, and opens our eyes to the love that would lead Christ to the cross to sacrifice his life for ours, so that we could be set free from sin and so that we could be set free for him – so that he could produce in us something that we could have never accomplished on our own:
See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done.[3]
Lent is about confessing our sin and throwing ourselves at God’s mercy, but it is also and even more about rejoicing in the news that God sent his Son to forgive our sin, and then letting that forgiveness set us free from sin to live a new life, no longer all about serving the cravings of my sinful flesh but earnestly longing to lead a godly life.
And so we have structures and methods and traditions in place to help us. We smear ashes on our faces. We omit the most joyful songs from our worship services. But these are just stepping stones, the first parts of repentance that are preparing us – not to wallow in the guilt of Good Friday, but to rejoice in the resurrection of Easter Sunday and with it the announcement of our forgiveness and the hope of a new life, both here on earth and forever in heaven.
Lent is not God’s way to make you feel you bad about yourself. It’s his way to prepare you to celebrate the sacrifice Christ made for your sin and the forgiveness and hope and clean conscience that he provides for you, and finally to equip you to leave your sin behind and to learn and long for a good and godly life lived out of gratitude for him.
God bless this season for you. May he give you a humble heart, but hope-filled one, to confess your sins in the confidence of his forgiveness. May he fill you with peace and freedom and strength to change your heart and live for him. Amen.
[1] 2 Corinthians 7:9,10
[2] 2 Corinthians 7:10
[3] 2 Corinthians 7:11