Go Home: Thoughts on Repentance7 min read

I recall talking to a guy on the margins of faith once who at some point said, “Yeah, Jesus died on the cross and all, but he did and said a lot of other stuff too.” Point made. It can sound redundant, even myopic, constantly to harp on the cross. On the other hand, if you do not understand the cross and its significance, if you listen to Jesus like some guru who can make good observations about life, if you look to Him as an example of godly living, all I can say is this:

Who cares? Give me the cross. The “other stuff” doesn’t save me, and I don’t want to go to hell.

Now, you certainly can and should pay attention to all the other stuff Jesus said and did. But if you do not look to the cross first, then really: who cares? The irony in this world is that, with the base obsession people seem to have with self-help and self-care, the one thing needful is often overlooked as if it’s a one-time consideration. But why do we hang up crosses in our houses and wear them around our necks? Why not instead doodle pictures of Jesus healing a man on the Sabbath, or of Him weeping over the city of Jerusalem, or of Peter’s mother-in-law making sandwiches for the disciples?

The cross is our universal symbol because all of “the other stuff” has to be read through the cross, or at best it makes no sense. At worst it leads to despair because it cannot save you.

The Epitome of the Formula of Concord (one of our Lutheran symbols we subscribe to) says, “As long as Christ’s suffering and death proclaims God’s wrath and terrifies a person, it is still not properly the preaching of the Gospel. It remains the preaching of Moses and the Law, and it is, therefore, an alien work of Christ. Passing through this teaching, Christ arrives at His proper office, that is, to preach grace, console, and give life, which is properly the preaching of the Gospel” (FC Epitome V).

Basically, what that means is that your life in Christ begins at the cross and stays there. When He said, “It is finished,” He did not mean that you can now walk away whistling with your hands in your pockets. He meant His work of salvation was finished, so you can safely live with assurance of His grace and regularly come back to His finished work. Investigating and learning about the other stuff—His teachings on marriage, prayer, service, etc.—is not done apart from the cross, lest it toss us back under the law which cannot save. It is done at the cross, so now we know how to live properly in the Kingdom.

I wonder if we don’t often hear the word, “Repent!” and imagine the publican in the back of the room with his head bowed, or Peter shooing away Jesus because he is “too sinful” to be a part of Christ. But repentance, if you are not living in abject and observably dangerous sin, is more often what Luther encourages in the Small Catechism regarding confession:

“Here consider your calling according to the Ten Commandments, whether you are a father, mother, son, daughter, master, mistress, a manservant or maidservant. Consider whether you have been disobedient, unfaithful, or slothful. Consider whether you have grieved anyone by words or deeds, whether you have stolen, neglected, wasted, or done other harm” (SC V).

If the proper work of Christ is the forgiveness of sins, then we would do well to let Him forgive our sins. Regularly. It becomes a faithful and healthy habit to examine yourself and, being forgiven for the shortcomings, strive to do better in the grace of God. Remember, Luther also says (and our hymnal says too in the rite of individual confession and absolution) not to make confession into a torture, as if by forgetting some sin you retain it in your body and soul. Again, remember: “Who can discern their own errors? Forgive my hidden faults” (Psalm 19:12).

The point is that “daily repentance,” while sometimes (and initially) done in terror of sin and hell, does not stay in terror. Your sins get put on the cross through your Baptism (Romans 6), and you come to know and love it as a repository for grace. After Baptism, the cross becomes a source of comfort, as we sometimes say before Communion: “With repentant joy we receive the salvation accomplished for us by the all-availing sacrifice of His body and blood on the cross.” Repentance, even in Lent, is joyous because we know it leads to forgiveness. It leads to the cross. It leads to Jesus.

Two Analogies

I find two analogies about home to be helpful:

Imagine you’re a little kid and you get in trouble. The mother who says through gritted teeth, “Wait until we get home,” or (far worse), “Wait until your father gets home from work,” strikes fear into your heart. At home that night, tears are shed, punishments are doled out, and repentance is felt. In short, repentance in this case causes you to feel bad to the end of stopping that sin. You know you have to answer to your parents as the source of authority, but at no point (assuming your parents actually love you) do you think that this will end with them kicking you out of the house or holding it over your head forever.

In this analogy, home is the cross, repentance is specific, and forgiveness is cleansing. The cross is the authority, and the only source and confidence in forgiveness. Where else can you go? Nowhere. Go there.

Now imagine you’re an adult and you’re away from home. This just happened to me last month: I was on a short trip far away from home preaching for a friend’s installation. I was quite excited to go, very glad I went, and had a truly great time. But at the end of the trip, I wanted to go home. It wasn’t for any bad reason or negative experience (quite the contrary); no, it was just time to go home. Being away from home made me long to be there. In can be said in a pithy manner that, by getting on the plane, I repented of being away from home. It was not an option for my entire family, church, house, friends, and daily life to move to where I was. I just belonged at home. So when I got there my family lovingly welcomed me, and as I lay down in my own bed that night, I was at peace knowing I was home (which is exactly what I expected to feel).

In this analogy, home is still the cross, but repentance is non-specific, and forgiveness is the expected peace of walking in the back door to pet the dog (who never keeps a record of wrongs and always acts like he thought I was gone forever). Again, the cross is the authority, and the only source and confidence of who you are. Go there.

“Daily repentance” does not always mean beating your breast and wearing sackcloth and ashes. It does sometimes. But if you live at the foot of the cross, then “all the other stuff” that comes with a life of faith is read through the fact that you belong to Jesus, whose proper work is making and keeping you His. He did that by dying and rising again. He still does that by giving you His Spirit and expecting you to come home at the end of the day.

It’s why we pastors harp on going to church so much, and when you’re there we harp on repentance. It’s why practically every aspect of the service is geared towards it (confession, preaching, sacrament = all points to Jesus). It isn’t because you never learn, never improve, or never listen. No, it’s because forgiveness is the proper work of Christ: the cross is home, and repentance is how we get home again. The point is not that you can’t be forgiven if you don’t go to church; the point is that church is where you go to get forgiven. The cross is at the church, and the cross is home. Going home (repentance) is a joyous feeling.

Maybe that’s why I love Lent so much.

See you at home.

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