HIGH SPIRITS: Who's Sorry Now?
Aitken, Jonathan
HIGH SPIRITS JONATHAN AITKEN Who's Sorry Now? i ~ ~ ELCOME TO LENT, the season of penitence ~ ! ~ l f and repentance. It is not a fashionable / / ~ / s e a s o n , even among godly people...
...Then he went through pain...
...Isaiah expressed his by crying out about his woe and his unclean lips...
...and look at one of the great Biblical scriptures dealing with the theology of penitence...
...Before grapplingwith such issues in 2006, let's go back to the 5th century B.C...
...It is not a fashionable / / ~ / s e a s o n , even among godly people who ~ [ / ~ ] tend to prefer the jollier periods of the V V Christian year such as Christmas, Epiph_9 any, or Easter...
...His earlier books include Nixon: A Life...
...It is the start of the deeper spiritual journey of repentance...
...One author who has captured this understanding of penitence was William Temple, arguably the outstanding Archbishop of Canterbury of the 20th century...
...mand of John the Baptist to "show the fruits of your repentance" (Matthew 3:8...
...So is Lent becoming obsolete...
...This reaction has the ring of authenticity...
...A special season of the church is not needed for embarking on such a journey...
...Send me--but I prefer to stay as a nominal Christian...
...Back in 547 B.C...
...Note the unconditionality of that response...
...It can be a joyful process...
...Nevertheless, Lent is still a good time for thinking about booking the tickets...
...Those fruits may include the second and greater step of making a commitment to God...
...This celestial surgery without an anaesthetic must have hurt...
...Our virtues do not bring us near to Christ--the gulf between them and His Holiness remains unbridgeable...
...If penitence is presented as the precursor to a change of heart and mind and a new start in life, it should sell like the proverbial hot cakes--even in the middle of lugubrious Lent...
...It is the broken and contrite heart that God does not despise...
...After the pain of penitence comes the redemption of repentance...
...In the middle of his earthquake he heard the voice of the Lord asking, "Whom then shall I send...
...Yet simultaneously I would expect to be enveloped in the glory of divine love and suffused with a desire to reciprocate that love...
...It is when we are experiencing the earthquakes of life that we are most likely to become intimate with God...
...To which Isaiah answered, "Here am I. Send me" (Isaiah 6:8...
...He describes in his vision how a seraph picked up a live coal from the altar and placed it on his lips to purify him...
...Isaiah was one...
...Woe is me" he cried out, "for I am a man of unclean lips...
...As Martin Luther said, "It is in our pain and our brokenness that we come closest to Christ...
...But an omniscient God knew that the thief's near-silence was far more sincere than the verbosity of the scribes and Pharisees...
...In occasional moments of fantasy I sometimes wonder what I would do if some leviathan of history such as Washington, Lincoln, Churchill, or Shakespeare magically entered the room...
...Isaiah's full-hearted commitment was the litmus test of true penitence and repentance...
...For there cannot be true penitence without pain, no real contrition without courage...
...Our science does not bring us near him, nor our art...
...That was what happened at the climax of Isaiah's penitence...
...Penitence is important for at least three reasons...
...For it is penitence that brings us into intimacy with God...
...Jonathan Aitken, The American Spectatork High Spirits columnist, is author of the new book, Charles W Colson: A Life Redeemed (Doubleday...
...A good starting point for discussion is the feeling among most believers that penitence, if not the season of it, is an essential ingredient in a spiritual journey...
...These Lenten traditions, which nowadays survive only in limited forms such as attempting to stay off the booze for six weeks, may themselves be artificial inventions...
...Many churches are now acknowledging this with changes, which range from quietly downplaying the importance of fasting (Catholics), to noisily forgetting about Lent altogether (Evangelicals...
...And who will go for us...
...First, we will follow the cornIf saying sorry to God is too quick and easy, it may not be real penitence...
...I saw the Lord seated on his throne high and exalted as the train of his robe filled the temple," wrote Isaiah, whose immediate response was one of abject penitence...
...It is a recognition that theologians call "conviction of sin...
...Some theologians speculate that the earthquake may have been the start of Isaiah's penitence because he felt the doorposts and thresholds shaking as a prelude to his vision...
...He wrote: It is penitence which creates intimacy with our Lord...
...No one can knowHimintimatelywho has not realised the sickness of his own soul and obtained 56 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MARCH 2006 JONATHAN AITKEN healing from the physician of souls...
...Another was King David, who after breaking several of the Ten Commandments when he stole another man's wife and murdered her husband composed Psalm 51, the most beautiful of the penitential psalms...
...I F SAYING SORRY TO God is too quick and easy, it may not be real penitence...
...Isaiah was prophetic enough to catch a glimpse of the forgiving power of the cross when he heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Your guilt is taken away and your sin is atoned for" (Isaiah 6:5...
...This is Isaiah 6:1-8, which begins with the words "In the year that King Uzziah died...
...When our penitence and repentance are genuine, two results are likely...
...Yet we should not fear the pain of penitence, because it brings great rewards...
...If not, how should it be observed in the 21st century...
...As soon as we recognize God's holiness we recognize our own sinfulness...
...This was a historic year, 547 B.C., in which Jerusalem was hit by a massive earthquake...
...But if you take the original language of the Gospels, New Testament Greek, the word for repentance is metanoia, which translates as "a change [metal of mind [noia]," perhaps more richly as "a change of heart and mind...
...MARCH 2006 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 57...
...Such preferences are natt ural: Lent has an out-of-date feel for it is associated with punitive disciplines such as wearing sackcloth and ashes, fasting, or doing penance...
...Our personal earthquakes can include the breakup of relationships, family divisions, losing a job, our home, or our money...
...He wanted to change his heart and mind and set off in a new direction of service...
...Isaiah did not dither or dodge...
...But why...
...The English language of Lent somehow makes repentance sound a gloomy, miserable process...
...My guess is that I would fall to my knees in an Isaianic fervor of awe and abject penitence, saying the equivalent of "Woe is me...
...He did not say, "Send me--but I want to keep my options open for a bit longer...
...Our pain may give us a taste of fellowship with Him but it is only a taste, unless that great creator of intimacy-penitence-is also there...
...If we are honest, these situations have often been contributed to by our own sins...
...It may enable us to hear God's call to a new life...
...I am sure I would stand up and be extremely respectful, to say the least...
...Some penitents make their apologies with extraordinary passion and eloquence...
...This is where penitence-saying sorry to God-should begin...
...Send me--but I need to spend a few more years dedicated to mybusiness and mybank account...
...For there cannot be true penitence without pain, no real contrition without courage...
...It brings us closer to God...
...But what would be the reaction if it was God who entered the room...
...At the other end of the scale the most remarkable penitent of the New Testament, the Good Thief, said almost nothing in the way of an apology to Jesus on the cross...
Vol. 39 • March 2006 • No. 2
