Return to Me

"Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart… Return to the Lord, your God." Joel’s plea to the people of God. God’s plea, spoken through the prophet. God’s desire, spoken to us. Return to me, says the Lord. Return to me with your whole heart.

This is the point of Lent. We need to remember that this is the only real point of Lent. To reconcile us with God. Lent is not an endurance trial, designed to test the spiritually strong. Lent is not a work-out in self-discipline simply for the beneficial effect of practicing discipline. The point of Lent is not to make us better people, but to make us holy people, renewed in our relationship with God. All of the rigors of Lent have but one goal. Reconciliation. Reconciliation with God.

It is all about renewing and restoring a relationship with God through the process of repentance and forgiveness. We are called to repentance with the assurance of God’s forgiveness. To live as forgiven sinners is always our Christian hope; it is our particular and intense focus during Lent.

To live as forgiven sinners. It helps, I think, to step back and remind ourselves what forgiveness really is. First, forgiveness only has meaning within the context of a relationship. Forgiveness is not a commodity that can be bought or traded or possessed by an individual; it is a space, an open space for right relationship between two people. Forgiveness can only exist where two are gathered.

We should also remember that forgiveness only makes sense when a genuine wrong has been committed. Some word or action or lack of action has created real, palpable distrust, fear or alienation in a relationship. The relationship has been seriously damaged because of specific and significant faults. Specific and significant faults.

In our human relationships we will often say to one another, "Oh, don’t worry about it (whatever the offense was); it doesn’t matter." And in many cases, it doesn’t matter. But that’s not forgiveness; that’s indifference. God is not indifferent to our sins. They are significant; the consequences are dire. The alienation is real and cannot be casually brushed away.

In our human relationships we also often seek other ways to overcome alienation. By returning the long borrowed hedge clipper; by offering gifts of flowers or chocolate into the breach. These are good things to do, but they do not create forgiveness. In some cases in our human relationships, this sort of action may remove the need for forgiveness, in other cases, not. But, in any case, this is not forgiveness. It’s bribery for a good cause. In our relationship with God, no action on our part can put us right with God. Our sins, our betrayal of God, create a real and significant chasm of estrangement. Only God’s forgiveness can bridge that chasm.

To offer forgiveness in any relationship is a powerful act of risk, of costly love. To truly forgive is to sacrifice one’s self for another, for the sake of relationship with another. It is a willingness to share, to live with and in, the pain and guilt and fear of another’s wrongdoing. It is to jump into the breach of distrust and alienation for the sake of a shared future. The wrong is real and profound; the estrangement is insurmountable except through forgiveness. Forgiveness is an act of sacrifice and grace. Forgiveness is God’s own son dead on the cross.

The cross is the assurance of God’s ultimate forgiveness. But we must both desire and accept that forgiveness. God’s offer of forgiveness is in vain unless we accept it.

And accepting forgiveness is harder than it sounds. Accepting forgiveness, allowing ourselves to be forgiven, is really the hard work of Lent. Accepting forgiveness requires self-sacrifice. To accept forgiveness is to accept the validity of judgment, to acknowledge that our own wrong-doing has had terrible consequences. There is no such thing as "no-fault" forgiveness. We must claim our responsibility for our estrangement from God.

Accepting forgiveness also means acknowledging our need for God, our dependence upon God’s presence in our lives, our desire for reconciliation. Independent, self-sufficient, self-sustaining people don’t need forgiveness. From anyone, anytime. Most of us most of the time really would like to be independent and self-sufficient. To accept forgiveness is to welcome dependence. And to sacrifice the devices and desires of our own hearts for the sake of relationship with God.

Our estrangement from God is real; it is the profound consequence of our sins. Only forgiveness can bring reconciliation. God offers forgiveness through the self-sacrifice of the cross. For us to accept forgiveness also calls for self-sacrifice.

"Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart… Return to the Lord, your God."

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