What Does Repentance Really Mean and Involve?

The word repentance is bandied about both inside and outside Christian circles with hardly any effort to pause and ask what the term means or entails.  In this season of Advent, which is meant to be a time of reflection on our faith leading up to Christmas, it would be well to think more seriously about repentance, not least because, many American Christians have much to repent of for their self-centered non-Christian behavior this year, placing so-called rights over responsibilities, individual preferences over Christian principles, and anger over mercy or compassion in regard to those who have died of Covid-19 this year.

In the first place the Greek term metanoia does NOT merely refer to saying you are sorry.  Indeed, that would be a very sorry definition of repentance.  No, repentance involves actual regret for one’s previous sins or bad behaviors. Further, it involves turning away from such thoughts and actions and resolving to never do them again. Furthermore, under any sort of normal circumstances it involves confession, the asking of forgiveness from those you have wronged, and ‘amendment of life’, as it is so often called. Jesus even says if you have wronged a fellow disciple you must go to them and make it right.  The onus is on the one who has done the wrong, not on the one who has been wronged in the view of Jesus.

One of the things that has upset me most during this pandemic is watching so-called devout Christians go to Frankfort and protest the governor’s attempt to protect the people of our State from the devastating effects of Covid-19, protest his mandates in regard to wearing masks, social distancing, hand washing and the like, and the effects of such mandates on their standards of living and income.  Really?  You think self-fulfillment and ‘God bless our standard of living’ is more important that self-sacrifice? And why exactly are so many people in financial trouble now?  To a very large degree, this is because many Americans have been living beyond their means. In a mere generation we have become a debtor nation, a credit card nation (that began in the 50s), out punting our financial coverage again and again, living paycheck to paycheck and never saving money for a rainy day.   And then we want to blame someone else for this problem, for instance the governor.  This is Christians behaving badly.  REPENT, is the right word, the right medicine for such a disease.  Think on these things.