We Must Repent: An Introduction to Lent
Lent is inescapably about repenting. Repentance is a change in direction, a Spirit-empowered turning around. Repentance, then, is the first step we make toward God. But to turn toward God we must turn away from something else. That something else is our sins.
Lent, then, is about turning away from our sins and toward the living God. A season dedicated to repentance and renewal should not lead us to despair; it should cause us to praise God for his grace. Central to Lent is the idea that we need this kind of renewal consistently throughout our lives. We do not receive God’s grace only when we turn to him at the beginning of our spiritual journey. God’s grace meets us again and again.
Repentance solves the crisis created by our initial encounter with the gospel and its central character: the Messiah Jesus.
When Peter preached that first sermon at Pentecost, the Scripture says his hearers were “cut to the heart” and asked, “What shall we do?” (Acts 2:37). Peter told them they must repent. The proclamation of the gospel and the realization that it tells the story of God’s work through his Son’s life, death, and resurrection creates a crisis. When we enter the presence of God, no one has to convince us of our sinfulness. We learn about our inadequacy by the contrast between ourselves and God’s holiness.
When I encountered Jesus, I knew I was in the presence not merely of a better person but of a different category of being altogether, the God-Man. We see the inadequacy of our former way of life in the light of the holiness of God’s Son.
This is why this same apostle, when he first glimpsed Jesus during the miraculous catch of fish, said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” (Luke 5:8). It’s why Isaiah, when he encountered the presence of God, could only cry, “Woe to me!” (Isaiah 6:5).
The good news is that at the moment we see the gap between ourselves and our Lord, we also encounter the blood that draws us in and assures us we are forgiven. Jesus’ own presence is both grace and judgment.
I don’t remember much about what led me to be baptized at an early age, but I do remember the feeling of dread that came over me then, and many other times over the years. It’s a dread that has come over all those who come to Jesus. It’s the thrill and the terror that the story of Jesus—his life, death, resurrection, ascension, and eventual return—is true. If these things are true, everything is turned upside down. The life we have known is ended; something new has begun. God help us, we must change direction. We must repent.
While repentance is required of new followers of Jesus making their first steps toward God, it is also the means by which all followers of Jesus start again when we have failed. Luther begins his famous Ninety-Five Theses by saying, “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Matthew 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” The goal of beginning again and beginning for the first time is the same. We are seeking communion with the risen Lord.
Lent is a season of repentance and preparation. In many churches, it is a time when those who will be baptized prepare for their new life with God. It is a time when those who have been estranged from the church can be reconciled to the body of believers. It is also a time for all of us to think about the ways we have drifted from the faith. The common theme uniting these three functions of Lent is that they all involve a turning toward God with intention and reflection on the past.
We hope that as Christians we mature and grow and become more and more like Christ. But the church in its wisdom assumes we will fail, even after our baptism. The church presumes that life is long and zeal fades, not just for some of us but for all. So it has included within its life a season in which all of us can recapture our love for God and his kingdom and cast off those things that so easily entangle us.
I was not baptized at the end of Lent. I was raised in the Black Baptist church, where we got baptized when we heard the gospel and believed. But Lent does hold a particular place in my heart. The season of Lent was my first encounter with liturgical spirituality. It added a new element to my spiritual life.
My first Lent was a pilgrimage. I did not leave the city I resided in, but I did go on a journey. At a time when I felt adrift spiritually, Lent helped me become aware of the nearness of God. These outward practices took me on an inward journey further into the awareness of God.
That is the purpose of all of this, Lent and other liturgical seasons. The liturgical seasons aren’t about laying further burdens on the backs of Christians or laying out the only way to please God. Instead, they are about an encounter that is available to all.
Lent is an invitation to an experience, a chance to meet our risen Lord who always runs just ahead of us, beckoning us forward.
Adapted from Lent by Esau McCaulley. ©2022 by Esau Daniel McCaulley. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press.
Esau McCaulley (PhD, St. Andrews) is associate professor of New Testament at Wheaton College and a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times. He is the author of Reading While Black and Sharing in the Son’s Inheritance, as well as the children’s book Josie Johnson’s Hair and the Holy Spirit. His latest release is Lent: The Season of Repentance and Renewal.