Repentance is one of those things that we often might think of as a bit of a downer. We’ve done wrong. We need to repent to make things right. But that’s really only part of repentance. An important part, but only part. Repentance is more deeply about admitting the truth. And sometimes that truth isn’t about admitting we’ve done wrong, but admitting we have a messed-up view of things in our lives. Repentance, which literally means “to seek again,” or “to ask again,” means to step back, and ask yourself how things are going—and to be honest about that. Repentance is a matter of taking stock of where we are, and if things need adjusting, reordering our lives. And so it’s good for us to repent. It helps correct things that are amiss, or it can help us better understand what we’re doing well, and build on that. Repentance is about intentionality, about honesty, and integrity of what we’re doing and who we are. Keep that in mind as we go forward today.
Let us pray. May only God’s Word be spoken, and may only God’s Word be heard; in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Grace had grown up in a family of do-gooders. Her father worked as a public defender for the county, and volunteered his time on weekends at the local library helping kids from low-income families learn to read—when he wasn’t working with Habitat for Humanity. Her mother was a preschool teacher and the Brownies leader—and volunteered on weekends at the local hospital visiting. And of course there was the church and all its important lessons about honoring God. Her parents instilled in her from an early age that being a good person involved doing the right thing, particularly showing the love of God in all her life.
By the time Grace had grown up, she found herself doing, doing, doing. She spent much of her life caught in the rat race of trying to earn God’s favor and approval. She had gone to college and studied social work and now worked as a counselor, giving away as many sessions as she was paid for. While she was in college, she’d gone every year on mission trips, including to Nigeria, Cambodia, and Nicaragua, building wells, installing toilets, working in clinics. When she wasn’t working, she volunteered with the United Way and, like her father, spent many a weekend working with Habitat for Humanity.
Church was still an important, weekly part of her life. She tithed and gave to her church over above that. She was the chair of the Outreach Committee. She sang in the choir—often taking on the challenging descants because she knew the pastor liked those. Day after day, she tirelessly pursued perfection, hoping to prove herself a good person in God’s sight. Being a good person involved doing the right thing, she knew, particularly showing the love of God in all her life.
But—she was weary. She was tired. And she was only 35 years old…That weariness weighed on her like a burden…causing her sometimes literal physical pain, fatigue, pushing down on her shoulders like a harness fastened across her to drag all cares, worries, concerns, and responsibilities along with her wherever she went. As full as her life was with doing, she felt empty. The weariness, with all its fullness, didn’t ful-fill her.
Grace, ever looking to improve, found herself one evening in the self-help section of the local Christian bookstore, and she came across a book with an interesting title—“Pilgrim’s Progress.” She read the synopsis on book jacket and felt some unknown force, some unexplained power—the Holy Spirit?—drawing her to buy it and take it home and read it. She went right home and started reading.
To her surprise, she discovered the book resonated with her immediately. She felt an instant affinity with the main character, Christian—whose name at the beginning of the book had been Graceless, but was renamed by a beautiful maiden named Discretion.
Christian, in the book, was on a journey to the Celestial City, the home of God. Along the way, he encounters various challenges, temptations, and companions, such as the helpful Evangelist, who puts him on the path toward God, as well the “brisk, young lad” Ignorance, who believes that he will be received into the Celestial City because of doing good works in accordance with God’s will. For him, Jesus is an example, but not a Savior.
When Christian and the others, along with Ignorance, arrive at the Celestial City, the king of the Celestial City orders the angel watchguards to cast Ignorance into hell. Even as Ignorance stood at the entrance to the Celestial City, and testified that he “ate and drank in the presence of the king,” who had “taught in our streets,” it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t about what Ignorance had done; it was about the journey to the Celestial City, not alone, going to meet the king—and relying on grace, a gift, unearned and undeserved, given simply because you recognized you couldn’t earn God’s approval. Being a good person involved doing the right thing, yes—but it wasn’t about doing the right thing. Being a good person was about the journey with God, to Jesus, the king, who loved freely, no strings attached, a love that didn’t require striving or religious performances to earn. This realization, this revelation unburdened Grace. She felt like the load had been lifted.
“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens,” Jesus says today, “and I will give you rest.” This is one of those iconic lines from Scripture that so many people know by heart, maybe to the point of it losing meaning. But fundamentally it’s about recognizing who we are and who God is. We are limited, and God is limitless. This line sounds comforting, but Jesus is saying far more here than might first meet the eye. With these words, Jesus is calling us to repentance, to reordering our thinking, our very lives, to set him as our destination for life’s journey. “Come to me,” he says, “and I will give you rest.”
It’s not about what we do, but rather what God does. The weight of the burden isn’t the endless cycle of trying to please God through our own efforts. Rather, the burden is recognizing the expectations we place upon ourselves—the duties, the obligations, the self-appointed insurmountable responsibilities—these suffocate our spirit. They burden us like a yoke hitching a team of oxen to an impossibly heavy weight. But when we come to Jesus, when we recognize the truth that God’s love is a gift, unearned and undeserved, given us simply because he loves us, it unburdens us, frees us, and in that we find rest—rest from the constant need to please, to win approval, to satisfy, to earn, to measure up, to prove ourselves. Jesus has done that for us, for you…
As Grace surrendered the striving and perfectionism, she experienced a profound sense of liberation. She no longer felt the need to perform for God’s approval because she understood that she was already accepted and loved just as she was. She began to truly accept and embrace God’s unconditional love, allowing it to transform her from the inside out. She had gone from Graceless to Grace. She understood what it means to be Christian, truly Christian.
With this newfound freedom, Grace’s relationship with God deepened in ways she couldn’t ever have imagined before. She no longer approached prayer and worship as mere duties but as expressions of gratitude and love. The same with all her work and her volunteering. It wasn’t a matter of compulsion, but a matter of joy, of praise, of happiness. Her life was still full with her abundance of do-good work. After all, she knew that being a good person involved doing the right thing. But now that she understood her place, understood her direction as progressing, not alone on her own to please God, but as a journey to come to Jesus, to come to him in all that she did, she found ful-fillment. Her life was full, and it was ful-filled. She was full—full of God’s love for her, and she had to share that love.
And so Grace and her journey of finding fulfillment by giving up the rat race of pleasing God and accepting his love given freely, no strings attached, is likewise for us a call to repentance—to recognizing the need we have for Jesus in coming to the fullness of life for us God intends. We will always feel a longing, an imperfection, an incompleteness if we rely on ourselves to please God, even if we’re doing the right thing.
Grace shows us rest from the weariness to please God comes in recognizing and reorienting ourselves to our need for Jesus. Grace shows us that repentance isn’t about guilt, but about honesty. Grace shows us that understanding ourselves as already loved by God frees us to love and serve God, not to please him, but so we might serve others, as Jesus loves and serves us. Grace shows us what a life of ful-fillment, a life filled with God’s love lived and given by us—what that looks like. Grace shows us true fulfillment isn’t found in striving but in embracing the unmerited love and mercy of God, freely given through, in, with Jesus. It’s about the way to Jesus, not the destination. Grace shows us life is always in progress.
“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens,” Jesus says, “and I will give you rest.”
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Rev'd Daniel W. Spigelmyer, Jr. 