From President Stuckwisch

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Living the Life of Repentance and Faith in Christ Jesus

It is appropriate that Ash Wednesday this year coincides with the Commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther on the 18th of February, the 480th anniversary of his death. As Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the Lenten discipline of repentance, so did Luther’s Reformation begin with a focus on repentance, as articulated in the first of his Ninety-Five Theses: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent,’ He willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”

The very fact that the entire Christian life is one of repentance is a necessary reminder that it’s not something we turn “on” and “off” with the changing of the seasons. It’s not as though we exercise repentance during Advent and Lent, only to set it aside the rest of the year! But even so, there is a discipline and rhythm to the practice of repentance, which is deliberately intensified at times as a means of clarifying and strengthening our faith and life in Christ Jesus, as an aspect of our training in righteousness by way of intentional reliance on the Word of God.

Our Lutheran Confessions rightly teach that repentance, broadly speaking, includes both sorrow and contrition for our sins and faith and trust in the grace and mercy of God and His forgiveness of our sins in Christ Jesus. In every respect, such true repentance depends upon the preaching of the Word of God, the Law and the Gospel, whereby the Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin and righteousness and judgment (St. John 16:8-11), converting our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26), putting us to death and raising us to newness of life in and with Christ Jesus.

We believe, teach, and confess that this dying and rising of repentance is the daily and lifelong significance of our Holy Baptism, unto the Resurrection and the Life everlasting. The shape and character of Lent really resides within and grows out of that baptismal significance. But there is no point in this mortal life when a Christian is not living in repentance, however much it may ebb and flow from one day to the next. It is the very essence of the Christian faith and life to be ever and always repenting of our sins and relying on the free and full forgiveness of those sins.

But as repentance is not a do-it-yourself process, but the work of God by His Word and Spirit, and as we are both finite and fallen creatures of flesh and blood, whose hearts and minds, bodies and souls are subject to all manner of vicissitudes, it is helpful and even necessary that we avail ourselves of the ways and means God has provided for exercising repentance and strengthening faith in His Word. That is chiefly a matter of hearing, learning, confessing, and praying what He has spoken to us by His Son, whether in catechesis and devotion, in the Divine Service and daily prayer, in Confession & Absolution, or in the discussion of theology with friends and neighbors. The various disciplines and traditions of Lent can also contribute a “fine outward training” for the sake of focusing our attention on the seriousness of our sins and the certainty of our Savior.

Luther points to these very things in the Smalcald Articles, in which he poignantly describes the true repentance that is worked in us by God through the preaching of His Word and the working of His Spirit, and in which he also indicates the superabundant variety of ways in which the Lord God gives the Gospel to us within the fellowship of His Church on earth – through the preaching and teaching of His Word, through Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and the Holy Communion, and through the mutual conversation and consolation of brothers (SA Part III, Article IV).

In a similar vein, the Epistle to the Hebrews beautifully describes the life of repentance and faith, whereby we enter into the true Holy of Holies made without hands, eternal in the heavens, by the atoning Blood of Jesus, through the veil of His Flesh, our bodies having been washed with pure water and our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and meeting together as the Body and Bride of Christ for the sake of encouraging one another and stirring each other up to love and good works (Hebrews 10:19-25). Thus do we live and love and look forward to the Resurrection of all flesh and the Life everlasting of body and soul in the neverending Easter of Paradise!