Looking at your calendar, you may also have noticed that on Wednesday of this week the Yom Kippur holiday began at sundown. Well, then again, because there are so few Jewish people in Burke County, perhaps you did not. But it gave me cause to consult with a rabbi friend of mine as to the importance of this occasion for Jewish people.
I was surprised to learn that this is the most holy of their holy days. The primary emphasis of Yom Kippur is repentance and it is celebrated by fasting.
I could not help but think, why don't we Christians have a holiday for repenting? Then the obvious answer came to me. Having fellowshipped with all kinds of Christians — Disciple, Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Holiness and whatever else – I know for a fact that none of us is very good at fasting. We are experts at rationalizing any excuse to have dinner on the grounds, fellowship meals and covered-dish dinners, but we are virtually inexperienced at not eating.
Perhaps we (all of us, theologians, lay folks and pastors) have neglected the essential role of repentance in the Christian life. Remember, the first word of the gospel as preached by no one less than Jesus himself was, "Repent, …" (Matthew 4:17).
Medical statistics show us an awful truth about the role of pain in our lives. One out of every 400,000 babies is born with a rare genetic disorder known as dysautonomia. The unusual characteristic of this disease prevents the child from feeling pain. Upon hearing of it, many of us are inclined, at first, to think of it as a blessing. We would not suffer if burned, hurt or injured in any way. There would be no toothaches, wrenched backs or labor pains.
Tragically, children born with this affliction never survive long. Whenever they have another medical condition for which pain otherwise would warn them, they do not sense it. They cannot tell that an appendix is about to burst or that they have been severely cut. Of all the incidents in life for which pain warns us to seek help, they are unaware. Pain is God's warning device that something is wrong and needs attention.
In a similar manner, Paul writes to the church at Thessalonica that the remorse we feel when we have sinned is the cautioning glow of a spiritual warning. In a modern sense, it is light on the dashboard of our life urging us to give the right attention to our hearts and behavior. And if we lose the ability to feel remorse, spiritually we are living as dangerously as a person with no ability to feel pain or a driver who ignores his automobile's gauges.
Many Bible students believe that in confronting his own sin, King David wrote the 51st Psalm. It is there that the greatest of all the Hebrew kings penned the immortal words, "Create in me a clean heart, O God…" Only recently I learned that the word for 'create' in Psalm 51 is the same as the word 'create' in the first chapter of the book of Genesis, where it means 'to bring into being from nothing.' In other words, David was asking God not to just recondition his old self, but to give him a totally new heart. How many, if any, of us have experienced this kind of repenting?
Pretty soon will be the day we set aside for Thanksgiving. Just a little beyond that we'll celebrate the birth of Christ and, of course, at Easter we will recognize the Resurrection.
But when do we practice repenting?
Maybe every day.
Johnny A. Phillips is the clinical chaplain of the J. Iverson Riddle Developmental Center.
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