True Liberation: Lent and Reconciliation

Matthew 5:13.  “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltness be restored? It’s no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden under foot by men. 

   14.  “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid.  15.  Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.  16.  Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” 

 

 

Psalms 51:1.  HAVE MERCY on me, O Yahweh, according to thy steadfast love; according to thy abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.  2.  Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!  3.  For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.  4.  Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in thy sight, so that thou art justified in thy sentence and blameless in thy judgment.  5.  Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.  6.  Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. 

   7.  Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.  8.  Fill me with joy and gladness; let the bones which thou hast broken rejoice.  9.  Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.   10.  Create in me a clean heart, O Yahweh, and put a new and right spirit within me.  11.  Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy holy Spirit from me. 

   12.  Restore to me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.  13.  Then I will teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners will return to thee.  14.  Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O Elohim, thou god of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of thy deliverance.   15.  O Yahweh, open thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise.  16.  For thou hast no delight in sacrifice; were I to give a burnt offering, thou wouldst not be pleased.  17.  The sacrifice acceptable to Yahweh is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O Elohim, thou wilt not despise. 

 

2 Corinthians 5:12.  We are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you cause to be proud of us, so that you may be able to answer those who pride themselves on a man’s position and not on his heart.  13.  For if we are beside ourselves, it’s for Yahweh; if we are in our right mind, it’s for you.  14.  For the love of Messiah controls us, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died.  15.  And he died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.  16.  From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once regarded Messiah from a human point of view, we regard him thus no longer.  17.  Therefore, if any one is in Messiah, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come.  18.  All this is from Yahweh, who through Messiah reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;  19.  that is, in Messiah, Yahweh was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.  20.  So we are ambassadors for Messiah, Yahweh making his appeal through us. We beseech you on behalf of Messiah, be reconciled to Yahweh.  21.  For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of Yahweh. 

   In the upcoming season of the spirit, Lent, the call to reconciliation ought to have particular resonance and force in our hearts and consciences.  If we’re really disciples and confessors of Messiah who reconciled man with Yahweh, we can’t live without seeking such interior reconciliation for our part too. We mustn’t remain in sin and fail to make efforts at finding the way again that leads to the Father’s house, where He is always waiting for us to return.

   The Church calls us during Lent to look for such away: “We implore you, in Messiah’s name be reconciled with Yahweh” (2 Cor 5:20). Only through being reconciled with Yahweh in Messiah’s name can we taste “how good Yahweh is” (Ps 34:9), by trying for ourselves, experimentally. 

   It’s not of Yahweh’s severity that sin-confessors throughout the world speak; they speak rather of his bounty of mercy.  And how many approach the confessional hour, sometimes after many years’ absence, bearing the weight of mortal sins and, as they depart from that hour, find the desired relief?  Yes, they find joy and peace of conscience, which they couldn’t find anywhere else.  No one actually has the power to free us from our sin; Yahweh alone has that power.  And the person who obtains such remission receives the grace of a new life of the spirit, which Yahweh alone can grant us in his infinite goodness. 

   “When the afflicted called out, Yahweh heard, and from all his distress he saved him” (Ps 34:7).

 

    Lent is the time for a particularly loving meeting on our Father’s part with each and every one of us, so that even the most prodigal son may still take account of the waste that he’s perpetrated, call his sin by its name, and finally make his way with complete sincerity back to his Creator.  Such a man must return to the Father’s house. The way back leads through examination of conscience, repentance, and resolve to improve; need for confession naturally arises within him.

   Our reconciliation with Yahweh and our return to the Father’s house is accomplished through Messiah Yahshua. His suffering and death on the torture stake stand between every human conscience, every human sin, and the Father’s boundless Love. Such Love is prompt to raise up and pardon; it’s nothing else than Mercy. In personal conversion, in repentance, in firm resolve to reform, and finally in confession, each of us agrees to perform a personal spiritual labor. This labor is an extension and reverberation of that labor that our Redeemer undertook. This is what the Apostle of reconciliation has to say: “For our sakes Yahweh made him who did not know sin, to be sin, so that in him we might become the very holiness of Yahweh” (2 Cor 5:21).

    So let us undertake our labor of conversion and penitence for Him, with Him and in Him. Unless we undertake it, we’re not worthy of the name of Yahshua, we’re not worthy of the inheritance of the Redemption. 

   “If anyone is in Messiah, he is a new creation. The old order has passed away; now all is new! All this has been done by Yahweh, who has reconciled us to himself through Messiah, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Cor 5:17,18).

 

   To be converted to Yahweh, in an essential and radical way, we must return to the fundamental “principle”; that is – at the beginning is human sin, and the death that results from it.  We must regain consciousness of sin, which is the origin of every sin on earth, which has become the lasting foundation and the source of humankind’s bent toward sinning. 

   That original sin actually remains in all individuals.  It’s the inheritance of the first Adam in us.  And even though it’s cancelled by Baptism in the name of Messiah, “the final Adam” (2 Cor 15:45), it leaves its effects in each of us. 

   Being converted to Yahweh, as the we desire you to be during the forty days of Lent, means getting to the root of the tree, which, as the Master says, “is not fruitful” (Mt 3:10).  There’s no other way of healing humanity.  So, to “be converted” in the way the Church expects of us during the upcoming Lenten season, we need to return to that “principle,” that “beginning,” which is articulated in the words, “you are dust, and you shall return to dust.”

   The pathway passes through Good Friday.  It passes beneath the torture stake.  There is no other pathway of full “conversion.” Upon this unique road, we’re awaited by Him whom the Father, through Love, “made ... to be sin” (2 Cor 5:21) although He’d not known sin, “so that in him we might become the very holiness of Yahweh.”

   Let’s take the road of such conversion and reconciliation with Yahweh, by collaborating in a particular fashion in this period of forty days, through prayer, almsgiving and fasting.  Let us pray, “A clean heart create for me, 0 Yahweh, and a steadfast spirit renew within me” (Ps 51:12).

 

  Yahweh’s kingdom has its beginning in the history of creation together with man. It has a long history.   At the summit of this history stands Messiah. “The reign of Yahweh is at hand” (Mk 1:15), said the Baptizer.  He spoke of it from the beginning of his messianic teaching and he perseveringly, tirelessly, announced this Kingdom to be chosen people.

  Conversion is necessary for being able to regain the full truth of the Kingdom of Yahweh.  After all, He gave His life for that truth. . . . Good Friday closed with a controversy over Yahweh’s Kingdom.

   On the Day of the Resurrection the truth of Messiah’s words was confirmed, the Truth that the Kingdom of Yahweh had come to us, the Truth of the whole of His messianic mission.

   The struggle between the kingdom of evil, of the evil spirit, and the Kingdom of Yahweh has not ceased; it’s not over. It’s only entered upon a new stage, actually the definitive stage.  In this stage the struggle continues in us and in ever-new generations through history.

   ¿Do we really have to demonstrate that the struggle against evil goes on in our day?  It certainly goes on for those who will wrestle with it and not be overcome on account of apathy.  The struggle goes on in each of us. And, by following history, including our own contemporary history, we can also define in what way the kingdom of the spirit of slander is not divided but seeks unity of action in the world and, by various paths, tries to have its [malignant] effects upon society and our posterity.

   As at the beginning, so also now, the evil spirit stakes its victory on human liberty ... on man’s apparently unlimited freedom to choose.  Everyone must choose which master to serve.  Abdicating the choice is making a decision for the evil one.

 

   Lent is a time for choosing – the time for entering into oneself by choice.  It’s the period of particular intimacy with Yahweh in the secrecy of one’s own heart and conscience. 

   The essential work of Lent, the work of conversion, is performed in interior intimacy with Yahweh.  Words resound in that interior privacy and intimacy with Yahweh himself, in all the truth of one’s own heart and conscience. Words such as those of the Psalmist, one of the profoundest confessions which man has ever made: “Have mercy on me, O Yahweh, in your goodness; in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense.  Thoroughly wash me from my guilt and of my sin cleanse me. For I acknowledge my offense and my sin is before me always: Against you only have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight” (Ps 51:16).

   Those are purifying words.  Transforming words.  They transform a person within and are a testimony of transformation.  Let’s recite them often during Lent.  Let’s above all seek to renew this spirit that enlivens them: that interior breath of life that’s linked the power of conversion with these exact words: “Create in me a clean heart, O Yahweh, and put a new and right spirit within me.  Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy holy Spirit from me.” 

   Lent is an invitation to conversion. The “good works of mercy” spoken of in the Gospel open the way to conversion. Let’s do such works as far as we can. But first of all, let’s make use of them for an interior meeting with our Father lasting the whole of our lives, in everything constituting our lives and, in view of the profundity of this conversion to Him, radiating from the thought behind today’s psalm.

   “We implore you in Messiah’s name: let yourselves be reconciled with Yahweh.”  So speaks the Church, our mother, to all her children. Let it be so over the whole of this period. 

   “Let yourselves be reconciled with Yahweh,” for He’s done much already toward your reconciliation.

 

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