Repent to Receive God’s Joy

Reflection for the Third Sunday of Easter by Third Order Society of St. Francis Writer Gordon Kubaneck, P. Eng.

This reflection was originally posted in our April 9 newsletter

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The Third Sunday in Easter is a time of great rejoicing for Christ has risen from the dead. Hallelujah! It is spring and there is new life all around us. Hallelujah! And yet this week’s readings have a focus on sin and repentance, suffering and righteousness. For example, we read this from the book of Acts 3:17/19:

“And now, friends, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers…Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out.”

Now clearly repentance is a gift from God and I appreciate it as the best and probably only way I can move forward when I am stuck in maladaptive behaviors. But why does the focus on the death of Christ and his rising from the dead in Peter’s words, and later the story from Luke’s Gospel, mean that we should repent? Perhaps God knows that we will be blind to his gift of joy without repentance? Luke 24:41 says that in his way: “While in their joy they were disbelieving.” Joy is a gift for believers. We cannot truly believe and have a strong faith without repentance. So, what do we moderns have to repent?

An awful lot. In Jesus’ day there was injustice and suffering. Today there is much more, of a particular kind. While we have made some progress addressing slavery and the abuse of those who are different than we are, I think we have only transferred that slavery and abuse to the non-human world. Our destruction of God’s creation is a blight which is certainly worthy of repentance.

Thus my prayer for today is that we can live in the joy made possible by Jesus rising from death. This requires repentance and then action to bring the promised joy from Jesus to ALL living beings. That means that we too must be healers like Jesus, like the Apostles, but in the way that our age demands: to heal the earth and to stop the extinction of any life that God created and loves. This is one way we can glorify God during the Easter season.

Gordon Kubaneck, P. Eng.

Third Order Society of St. Francis and Writer