My son is almost 4. He is just beginning to figure out that when he and his sister don’t agree on something, he can hit her and get his way. The other day, they got into an argument over a toy they both wanted to play with. His solution to the impasse was to punch his sister. She started crying and told on him. I punished him and he apologized to his sister. About 20 minutes, later the scene replayed itself. My boy literally did the same thing he had done before. He apologized again, but it’s clear that he will likely end up fighting with his sister again in the future. The reality is that, even though he said he was sorry and perhaps felt some remorse for his actions, he did them again. He’s a little kid and I expect that part of training him to be a responsible person will be teaching him this lesson over and over. Often, adults do this as well. We do something wrong to a loved one, apologize for our actions with some degree of regret, then repeat the infraction again and again in the future. The reality is that not all apologies reflect a change in heart or behavior. Sometimes they are more surface in their implications. Ideally, an apology would accompany a change in behavior or an effort to change the behavior in the future. The word the Bible uses for this version of apologizing is “repentance.” In Hebrew, the language the Old Testament was written in, it means to feel sorrow, turn around, and go in the other direction. The idea is simple, repentance is when you feel remorse for your actions and change your behavior accordingly. It is not merely a heart felt apology or an emotionless choice to change a behavior. It is a heart change that prompts a new way of behaving. The most famous example of this sort of repentance is found in Jesus’ story of the prodigal son. In the parable, a son goes to his father and says what would be the modern equivalent of: “Dad, you’re dead to me. Give me my inheritance so I can have what I deserve and live without you.” The father gives his son the inheritance and the son heads off to a far away land where he squanders his inheritance on wild living. Eventually, when the funds run out, he ends up doing a demeaning job and starving. He resolves to go home and offer to live as his father’s slave. The son’s repentance is seen in the fact that he recognizes the error of his ways and returns to his family to try to make amends for his awful behavior. He has a heart change that prompts him to change his behavior. The great thing about this story is that his father sees him coming, runs out of town to meet his son, then walks back with his boy to throw a party and restore him to the position in the family he previously held. The father doesn’t even let his son finish the apology and refuses to hear anything of the son being a slave. In the ancient world, this sort of behavior was unheard of. The father humiliated himself by running to meet his son and restoring him. Part of Jesus’ point in the story is to explain that this is how God sees us when we repent. He lavishly forgives and works to reestablish our relationship with him. Another point to the parable is that we are to forgive others lavishly and celebrate when others repent. The key to the whole matter is repentance: sorrow that leads to change. Unfortunately, this is not always easy to accomplish in our own lives.
