20 February 2013 - sign language

20 February 2013 - sign language

A heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.

God doesn't take delight in punishment.  He actually doesn't enjoy it.  It exists as a necessary consequence of sin but it is ordered toward our repentance.  It is made to turn our hearts back to the LORD.  

When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way,
he repented of the evil that he had threatened to do to them;
he did not carry it out.

We ask for signs, but not sincerely.  We seek distractions so that we may continue with our "evil way" but all real signs are calls to repentance. 

At the judgment the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation
and condemn it,
because at the preaching of Jonah they repented,
and there is something greater than Jonah here.”

Imagine the people of Nineveh actually wanting to hear that preaching and to see that sign.  They needed it precisely because they didn't want it.  But they were able to recognize it nonetheless.  The sign of Jonah showed that the the LORD had chosen him.  The people could understand that the words he spoke mattered.  They could see he wasn't speaking them for his own sake.  If he was following his own will he'd be far from Nineveh doing his own thing.

Solomon and Jonah were great figures but Jesus is infinitely more.  His cross is the most perfect call to repentance.  In it we can recognize how selfless this call is.  He himself bears the very punishment we fear.  We can no longer accuse him of being distant, detached, or of lacking understanding.

We are made to live in his presence, filled with his Holy Spirit, but we must have a clean heart to be near him.

A clean heart create for me, O God,
and a steadfast spirit renew within me.
Cast me not out from your presence,
and your Holy Spirit take not from me. 

The good news is that we don't create a clean heart for ourselves.  If we ever try that we realize just how impossible it is.  Instead, he does it within us.  All we have to do is desire it.


The queen of the south came from a distance to hear the wisdom of Solomon but the wisdom of Jesus is both greater and closer at hand.  Let us seek him out and let this wisdom transform us from within.  His wisdom shining on our lives is the only source of true contrition.  Only then will we begin to truly desire repentance rather than just imagining we desire it.

My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit;
a heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.

Come LORD Jesus.