Joy
Rev. Dr. Troy Troftgruben
Many of us associate repentance with negative feelings. It’s an association that Jesus never seemed to have.
As an entry for “repent,” Webster’s Dictionary offers: “to feel regret or contrition.” Sure, feelings play a role in repentance. But many of us overestimate their importance. Many of us assume repenting, in essence, means feeling bad—about our choices, our participation in systemic sin, and ourselves. In short, we approach repentance like a guilt trip. As a result, if we are honest, we cannot fathom how it may be lifegiving.
Let me propose a very different association with repentance: joy.
Luke 15 collects some of the most beloved parables of Jesus in Scripture: the Parables of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and the Prodigal and His Brother. All three are stories about being lost and then found. Jesus associates being found in each story with repentance (vv. 7, 10), even though the parables themselves do not use the word. Even more, in the parables and in Jesus’ explanatory comments, the prevailing emotion is joy.
First, the “finder” of what was lost invites everyone around to “rejoice with me, for I have found [what was] lost” (vv. 6, 9, also v. 32). Second, after the first two parables, Jesus explicitly says: “Just so, I tell you,” there is “joy” in God’s presence over “one sinner who repents” (vv. 7, 10). Altogether, these parables offer three distinctive images for what repentance means—and joy is the resounding emotion.
Joy (chara) is more than a feeling. It runs deeper than bouts of happiness. It stems from a source of contentment more unshakeable than passing trials. This kind of joy, as Jesus envisions it, comes from a lifegiving connection to God.
To be fair, repentance (metanoeō) requires a change of course and thinking—and changes to our thinking can be very difficult, even painful. In most cases, it entails feelings of regret and contrition, and rightly so. But it’s more than simply feeling guilt. Repentance is a change of direction. It matters a lot less how badly we feel or how long we wallow in guilt than the constructive change that ultimately results. Our feelings of guilt alone change nothing. Constructive, remedial steps do. And God’s response to these changes is sheer joy.
God’s response of joy may be ours as well, as we embrace the more lifegiving path of “being found.” It may not happen immediately. The prodigal son, after all, needed time hanging out with pigs before he was ready to return. But in our repentance, all of heaven rejoices—and divine joy is infectious.
Lent is a journey to the cross. But this journey of repentance, sorrowful as it is, does not end there. It ultimately leads to the joy of Easter.
