Repentance isn’t a guilt-ridden attitude but a joyful expedition towards our lost yet original glory reserved in Jesus Christ. It’s a pilgrimage we make to Paradise. Our worship posture and gestures express this concept well. We participate in our liturgical services standing to indicate our ongoing exodus while the occasional sitting signifies our intermittent rest. Even a mere prostration encapsulates the entire Economy of Salvation i.e. we fall yet are raised by the Cross of Christ. Hence repentance is precisely our refusal to succumb to our fall.
We must conceive repentance constructively. As St. John Climacus writes; “To repent…is to see not what I have failed to be, but what by the grace of Christ I might yet become.”
Repentance is neither a bargain nor a transaction we make with God in return for forgiveness. Forgiveness isn’t earned but received by the sheer grace of God. St. Isaac the Syrian remarks; “Never say the God is just. If He were just you would be in hell. Rely on His injustice which is mercy, love and forgiveness.”
Repentance is the realization of our true identity and destiny. We are called to be “𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐝𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞”(2 Pet. 1:4). In the act of confessing our sins we fathom who we are and who we ought to be; just like that lost son who “𝐜𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐢𝐦𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟” (Lk. 15:17) and understood his Father’s glory and so his honoured sonship. This persuaded him to come to his Father who on seeing His son far away, ran towards him, embraced and forgave him before he could even utter a word (Lk. 15:20).
This is what repentance is all about. It is coming home to our Father no matter how far we might have strayed.
~ Dayroyo Fr. Basil
Urho, The Way 