Born Again
Transcript: The Repentance Reset Button Born Again Bishop Ignaty Brianchaninov left us the following precious instruction: "In order to live spiritually and draw breath from grace, we must continually exhale the ashes of sin." We sin almost constantly, if not in our deeds, then in our thoughts and feelings. Therefore it is essential to continually cleanse our souls. In the language of asceticism (teaching on religious struggle) it is known as "internal activity" or "attentiveness." To continually repent is to pay unceasing attention to one’s spiritual life, to assess and remove from it all that is questionable and foolish. This spiritual battle requires ability, God’s assistance, and constant prayer. As the holy Fathers of the Church write " It is pointless to weep over the sins of the past if we do not struggle with them in the present." Continual repentance or attentiveness is that poverty of spirit of which Christ speaks in the first Beatitude in His sermon on the mount. The call to such repentance is found throughout the Word of God and the texts of Orthodox worship. In a sense, all of the teaching of the Church is a single call to repentance in the most profound sense of that term, i.e. it is a call to rebirth, to a complete reassessment of all values, to a new understanding and vision of life in the light of Christ. Born Again? MY OWN PERSONAL SISYPHUS If not Us then Who? Oh, God! UNINTENTIONAL INTENTIONAL SEEN UNSEEN FAILURES MISSTEPS "Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin" "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which You have broken may rejoice. Hide Your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me." THE PSALM 50 CONUNDRUM For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight that You may be found just when You speak, and blameless when You judge. (PSALM 50:3-4) Western/Protestant Christianity The phrase “born again Christian” is frequently misinterpreted. Looking at its primary reference, we see that its meaning is not about physical birth, but about experiencing a spiritual renewal. It is is an expression used by many Protestants to define the moment or process of fully accepting faith in Jesus Christ. It is an experience when the teachings of Christianity and Jesus become real, and the "born again" acquire a personal relationship with God. The term is originated from an incident in the New Testament in which the words of Jesus were not understood by a Jewish Pharisee, Nicodemus. Jesus replied, "Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again." "How can someone be born when they are old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother's womb to be born!" Jesus answered, "Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit." John 3:3-5 NIV Eastern/Orthodox Christianity The phrase “born again” also needs some tweaking, if not rescuing from its narrowly individualistic Evangelical environment. First of all, the word “again” [Greek anothen] in the phrase “born again” is better rendered “from above”, so that Christ is not counselling a repetition of the first birth, but a completely new kind of birth “from above”—i.e. from God, the phrase “above” being a Jewish circumlocution for the divine Name. Christ connects this rebirth with “water and the Spirit” (John 3:5), the water clearly being a reference to the water in which His disciples were immersed at baptism. This was the unanimous conclusion of the early church, and undergirds such references to baptism as found in St. Paul when he speaks of “the washing of rebirth” (Titus 3:5) and of Christians being “cleansed by the washing of water with the Word” (Ephesians 5:26).