Cosmic Repentance

We have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments. Daniel 9.5

The worship that Adam and Eve led in Eden, was not confined to the relationship that existed between each of them and with God (blessed though that was). Their roles as ministering priests (both to one another and to God) encompassed all of creation in its enormous, luminous, resplendent entirety: God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1.28).

The life of Paradise was, therefore, a love-washed, joy-soaked supra-celebration of the most gargantuan proportions and it never, ever ended. All through the day and all through the night, the first worshipers guided creation, which they loved and which they tenderly cultivated, in praise of the heavenly God: The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork (Psalm 19.1).

For this cosmic worship to be restored in our lives, an important process needs to take place—cosmic repentance. A vast chasm exists between our worship and the worship of the first Adam. In the book of Daniel, the prophet makes a national confession before God. In his confession, Daniel asks God to show mercy to his city, Jerusalem, and to his people, Israel, for the sins that they have committed against Him, through their (persistent and unashamed) transgressions of the holy commandments:

I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. And I prayed to the Lord my God, and made confession, and said, “O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him, and with those who keep His commandments, we have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments.” Daniel 9.3–5.

The Scriptures invite us to enter into the mystery of this kind of repentance, through confession of the sins of our people and of our nations. Each nation has sins that occur in every other nation, as well as sins that are specific to its culture and the laws that are in current operation, as a result of the activity of those in power.

In both cases, God desires that confession and repentance be offered by those who are willing to “stand in the gap,” in order that His just judgement be attenuated: I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one (Ezekiel 22.30 cf. Abraham interceding for Sodom in Genesis 18.16–33).

Practical Application:

• Read and re-read Daniel 9.1–19.

• For the national sins that are not immediately obvious to you, take some time in prayer so as to become aware of the issues that are burdening God’s heart.

• Come before God and offer confession and repentance for the sins of your people, your nation and the nation in which you live (if it is different).

To bridge the gap that separates us from the embodied, paradisiacal spirituality of Eden, we need the Cross to be rooted within us. As a result of the limited nature of our understanding of Christ’s sacrifice, our belief in the redemption that extends from it, in terms of the restoration of our humanity to its original Christ-likeness, is limited.

When the Cross is rooted within us, the new life of the Kingdom of God works through our members, and locates and uproots the signs of the old life that continue to operate within us. Through this process, our arrested souls are freed and released and we are, as a result, able to reenter the Adamic priesthood from which we have been exiled/ from which we exiled ourselves.

Our work, therefore, is to be restored to the fullness of our humanity—through Christ, the God-Man, who redeemed human nature through His Incarnation—in order that we can, again, take upon our shoulders the glorious responsibility of leading the entire cosmos in the purpose for which it was created: the adoration, veneration, salutation and glorification of the ever-loving and ever-present Creator.

Adam and Eve, the first Father and Mother of the Church, carried, though weightlessly, all creation in their arms, in their roles as its loving stewards. In the same way, we, as Christians, are, like Daniel the Prophet, called to stand before God, in the presence of the hosts of heaven, and repent on behalf of our nations, so as to reestablish ourselves within the cosmic priesthood of Eden and with it, the divine order that God initially envisioned, when He created the world and us within it.

Amen +

Author of You Are Mine and Apocalypse, Sister Anastasia writes on the role of the ancient, ascetic Church in a rapidly changing, modern world.

Photo by Олег Мороз