Nehemiah 9:1-8: a reflection

1Now in the twenty-fourth day of this month the children of Israel were assembled with fasting, with sackcloth, and dirt on them. 2The offspring of Israel separated themselves from all foreigners and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. 3They stood up in their place, and read in the book of the law of the LORD their God a fourth part of the day; and a fourth part they confessed and worshiped the LORD their God. 4Then Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani of the Levites stood up on the stairs, and cried with a loud voice to the LORD their God. 5Then the Levites, Jeshua, and Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah, said, “Stand up and bless the LORD your God from everlasting to everlasting! Blessed be your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise! 6You are the LORD, even you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their army, the earth and all things that are on it, the seas and all that is in them, and you preserve them all. The army of heaven worships you. 7You are the LORD, the God who chose Abram, brought him out of Ur of the Chaldees, gave him the name of Abraham, 8found his heart faithful before you, and made a covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite, to give it to his offspring, and have performed your words, for you are righteous.

Gathered in fasting and sackcloth, the people of Israel spend the day in a striking act of worship: they read from the book of the law, confess their sins and the sins of their fathers, and then break into a great recital of God's faithfulness, from creation, to the call of Abraham, to the covenant God kept. Their confession of sin is joined to a remembering of who God is and all he has faithfully done. They own their failure honestly, and they rehearse God's goodness at length.

Notice how the two go together. The people do not merely wallow in their sin, nor do they praise God while ignoring their failure; they hold both. They confess honestly, naming their sins and their fathers', and they remember God's faithfulness, his choosing of Abraham, his keeping of his covenant, his righteousness. Honest confession and grateful remembering, side by side, this is the shape of their repentance.

That is a healthy pattern for our own repentance. True repentance is not only naming our sin, which alone can crush us into despair, nor only remembering God's goodness, which alone can leave us shallow; it is both together. We confess honestly, and we remember the faithful, gracious God we have sinned against, whose goodness gives us hope even as we confess. When you repent, follow Israel's pattern: name your sin honestly before God, and remember his faithfulness, his covenant kept, his mercy shown. Let honest confession and grateful remembering go together, so that your repentance is neither despairing nor shallow, but real and hopeful.

Lord, gathered in confession, the people of Israel named their sins honestly and then remembered your faithfulness at length, your calling of Abraham, your covenant kept, your righteousness. Teach me that pattern of repentance. Keep me from only naming my sin, which alone would crush me into despair, and from only remembering your goodness while ignoring my failure. Help me hold both: to confess honestly, and to remember the faithful, gracious God I have sinned against, whose goodness gives me hope even as I confess. Let honest confession and grateful remembering go together in me, so that my repentance is real and hopeful, not despairing or shallow.