National Sorry Day and the Return to Yearly, Insufficient Sacrifices

"Annual acknowledgments of past sins are an insult to the finished work of Christ. The practice itself echoes the insufficiency of the Levitical priesthood..."

Yesterday was “National Sorry Day,” an annual observance in Australia on May 26 that commemorates the “historical mistreatment” of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, with a particular focus on the so-called Stolen Generations.

It’s a day on which White Australians are expected to acknowledge and confess the sins committed by their White ancestors, offering apologies on their behalf, year after year, without any clear endpoint or lasting reconciliation in sight.

As such, it is a distinctly un-Christian observance. Not only because it bears false witness by ascribing sin and guilt where there is none, but also by suggesting that even where sin may be present, it must be acknowledged and confessed endlessly—as if Christ’s atoning sacrifice were not sufficient to cover it once for all time.

But let’s grant, for the sake of argument, that guilt remains—and set aside, for a moment, the plain teaching of Scripture: “The son shall not suffer for the sins of the father” (Ezekiel 18:20). Even then, the Bible is clear that once sin is genuinely acknowledged and confessed, the Christian’s calling is to trust in the sufficiency of God’s forgiveness.

To dredge it up and confess it again and again every year, multiple times a year, is not an act of repentance but a demonstration of unbelief in Christ’s finished work. It is the definition of unbelief. It is a denial of the Gospel.

Consequently, annual acknowledgments of past sins are an insult to the finished work of Christ. The practice itself echoes the insufficiency of the Levitical priesthood, where a sacrifice was offered every year because the previous year’s atonement was insufficient to perfect wrongdoers.

Rather than removing sins or cleansing the conscience, the yearly sacrifices under the Levitical order actually reinforced awareness of guilt. Each year, the people were reminded that sin was still an unresolved problem. Hence, the Levitical ritual served as an annual confession that the people’s sins remained and had not yet been fully dealt with.

As the author of Hebrews explained:

“For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. 2 Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? 3 But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. 4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” Hebrews 10:1-4

In effect, the Day of Atonement served as Israel’s own “National Sorry Day.” It was observed annually to underscore that the sacrifices offered were insufficient to fully atone for sin. If the blood of bulls and goats had been truly effective, there would have been no need for repeated offerings year after year. The very repetition was a stark reminder of their inadequacy.

So, what is implied when Christians participate in annual “sorry” days? Is the so-called sin they acknowledge truly forgiven, or not? Even more troubling is that this practice has found its way into many churches without any regard for what it suggests about the finished work of Christ. What else does this annual message convey except that Christ’s blood is no more sufficient than the blood of bulls and goats? At least, in regard to the sins of White Christian men.

Now, some may argue that “National Sorry Day” is not about unresolved guilt, but rather an acknowledgment of the ongoing consequences of past sins on Indigenous peoples. But this distinction fails to hold. Nearly all sins have lasting consequences—that is part of what makes sin so grievous. To single out one set of sins for perpetual remembrance, while claiming to rest in God’s forgiveness for others, creates a double standard.

Worse still, it implies that sins committed by White men against Black men are more serious or more enduring than the sins all people commit against a holy God. Such an implication is not only theologically flawed—it, once again, distorts the Gospel itself by diminishing the gravity of sin against God and the sufficiency of Christ’s atonement to forgive those sins.

By embracing such annual national rituals, Christians undermine the very Gospel they claim to profess, casting doubt on the sufficiency of Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice. As such, it’s a ritual that needs to be not only rejected by Christians, but condemned as un-Christian.