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THE ART OF CHRISTIAN CONFESSION #2

GETTING RID OF SMALLPOX

A Father Harold Cost, who works at the Holy Family Church in Belle Prairie, Minnesota, tells the story about a second grader who came to confession for the very first time. Well, it was a rather brief session there in the confessional; the kid didn’t seem to have very many sins to talk about. Which is fine, but the priest asked him very gently: “Do you have any more?” “Oh, sure,” the youngster admitted cheerfully, “but I’m saving some for next time.”

Well, we smile, and also say a word of thanks to our friends Cal and Rose Samra, who share the cute anecdote in their book, More Holy Humor. But this story takes us right back to the question of WHY we should confess our sins at all. Is it appropriate to “save some for next time” and not confess a certain sin this time around?

Well, friend, it’s no laughing matter regarding what the Word of God teaches about confession and forgiveness. On the one hand, as we shared yesterday, the promise of forgiveness — once we do confess — is an absolutely incredible gift. Any sin, any tragic mistake, any crime, can be wiped away if we’ll just tell Jesus all about it. Why would any Christian complain in the slightest about such an amazing offer?

On the other hand, there is indeed an “on the other hand.” Let’s say you’re a born-again Christian, even as we speak and study together here in December 2002. You’d like to know that your relationship with Christ is just as fresh and clean as the unmarked calendar that we will start less than a month away now. You’d like to know that you’re saved at this very minute. But supposing you had a moment of impatience this morning. Or you lost your temper with your kids at breakfast. Or some hateful or lustful thoughts crowded their way into your mind already today — and you really haven’t yet had time to fall to your knees and confess to your heavenly Father. Are those sins unforgiven? Have you lost your way because of them? Does the “If-Then” clause clearly spelled out in First John 1:9 mean that you are momentarily on the outside of heaven’s kingdom looking in?

Last year we thoroughly enjoyed working our way through a series on the life and Reformation experience of Martin Luther, who nailed those great “95 Theses” on the church door in Wittenberg. Here was a young Christian who was so dedicated that he had “taken the cowl” — in other words, signed up to be a monk, which was a lifelong commitment. Entering a monastery, taking the vows, celibacy, the works. His whole life was focused on spiritual things: prayer, Bible study, devotions, meditation, spiritual introspection. And you know, this last thing — the introspection, the looking inward — was very nearly the downfall of young Augustine, which was the name Martin Luther chose for himself.

Confessing his sins became a full-time task for Luther. In his book, Martin Luther, The Great Reformer, Edwin Booth shares how this devout German boy had grown up in an atmosphere of spiritual fear.

“His mother lived in terror of the unknown punishments of eternity,” he writes. “His people dwelt in continual fear of hell’s torment. His church taught him constantly of the anger and wrath of God, of the judgment of Jesus.”

And once Luther entered the monastery, this desire to get forgiveness according to the rules of First John 1:9 nearly consumed him. In his landmark book, Here I Stand, Roland Bainton observes:

“He confessed frequently, often daily, and for as long as six hours on a single occasion. Every sin in order to be absolved was to be confessed. Therefore the soul must be searched and the memory ransacked and the motives probed. As an aid the penitent ran through the seven deadly sins and the Ten Commandments.”

Bear in mind that for Martin Luther, these endless hours of excruciating mental torture, of self-examination, of poring painfully over the hidden pages of his past, had to then be shared with another human being, a confessor. Booth concludes with this anecdote:

“Luther would repeat a confession and, to be sure of including everything, would review his entire life until the confessor grew weary and exclaimed, ‘Man, God is not angry with you. You are angry with God. Don’t you know that God commands you to hope?’”

But for Martin Luther, the grand guarantee from the Apostle John — “Confess and receive forgiveness” — had become a hell instead of a hope. Had he thought of every sin? Had he tracked down every less-than-perfect motive? Was he actually cooperating with Satan in conveniently forgetting some tiny misdeed from years past?

Now friend, I’d like to share two things with you — and it’s only because of the grace of God that you and I today are living 500 years on the grace-oriented side of Martin Luther’s watershed experience. First of all, is confession a necessary thing — even for the Christian? Yes it is. Absolutely. No exceptions. Yesterday we read I John 1:9 and many accompanying verses which tell us that God is faithful to forgive us our sins IF we confess them.

But now here’s point number, and I’m going to borrow from a powerfully written book called The Crisis of the End Time. This treatise written for believers in the last days by my friend Marvin Moore has a chapter with this title: “Preparing to Receive the Latter Rain.” It is clear material, well-written, prayerfully researched, and this particular chapter devotes a number of pages to the “how” of Christian confession. We’ll return to it again as our week continues. But here’s a vital line on page 175:

“I talked with a man once who told me he believed that a person [meaning a Christian] was lost from the time he committed a sin until he confessed it.” Then Marvin adds: “That is absolutely false.” He goes on: “All of us are assured of salvation when we accept Jesus as our Saviour, and at that point none of us are mature Christians. God assures us of salvation at every step during the growth process, not just at the end of it. Coming to the point of confession is a growth process like anything else in the Christian life.”

This is an absolutely crucial teaching of the church, and we have to explore it further. But let me ask you a question — those of you listening today who are parents. And especially if you enjoy a close, abiding, “connected” relationship with your child. He or she loves you, and you love them. But one day they sin — some little disobedient or dishonest act. You see it, of course, but they don’t know you see it. And perhaps some time goes by before they get up the courage to come to you and say, “Mommy, I told a lie. I’m sorry.” It might even be a few days before the pangs of conscience overcome the reluctance of shame. But they finally blurt out the words and confess.

Now a question: during that painful “gap” time between the sin and the confession, was your child cut off? Did you disown them? Were they unforgiven? Of course not. You loved them as much as ever. And yet their coming to you was an important part of keeping your relationship intact, wasn’t it? It was a necessary spiritual exercise, so to speak.

This understanding doesn’t negate the importance of confession, the “If-Then” of First John 1:9. But we need to balance the message of that verse with others like Colossians 2:13:

“When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us ALL our sins.”

We have to keep chipping away at the truth, staying on our knees for the entire journey, to be sure. But let me take you back to that cold monastery and Luther’s obsessive, despairing struggle to dredge up and confess all sins by repetition and then root out all sins by perspiration. We shared last October the old story where a kindly mentor named Staupitz asked this frail, fanatical priest to repeat the Apostle’s Creed. And Luther got to the line: “I believe in the forgiveness of sins.”

“Whose sins?” the older man interrupted.

“Well, mine.”

“No you don’t,” Staupitz contradicted. “You don’t seem to believe that at all. You believe it for Peter and for Paul and for your friend Johann Staupitz, but not for Martin Luther. Now say it again: ‘I believe in the forgiveness of MY sins.’”

It’s a long and wonderful story, but Martin Luther, as he kept on studying the science of the Cross, came to know that he was a SAVED follower. Furthermore, he grew to a new understanding of what sin really was, and what confession needed to be. Here’s a bit more from Roland Bainton’s book:

“There is, according to Luther, something much more drastically wrong with man than any particular list of offenses which can be enumerated, confessed, and forgiven. The very nature of man is corrupt. The penitential system fails because it is directed to particular lapses. Luther had come to perceive that the entire man is in need of forgiveness.”

This faithful monk realized at last that he wasn’t just doing this, and that, and the other thing wrong . . . and that by racking his brain he could confess and fix his sins one at a time. He was a sinner through and through. His only hope was to cast himself at the foot of the cross. Here’s the concluding paragraph:

“The physician does not need to probe each pustule to know that the patient has smallpox, nor is the disease to be cured scab by scab. To focus on particular offenses is a counsel of despair. When Peter started to count the waves, he sank. The whole nature of man needs to be changed.”

Luther felt he was covered with a million smallpox sores, and finally admitted to himself that he simply HAD SMALLPOX. And the best thing he could do was to find himself a merciful Doctor.