"You cast your sins from yourself and onto Christ when you firmly believe that His wounds and sufferings are your sins, to be borne and paid for by Him, as we read in Isaiah 53:6, "The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." St. Peter says, "in His body has He borne our sins on the wood of the cross" [1Pet. 2:24]. St. Paul says, "God has made Him a sinner for us, so that through Him we would be made just" [ 11 Cor. 5:21]. You must stake everything on these and similar verses. The more your conscience torments you, the more tenaciously must you cling to them. If you do not do that, but presume to still your conscience with your contrition and penance, you will never obtain peace of mind, but will have to despair in the end. If we allow sin to remain in our conscience and try to deal with it there, or if we look at sin in our heart, it will be much too strong for us and will live on forever. But if we behold it resting on Christ and [see it] overcome by His resurrection, and then boldly believe this, even it is dead and nullified. Sin cannot remain on Christ, since it is swallowed up by His resurrection." -Martin Luther
I read this writing with my children in yesterday's Treasury of Daily Prayer church father writing. I had to read it again and again. Never have I heard the true purpose of contrition and repentance explained so beautifully, so perfect. I've always struggled with confession and contrition. I've always wanted to rake myself over the coals as much as possible but then always come up knowing no good has been done. At times I've thought God cruel to leave us in such a state where we can not only not overcome sin but have to be face to face with its wretchedness every. single. day.
Read this part again:
"If we allow sin to remain in our conscience and try to deal with it there, or if we look at sin in our heart, it will be much too strong for us and will live on forever. But if we behold it resting on Christ and [see it] overcome by His resurrection, and then boldly believe this, even it is dead and nullified. Sin cannot remain on Christ, since it is swallowed up by His resurrection."
Now contrition is sweet, is it not? Now it is beautiful. Now it is purposeful. Oh what a precious gift! We must continue to repent, to be immersed in contrition, over and over but only so that we can look from the depravity of our sins, the utter helplessness they leave us in and then look to the cross where we can see sin swallowed up forever. The moment we cease to drown ourselves in contrition and repentance is the moment we cease to see our need for Christ. So we repent and then we look to the cross where:
"Behold, He is making all things new!" Revelations 21:5
No comments:
Post a Comment