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A Baptism of Repentance

Scene One

It's morning in our house, and it's not a good morning. I am in a bad mood. I'm frustrated and discouraged, sighing deeply and maybe even stomping around a bit. My husband, Josh, has noticed my not-so-pleasant humor, and I'm pretty sure he's starting to wonder if he's in the doghouse for some unknown offense. But it's not him I'm frustrated with. It's myself. Inside I'm torn up by resentment toward a close friend.

I know it's sinful to harbor bitterness in my heart. I've confessed my resentment to God. But it keeps hanging on. Everything in me resists confessing out loud. It's not humiliating, exactly, but it takes a little more humility than I want to muster right now. At this point, however, Josh has gone into walking-on-eggshells mode. Now I have to confess, if for no other reason than to put him at ease.

Of course I start crying, which is frustrating, because I've already done my makeup, and now it's shot. There's no turning back, so I sit down on the edge of the bed and spill my guts. Josh knows the situation that led me down this road of resentment. He gets why I'm in this foul mood, but he also gets that it's sinful and that I need God's forgiveness and help. So I tell him what I'm struggling with. Then I blow my nose, reapply my mascara, and head to work.

By noon, my resentment is gone. Completely. Confessing it aloud somehow broke sin's power over me, and now my heart feels light and clean again. I know that confession doesn't always work exactly that way — so quickly and thoroughly — but this time it does. And I wonder why I don't confess like that more often.

I don't know it yet, but God is preparing me for something.

Scene Two

Several weeks later, I'm in Korazin. That's in Israel. It's also in the Bible.¹ I'm on an early church study tour,* and we're exploring an ancient synagogue. We come to a pit with water in it and steps leading down into the water. We learn that it's called a mikvah² — a pool for ritual washing. Religious Jews would (and still do) immerse themselves in a mikvah to symbolize passing from uncleanness to cleanness.

As a follower of Christ with no Jewish background whatsoever, I have to admit that I never understood the Old Testament teachings³ about cleanness and uncleanness. I passed them off as things we don't have to think about because Christ has cleansed us permanently. And that's partially true — as Gentile believers, we're made clean by Jesus' blood and not bound by laws about uncleanness. Unfortunately, the fact that we don't have to obey those laws makes us lazy, and we don't take the time to understand them, either. In this case, I think that's one reason why we're missing out on a huge opportunity to for spiritual growth and healing.

It turns out that Jews practice ritual washing for many reasons: preparing to enter the temple, denoting the end of a woman's menstrual cycle, conversion, cleansing after touching unclean things, preparation of a body for burial, etc. To us, the idea of being unclean is uncomfortable and may even sound discriminatory. But to the Jews, it's normal and natural. Being unclean isn't sinful. You become unclean simply by going about your daily business, and you need to get clean again, so you wash. The mikvah isn't actually for taking dirt off your body — you're supposed to shower before you come to use it. So it's really a physical picture of your spiritual need for God's mercy⁴.

After learning about all these reasons Jews wash in the mikvah, we find out there's one more: repentance. This grabs me in a big way, especially because of what we do next. Since total immersion isn't very practical for us as a tour group, we learn an alternate way to practice mikvah for repentance: splashing water on our heads, hearts, hands and feet. By doing so, we symbolically ask forgiveness for the sins of our thoughts, desires, actions and habits.

Scene Three

Days later, God puts the capstone on the lesson about repentance. We're hundreds of miles away from the mikvah in Korazin, on a hillside in central Turkey. We're still studying the early church, and as we finish our lesson for the morning, one of the guys in the group, Jon, starts to weep. He's been deeply convicted of a failure in his life and he feels the need to confess that to the group. Confess he does, much as I had done at home in my bedroom. When he's finished, our leader holds out to him a full water bottle. Jon looks at him as if he's a little strange. Thirst isn't really the first thing on his mind after an emotional confession.

"Want to do mikvah?"

Oh. Now Jon gets it and the rest of us do too.

He splashes the water on his head, his chest, his hands and his feet. It's a physical representation of his repentance before God. By doing it publicly, he lets the rest of the group in on an intimate moment with his Savior. When he's done, our leader prays for him, reassures him of God's forgiveness and reminds him that he's been restored to fellowship with his brothers and sisters.

And I can't believe the change that comes over the group. There's a sense of newness and freshness among us because Jon has humbled himself before the Lord and us. We know him better because he has allowed us to see a part of himself that's not perfect and put-together. And we are all reminded that our sin regularly separates us from God and each other, but that God's grace is freely given — all we need to do is ask for it.

Can I Take This Home?

I stand there amazed. Because the mikvah has been a daily part of the life of religious Jews for thousands of years, they have a regular reminder to examine their lives for sin. And they have a regular way to symbolically and publicly say, "I need God's forgiveness." Unlike us. We Christians are missing out on so much because we don't regularly confess our sins. Out loud. To each other. James tells us to do it: "Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed."⁵ David shares how pent-up sin damages us: "When I kept silent, my bones wasted away, through my groaning all day long."⁶ But somehow, we find excuses for not confessing.

Forgive me if I'm being presumptuous, but I think this is a major reason why our culture thinks of church as a place where you have to be fake. Put on a happy face. Tell everyone you're "fine." No wonder non-believers think Christians are hypocrites. No wonder people who desire to come to Christ often hesitate, thinking, "He'd never accept me as I am." They've rarely — if ever — heard a Christian say, "I'm struggling with sin and I need God's forgiveness and help."

What if we Christians made confession a regular practice? Not just confessing to a priest in a booth (if that's your tradition), but telling the people closest to you about the sins you struggle with? I'm pretty sure if we did, our communities would grow and individuals would be healed — both physically and emotionally. Those who don't yet believe would have a much better idea of what it means to need God's grace and forgiveness.

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All this is on my mind because of a pit of water in an excavated synagogue in Galilee. Back in the US now, I'm aware that dunking myself in a ritual bath — or even splashing myself with my Nalgene — every time I need forgiveness may not be practical. But I am deeply impressed that God would give His people such a simple and powerful symbol to remind them of their need for His mercy. And I pray that He will help me make confession a part of my life that feels normal and necessary — even routine — because I know I am in need of grace every day.