Okeechobee Presbyterian Church

In her book, “Amazing Grace,” Kathleen Norris tells the story of working as an artist-in-residence at a parochial school, teaching children how to write poetry using the psalms as a model. One little boy wrote a poem entitled “The Monster Who Was Sorry.” He began by admitting that he hates it when his father yells at him: his response (in the poem) is to throw his sister down the stairs, and then to wreck his room, and finally to wreck the whole town. The poem concludes: “Then I sit in my messy house and say to myself, ‘I shouldn’t have done all that.’”

This is a good metaphor of human condition: A wound of life comes in, lodges in the soul, and then flows out of the inner rooms into outer life, acting out, bringing pain and psychosis for self and others. The chaos of mess, or the preoccupation of obsessively cleaning messes, takes the mind off the wound – for a little while. And then the cycle starts over again, often involving chemicals, food, drink, electronic distraction, and pleasure addiction – anything to ease the pain.

Thankfully, sitting in the messy house saying, “I shouldn’t have done that!” is a basis for repentance and healing. Kathleen Norris goes on to say, “The boy made a metaphor for himself that admitted the depth of his rage and also gave him a way out [in confession]. He was well on the way toward repentance… If the house is messy, why not clean it up, why not make it into a place where God might wish to dwell?”

The process of confession and inner cleaning is the authentic meaning of historic Lenten observance. We need times of fasting and prayer, we need intentional moments of introspection, humbling ourselves to the mirror of the Word, in the power of the Holy Spirit. The word “Lent” is simply a shortened form of the Old English word “lencten,” meaning Spring. We could call it “Spring cleaning for the soul!”

Lent is the confession of a biblical truth, that inside each of us is a monster – the monster of self. As the Bible puts it, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9). We need a Physician that addresses both corruption and cure; we need a revelation of need that is “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit… discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). We need a journey of wholeness and transformation – daily repentance, continual turning from monstrous self to our Redeemer God, His divine Person and Law, His Holy Word and Spirit – all the way until that Great Day.

In grace, we can sanctify the quote of Hemingway: “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” The wound of sin is not the final word; past pain is not future destiny. Grace redeems wounds every day: in confession and repentance, divine restoration occurs. Messes get cleaned, relationships restored, hearts purified – monsters become servers in the house of God, for the children of God.

In grace, we find that the question is not, “In my own self, am I a monster?” It rather becomes, “Am I a monster who is sorry?” “Is my sorrow godly – following the path of repentance and saving faith?” “Am I rejecting natural self-justification, living into my new, true self in Christ?” This is the way.

Welcome to the Journey of Lent, friends! Let us confess our mortal nature, “by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s Holy Word.” This is a healing journey of Monsters Anonymous, in the love and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ends in Heaven above. “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” Amen.