Repentance, Braveheart & John Cougar Mellencamp
I don’t like actual pain; chances are, you don’t either. Pain comes in many different forms and is not limited to physical things. But pain can lead to life… hear me out.
I have a friend whose son has struggled for years. It’s nothing atypical, but on occasions has gone to extremes. He and his wife have loved their son well through the difficulties - not perfectly, but faithfully. They would be quick to point out their mistakes and even some of their sin as they have coped with the immense difficulties the situation has put on the family. Ultimately, they long for their son to know he is loved and that he will only find true peace in Christ. Their journey is full of tears and pain.
They want their hurt to turn into something good. John Cougar Mellencamp articulated what so many of us feel in his 1982 song, Hurt So Good: “Hurts so good; Come on baby, make it hurt so good, Sometimes love don't feel like it should. You make it hurt so good.”
Sometimes love don’t feel like it should. And sometimes, in God’s grace, the hurt and pain of love can lead to good. Don’t we all long for our pain to be turned into joy? (John 16:20)
My friends had to make some hard decisions about how to best love their son. The goal of their actions was to lead him to repentance. That’s what Jesus wants from all of us — even to the point that he actively pursues our repentance, even in pain.
Why does Jesus pursue our repentance?
“Return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon” Isaiah 55,
What does this look like?
"And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” Matthew 9:11-12
We all need compassion and abundant pardon from the Great Physician; most of us feel this daily. Repentance is a gift we should ask for again and again. Repentance is the reminder that God desires our restoration, our healing from life in a fallen world.
Restoration, or repentance, rarely, if ever, feels good in the moment. It’s painful. Benedict of Nursia, an early church father (480-547 AD), wrote:
“If, God forbid, the patient gets worse—if he becomes proud and tries to defend his actions—the good doctor must go through the whole course, applying compresses, the ointment of encouragement, the medicine of the Holy Scripture, and finally the cauterizing iron of discipline.”
The “cauterizing iron of discipline” seems extremely painful. But consider its more significant purpose. This 41-second clip from Braveheart illustrates the pain of the cauterizing iron:
To spare the hurt of the cauterizing iron leads to death. To undergo the intense pain of sealing the wound leads to life. If the man in Braveheart did not receive the cauterizing iron, his wound would fester and ultimately kill him. If he endured the momentary pain, he would heal. This is how repentance works.
Hebrews 12 reminds us that in discipline, God is treating us as his legitimate sons and daughters, that he disciplines those he loves. By God’s grace, I have felt the sting of the cauterizing iron, gone through the pain of deep shame and loneliness, and ultimately felt the love and embrace of God — coming to grips with the hard truth that I am who He says I am — his beloved.
The parents I mentioned earlier took steps that built up to the equivalent of using the “cauterizing iron of discipline” with their son. They were met with resistance, entitlement, a victim mentality, and obstinacy. It was painful for everyone involved. On Monday, the father shared that his son is showing signs of spiritual fruit for the first time in years. Can you imagine the deep-rooted joy that the father feels? After so much pain, heartache, and so many nights of fear and despair, their son is showing signs of true life. In our society of instant gratification consider, please don’t gloss over the fact that this sprig of spiritual life took years to emerge from the ground.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow. And for the pain of His cauterizing iron of discipline that leads to abundant life.
This is the fruit of repentance: “And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him” (Luke 15:20).
