How To Kill a Vampire

I don’t mean to cause alarm, but you may be host to a parasite – an internal entity that is leaching your life away. I’m not talking about a physical creature like a ten-foot tapeworm (ooh) or a single-celled protozoa. I’m talking about a virtual vampire. A vampire of the soul. A sin you are hiding. A secret you are keeping. You know it’s there. God, of course, knows about it, but you try real hard not to think about that. Then some meddling biblical passage, preacher or blog post shines some truth on it and the vampire slinks into a dark place to hide. Vampires – secrets – love the darkness.

So how do you kill a vampire? You confess. You tell another human being, “I have a secret that is killing me and this is what it is.” Confession kills vampires. They die in the light.

The Bible is unequivocal about the need for confession. No one is exempted since everyone is infected. Paul (Romans 3:23) puts it bluntly – all have sinned. It’s only three letters long, but that little word “all” is agonizingly inclusive. You, me, everyone is gathered up together in one heaping pile called sinners. And the biblical prescription for sinners is confession.

James (5:16) says, Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. Notice that last word – healed. That’s where we get our word therapy. Confession is therapeutic. We are healed by confession, our vampires vanquished by it.

John (1 John 1:9) ties confession to something even more significant; forgiveness.  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. So confession heals you, opens the door to God’s forgiveness and drives a stake through the heart of the vampire.

But how do you actually do confession?

Taking the Long Walk Down the Big Aisle

When I was a kid, we confessed by walking the big aisle at church. If you’ve ever done it, you know just how long a walk it can be. At the end of the sermon, the preacher would say something like, “if anyone here needs to repent of sin and make confession, please come while together we stand and sing.” Then we’d troll through Just As I Am until someone broke down and responded.

The penitent sinner would lumber toward the front, assume the crash position on the first pew and whisper a confession to the preacher. When the song finished, the preacher would address the congregation with something like, “Brother/Sister Sinner has come forward to confess that they have brought reproach on the name of the Church. Let us pray.”

I’m not saying that kind of confession doesn’t count or that it isn’t effective – I did it several times through the years and even responded to one of my own invitations once, which kind of confused the song leader, but, hey, it was a really convicting sermon! The problem with altar call confessions is that while everyone knows you did something, no one knows what you actually did. Your vampire stays in the dark.

Confessions Anonymous

In the Catholic Church, sinners confess to a priest in a booth called a confessional. In fact, except for “just reasons” (e.g. being bed-ridden, home bound, incarcerated, etc.), all confessions are to be heard in a confessional. And every confessional is equipped with a screen that separates the confessing sinner from the confessor – the priest. The anonymity is intended to make it easier for folks to confess their sins. Which I totally get. Would you rather look someone in the eye and tell them your secret sins or talk to them through a barrier and leave them wondering who you are? I’ll take total anonymity for a true daily double, Alex.

The problem with anonymous confessions is exactly the opposite of walking the big aisle. Someone knows exactly what you did, but doesn’t know who you are. Your vampire lives to bite another day.

There are other, more lethal ways to confess. We’ll talk about one of those in the next post – Killer Confessions. Between now and then, you might consider picking up a copy of Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline. It’s oldish, but his chapter on confession is beautiful.

In Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “He who is alone with his sin is utterly alone.” That doesn’t have to be how it is for you. Your vampire cannot live in the light. But you can.