Preachers rightly warn against “morbid introspection,” faithless and obsessive attention to our sin, a luxuriant, pleasurable wallow in our wickedness.
Don’t spend Lent doing that.
But not all introspection is morbid. God commands us, “Examine yourselves” (1 Cor 11:28; 2 Cor 13:5). As David Field has pointed out, the Bible is full of models of and exhortations to self-scrutiny:
*Hezekiah, Josiah, and Ezekiel inspect and purify the temple. We’re called to inspect the temple of our hearts.
*Joshua expels Canaanite idolaters, and their idolatries, from the Lord’s holy land. We are holy land, and must carry on a war of extermination against Canaanites within.
*Every year, Israel removes all leaven from their homes. We must purge the leaven of malice (1 Cor 5:8) and false teaching (Matt 16:6, 11).
*Jesus condemns the Pharisees for polishing the outside of the cup without examining the inside (Matt 23:25-26). Neglecting inner sin is the very definition of hypocrisy.
*In Christ, we’re all prophets, equipped by the Spirit to reveal the secrets of hearts, including our own (1 Cor 14:25).
*We’re commanded to guard our hearts (Luke 21:34) and sanctify Christ in our hearts (1 Pet 3:15).
*We need to kill all the passions and desires that war against our souls and lead to wars (1 Pet 2:11; Jas 4:1-2).
*Our every word will be judged. It’s wise to examine our words before the final judgment (Matt 12:36-37).
*Anger can land us in the court and, unchecked, it leads to hell (Matt 5:21-26). Best to make sure we’re not indulging anger.
Self-examination is holy war. Arm yourself with prayer, Scripture, and song, and launch a Lenten assault against the strongholds of sin, the flesh, and the devil.
Fight, and expect to win – because we’ve won already, more than conquerors in Christ Jesus our Lord.
***
On the Mount of Olives, Jesus prays with such intensity that He sweats blood. It’s evidence of His wholly human distress (Luke 22:44), but it’s also more.
As many have pointed out, “agony” (Gr. agonia) is the strenuous effort of the agon, the contest on the wrestling mat or the sprint. In Gethsemane, Jesus is an athlete of prayer.
Adam is cursed to eat bread by the “sweat of [his] nose” (Gen 3:19). Jesus the Last Adam sweats to produce living bread that gives eternal life.
When Cain kills his brother, Abel’s blood cries from the ground for vengeance (Gen 4:10-11). Jesus’ bloody sweat falls to the ground, speaking a better word than the blood of Abel (Heb 12:24).
Yahweh turns the Nile to blood, exposing the river of life as a river of death. Water poured on the ground turns to blood (Exod 4:9). So the blood of Jesus marks Israel as the new Egypt, plagued because it slays the Firstborn of Israel.
And more complexly:
Jesus is on the Mount of Olives in a place called “Olive Press” (Gethsemane). It’s a natural analogue to the Most Holy Place, with its oil-wood doors and olive-wood cherubim guardians (1 Kgs 6:23-33).
When the high priest enters the inner sanctuary, he has to wear linen, so he won’t sweat in Yahweh’s presence (Ezek 44:18). A sign of the Adamic curse, sweat cannot be displayed before God.
Yet Jesus, High Priest and Adam, enters a “sanctuary” sweating and bleeding. How?
Olivet is east of temple, outside the gates, where Yahweh drove sweaty Adam, a sanctuary-in-exile. But Jesus turns the world inside-out.
His grave becomes a new ark of the covenant (John 20:12) and the olive-grove a temple. His corpse sanctifies a tomb, and blood and sweat, signs of the curse, becomes a marker of atonement.