Confessions: Phone Booth Series

Stu is distraught. Kelly stares. Pam cries. The world watches.

The Dynamics of True Repentance

Stu becomes a changed man immediately after his confession, when he realises that “I didn’t confess for you” (the sniper). He has seen for himself the value in honesty.

Instead, he realises that his marriage is really worth fighting for. “I neglected the things I should have valued the most,” he admits.

Stu is being forced – however bizarrely - to recognise a spiritual reality that will eventually face us all. ‘For,’ the Bible says (in 2 Corinthians 5.10), ‘we must all stand before Christ to be judged. We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done.’

Obviously repentance cannot be coerced. And neither is God a mad sniper with a long-range rifle. A change of heart must come from within. Still, we should know that a day is coming when we will be held accountable for all that we say or do. Our lives are already like an open book to God, as the Bible says in Matthew 12.3 and Romans 4.10-12.

After his confession, Stu comes out of the phone booth and adopts a crucified position. He is felled by a policeman’s rubber bullet. But then, he experiences new life - a resurrection, if you like - in his wife’s arms, the woman he has come to realise as the most important figure in his life. She forgives him. Heart-felt confession brings new life. The voice warns Stu: “Lets hope that your new-found honesty lasts, because if it doesn’t, you’ll be hearing from me.”

The Example of King David

In the Bible we find a very personal prayer of confession, self-examination and a cry for forgiveness. Psalm 51 is a confession by David, who committed the double sin of adultery and murder while he was king of Israel. David was on his palace roof one day while his army had gone out to battle and he saw a beautiful woman bathing.

His sent messengers and ordered her to be brought to him. He slept with her while her husband, a soldier in his army, was away fighting for his king. Later, when David learned that she was pregnant, he panicked and tried to cover up his actions. He ordered Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, to be sent home from battle, hoping that he would sleep with his wife and the child would then be accepted as his own.

But Uriah was a faithful soldier, committed to battle, and would not go to his own house, but stayed at the palace and returned to the battle the next day. David knew that what he did would be found out, so he ordered Uriah, the husband, to be put in the forefront of the battle where he would most certainly be killed. When news of Uriah’s death reached David he felt he was off the hook, he had safely covered his sin.

But his conscience continued to bother him. In Psalm 32, David describes how he felt during the time he was trying to cover up what he had done. “When I refused to confess my sin, I was weak and miserable, and I groaned all day long,” he writes. For about a year, he tried to live with a guilty conscience. But God loved David too much to let him go on covering up and damaging himself and his entire kingdom by this hidden sin.