Page 134 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 10

tes how the cross of Christ offers a gateway to less she has first faced her need for that for-
maturity:
“Those who were not made responsible at all in
their infancy by any human response of mer-
cy or graciousness, are made responsible to
Christ by His endurance of the common lot of
the afflicted… Now, in Christ, they can move,
and even slowness to move becomes a genuine
ground of repentance and the forgiveness of
sins.” (2005, p. 26).
Often, such sufferers have only viewed the cross
and confession of sin in a moralistic light and
have never realized that they can also see Christ
bearing their deepest inner suffering. The crea- my own judge, determined to be my own advo-
tion or resurrection of the capacity to trust,
commit, and appropriate the gift of faith enab-
les one to respond rightly to God:
“Not the law, but His Cross alone makes us re-
sponsible, makes us guilty, makes us free, makes
us sons, gives us rest by His labour, life through
His pain.” (Lake, 2005, p. 367).
A person cannot receive God’s forgiveness un-
132
giveness as actual guilt. Christians remain sin-
ners as they also become saints, and even the
most mature followers of Christ will continue
to have real guilt that must be acknowledged to
Him for cleansing and restoration. Lake discus-
ses the paradoxical tasks of pastoral care in di-
minishing neurotic guilt while also aiming to
establish actual sin and culpability. Neurotic
guilt is false, motivated by perfectionism, self-
righteousness, and the need to “attract attention
to the arduous attempts it has made to be good,”
and, as we’ve already seen, often has its roots in
infancy when real moral culpability is minimal
(Lake, 2005, p. 225). It also may be necessary
to address the defensive maneuvers of pride,
much as David prays in Psalm 51, “cleanse me
with hyssop.” Alcuin of York linked the anti-
inflammatory hyssop to Christ’s humility and
the cleansing of pride that inflames the neurotic
conscience.
Through the illumination of the Holy Spirit,
wise pastoral counsel and prayer aids a sufferer
in taking responsibility for the habits of their
own heart, coming into agreement with God
that these self-attacks are not His will but ac-
tually sin. Repentance over one’s own interior
processes brings healing to the neurotic cons-
cience. Compunction comes as the Holy Spirit
brings the focus to the core issue, the relation-
ship with God Himself. Lake offers this narra-
tion of the confession that will flow from such
loving conviction:
“I have been spending my days poking about in
my own ethical navel, circling round my own
past in hectic self-appraisal, alternately appro-
ving and condemning. I was determined to be
cate, determined, if it came to the pass, to be my
own executioner. Whereas I now see that God
has made Jesus Christ to be all these for all men,
and also their Savior. This is my sin, my unkind-
ness to Christ, my injustice to this ultimate Fri-
end.” (Lake, 2005, p. 226).
The conscience in union with Christ
Among modern writers in Christian psycholo-
gy, Payne offers a particular clear vision of what