Luther's Six-Hour Confessions

In 1510, a gaunt Augustinian monk knelt in a cold Erfurt confessional for the sixth consecutive hour. Martin Luther was cataloguing every sinful thought, every selfish impulse, every failure he could dredge from memory. His confessor, Johann von Staupitz, had grown weary. Luther's body was deteriorating — sleepless nights, fasting beyond reason, bones aching from hours on stone floors. He later wrote that his guilt was "drying up his very marrow."

Staupitz finally interrupted: "Martin, God is not angry with you. You are angry with God."

The words stunned Luther, but the monk could not stop. He returned the next day with another list of offenses. The weight of concealment — even from himself — was crushing him from the inside out.

It was not until years later, studying Paul's letter to the Romans in his Wittenberg tower study, that the dam broke. Justification by faith. Forgiveness not earned but declared. Luther later described the moment as walking "through the gates of paradise."

David understood this long before Luther. "When I kept silent," he wrote, "my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy on me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer." Then the turning point: "I acknowledged my sin to You and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, 'I will confess' — and You forgave the guilt of my sin."

The Almighty does not wait for a perfect inventory. He waits for an open hand.