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A photograph in a recent People magazine showed a man and a woman on a double bed. They are fully clothed, not touching, keeping a safe distance between them. They look entirely respectable, but also a little odd. What do you think is going on here? The man and woman in the picture are engaged to be married, but the two have decided to put aside all intimacy for the remainder of their engagement period — a span of six months. They are but one among many couples who, according to news accounts, are experimenting with a period of premarital celibacy. The practice is known as "revirginization," and its aim is "secondary virginity." Revirginization. It sounds appealing, but is it really possible? Cullen Murphy of The Atlantic Monthly sees this trend as a powerful part of American optimism. We want to believe "that what’s done is not always done, that the broken can be fixed, the ravaged restored….that you can have another swing, can wipe the slate clean, can go back to square one." We ache to become pure again, and this deep desire plays out in our culture in so many ways. Murphy points out a number of examples of revirginization: Another area of American life where we love to get second chances is on the golf course. In golf a second chance is called a "mulligan." The story is told of a guy who golfs with his buddies every weekend. His wife keeps bugging him to take her along and teach her to play, so he finally takes her. She's never played, so he tells her to go down to the ladies tees in front of him, watch him drive, and then try to do like he did. She walks on down ahead, the guy hooks his drive, and the ball hits his wife. Later in the hospital the doctor comes out to the husband and says, "There’s something I can’t understand. There's an imprint on your wife’s temple, and you can read Titlist 1." "That was my ball," the guy said. "OK, but what I don't understand," the doctor continued, "is the one on her hip that says Titleist 3." "Oh," the guy replied, "that was my mulligan." Those of us who golf love our mulligans, our second chances. It’s now being called revirginization and it’s a deeply rooted American desire. And guess what? It’s a deeply rooted Christian desire. Fact: you and I are sinners. We want "do overs." We want to become an un-sinner, to live "as though we’d never sinned." We know that our sins have left us broken and unclean, and we desperately desire that someone — or something — will restore us to wholeness. We are anxious to find a way to turn back the clock, or take the test again, or clean up the mess. But how can this restoration happen? For years, the people of God turned to the temple in Jerusalem and asked the priests of Israel to help them regain their purity. The letter to the Hebrews reminds us that the high priests of the temple were put in charge of the things pertaining to God, and given the responsibility "to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins" (5:1). On one day in particular, the Day of Atonement, the high priest would enter the Holy of Holies at the heart of the temple and sprinkle the Mercy Seat with the blood of the sin offerings. No one but the high priest was allowed in the Holy of Holies. A rope would be tied around the High Priest’s ankle so that, if he died in the Holy of Holies, they would be able to drag him out. So important was this sacrifice offered by the High Priest because it meant reconciliation between God and his people and repair of their broken relationship. Do overs. God would purify the people from all their sins, and they would receive — in a sense — their "secondary virginity." Well, that was then ... this is now. Today we don’t have to rely on human priest to make us right with God. We don’t need daily sacrifices to begin again. Now we have Jesus who is "able for all time to save those who approach God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them" (v. 25). Given the mess we make of our lives, we really need someone who is always working to "make intercession" for us, someone who is always putting his passion into intervening with God on our behalf. The fact is, we are sinners — but Jesus Christ offers us an opportunity to be un-sinned and un-polluted and restored to perfect purity. It’s an amazing program, one that is incredibly attractive to messed-up mortals like ourselves, and it’s altogether more remarkable than any earthly environmental efforts to restore polluted waters to pristine glory. It’s a Christian cleanup campaign, a spiritual revirginization, recycling, renewal, revitalization, recovery, revival and resurgence. And it’s available to all who put their faith in Jesus Christ. Lonnie Davis was born in East Baltimore in the early 1950s, and joined the Navy Reserves after high school. He tried heroin for the first time while stationed near Thailand, and then came home with a hunger for the drug. He was soon hooked on a $600-a-day heroin habit, and turned to dealing drugs. "For 13 years, I was a zombie," he tells People magazine. Only after overdosing in 1993 did he kick his addiction at a VA center near Baltimore. He then lived for three years at a shelter, and began to manage the shelter’s thrift shop. In 1995, Lonnie Davis became a Christian pastor. So far, so good. But Jesus wasn’t finished with his revirginization. Lonnie took a job managing a shelter, and quickly proved to have an eye for detail and efficiency. Baltimore officials were so impressed that they turned four more shelters over to him. He ended up transforming five deteriorating, mismanaged homeless shelters into models of cleanliness and organization. Nicknamed "Reverend Fix It Up," he booted incompetent staffers and added financial and housing counselors, while also upgrading the quality of the food being served. Lonnie still has needle marks from his drug use, but aside from that he’s enjoying a secondary virginity. And he’s not alone. Former crack addict, Tim Curry, says of Davis, "He gave me a positive attitude because he came clean, and that inspires me." We need to understand that there is no one beyond the purifying work of Jesus Christ. There is no sin too dirty that cannot be forgiven by Jesus. There is no darkness too black where the light of Christ cannot begin to shine. No one is too sinful. No one is too dirty or damaged. Everyone is able to benefit from the forgiving and reconciling work of God in Jesus Christ. Even you. Listen to this story about a young woman named Liz. "A few years ago, I was dating a guy, and we had the most chaste relationship I’ve ever had. We had discussed our boundaries and set limits on our expressions of affection. We prayed together and asked for God’s help in the area of purity, and he was faithful to us. Anyway, we were at a stage of the relationship where we were growing in intimacy emotionally and spiritually and we were talking one day. I made a comment to him about my high-school days being a time of experimentation and that I had made some bad choices. He took the opportunity to ask me quite directly, "So, are you a virgin?" I answered him truthfully, but somewhat sadly, "No, I’m not." I don’t think I’ll ever forget what he said next. I had just made myself so very vulnerable to him, and his response was, "So, it’s true." Inside, I was horrified and humiliated. Had people been telling him things about my past?! I asked him what he meant, and then he explained, "It’s true, then. The gift of secondary virginity is real! God can restore a person’s purity!" He went on to tell me that he saw me as the most beautiful, holy, spotless and pure woman of God that he’d ever known, and if I had a past that included anything impure, that God had truly healed and restored me. What a powerful story! I believe one of the most significant factors in broken relationships, in emotional difficulties is the failure to give and receive forgiveness. Do you have people in your life who respond to your sin and brokenness the way this young man did to Liz? Do you know what it feels like to trust someone to bring up your inner pain over past sins and have someone truly, truly love and accept you? Far too many of us choose a path in life that is much, much less than the whole life God offers us. We choose it because we try to get rid of guilt by ourselves. We choose it because we somehow believe our sin was so bad that not even Jesus could erase it. We choose it because we have become strangely comfortable with our inner wound and fear the new life that Christ would bring. The good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that you can be forgiven! You can be whole! You can begin again. You can be revirginized! Believe this good news, because it is true. |
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10.26.03 - Revirginization (Hebrews 7:23-28)
