At the beginning of our worship service, we have a confession of sin every week: we pray a prayer of confession together and then there is a moment of silence for you to confess your individual sins. But it’s important to point out that if you’re walking with Jesus, regularly confessing your sins as they arise, you may routinely come to this part of the service and have a completely clean conscience. You might not know of anything you need to confess. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. You shouldn’t feel guilty for not feeling guilty. You shouldn’t rummage around in the deep recesses of your memory trying to drudge up something you might have, sort of, kind of, maybe, possibly needed to confess. We don’t confess vague generalities; we don’t confess possibilities. So don’t confess things like: “I could be nicer to my wife, nicer to my kids, nicer to my husband, more generous with my time or money.” Sins are disobedience to God. If you blatantly disobeyed Him, then confess it and be forgiven. But don’t confess stuff just to confess stuff. Jesus didn’t bleed and die for vague guilty feelings. Jesus bled and died for all your particular sins. And so some of you may need to confess the sin of not believing you are actually forgiven and completely clean, for thinking you need to feel sorrier or suffer a little more. If Jesus makes you clean, you are clean indeed.
Being a Christian means being in Christ, and in Him there is no darkness. It’s all light. And if you have developed the habit of confessing your sins as soon as you see them, then you should be normally walking in peace and joy and love. If you walk in the light, the blood of Jesus cleanses you from all unrighteousness. Then when we pray together about our sins, don’t do it trying to find some mud to rub on to your arms and cheeks, as though it’s holier to feel a little dirty, trying to get all muddied up for the absolution. No, say the words triumphantly: we do sin in thought, word, and deed, we are sinners saved by grace, but pray those words like one of your favorite jokes, pray those words like a wonderful, hilarious joke that you know the punch line to. Because you do know the punch line. The punch line is Jesus, His cross, His resurrection, and your forgiveness.
elisabeth says
Why do your posts comfort me so? 🙂
Matthew N. Petersen says
Ok, I think I agree, but this is where some of your earlier stuff can bother me. The punch line, to use your metaphor, is the minister’s assurance of pardon. But if I am only forgiven if I am regenerated, then do I really know that I know the punch line? Do I need to look to myself and my goodness in confessing my sins to know if the minister is really talking to me? But that would be to just curve in on myself, rather than looking outward to the external Word, and His salvation.
Toby says
Actually, no, the punch line is not the minister’s assurance of pardon. The punch line is Jesus.
As it turns out, Jesus speaks through the minister’s proclamation of the gospel, just as Jesus works through the water, bread, and wine.
You don’t look to yourself, or your goodness or to the minister. You look to Jesus. He is the external Word. His death and resurrection is your historical, objective salvation.
You know it applies to you because it does. It applies to you because you are forgiven.
Hope that helps.
Matthew N. Petersen says
I think your first line is missing my point. I’m saying that the minister pronounces the punch line, you’re saying that the punch line is what the minister pronounces. That sounds like it’s just a difference in terminology.
Or are you saying that the minister doesn’t actually proclaim anything in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, or that his proclamation of forgiveness is not the Word of God? Ok, but then you’d probably take it up with the Trinity Liturgy. That’s why Luther says “[in Confession] we receive absolution, or forgiveness, from the confessor, as from God Himself, and in no wise doubt, but firmly believe, that our sins are thereby forgiven before God in heaven.”
I also am not saying that you should look to the minister, but rather that you should look to the words of the minister, because they are not his words, but the very Word of God, as he himself says.
You say “look to Jesus” but where? Where is he? Where is he for me? If he’s only in heaven, and not here speaking [i]to me[/i] how can I look to him?
I know it applies because it applies? But on your own reasoning, some people are deluded, and think they are forgiven, but are just deceiving themselves. That doesn’t work.