Throughout these past several months we at Trinity have engaged important questions about what we believe, and who we are in Christ. It may seem that there have been several different questions: what makes a pastor able to serve a congregation? What is the role of the Creeds of the faith? How should our congregation’s constitution speak to matters such as these? Ultimately all of these questions are connected because they deal with Confession.
At the core confession is about speaking and living out what we believe to be true. The Church uses this term in a couple of ways; first we confess the faith as we do in the creeds, in our liturgy, in preaching, teaching, and worship. As we speak of God and of His Word, we do so in an effort to make Him known and understood rightly. This is the “corporate confession” of the Church. That is, what we all confess together. But there is another important type of confession, that we confess our sins. In this confession we come before God to speak the truth of who we are.
We stand before the all-knowing God and admit that we know this too, that we have sinned.
Both forms of confession work to conform us to truth. In our confession we learn how to be honest and how to speak rightly. But the acknowledgement of these things cannot be complete through confession alone. Our actions are never that which connect us to God. Instead, in confession we wait to hear God speak back to us. It is God who gets the last word. It is after our confession of faith in worship that we receive God’s grace in the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion. Having acknowledged God as our Father he welcomes us home into His family and to His table. After our confession of sin we hear God speak His absolution, that is His forgiveness. It is only in God’s confession that confession is completed. Only then do we have a relationship with Him.
Beginning in September I will be teaching classes on our Lutheran Confessions each Wednesday at 9 a.m. Men’s group, 1:30 p.m. Women’s Bible Conversations, and at 6 p.m. for our evening Men’s Group. I invite you to come and to dive into confession. I promise God will have the last word, and it will be for your blessing.
