In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

By far one of the most controversial things that we do in the Lutheran Church is what happens at the beginning of our Communion services. The pastor stands in front of the congregation and, after making confession with them, he turns around and says, “In the stead and by the command of Christ, I forgive you all of your sins.” Now, this might not be something that you see as that big of a deal, probably because you’re used to it, but I assure you, that in other Christian circles, especially among other Protestants, it very much is. In fact, sometimes when people hear it for the first time while they’re visiting us, they get so offended that they never want to come back. I can still remember a conversation I had with a relative of mine once about why he left the Lutheran Church. The very first thing that he pointed to was the fact that our pastors say these words in front of the congregation. Now, he wasn’t mad about the idea that they can announce God’s forgiveness in a general way, like “Jesus died for your sins,” or “God loves you,” but what ticked him off was the specific language of “I forgive you.” His argument, which is always the same one that you hear, is that only God can forgive sins, so why is the pastor doing that? Who is he making himself out to be? Does this guy think he’s God, or something? Shame on him! And shame on all the Lutherans! They should have left their Roman popery back in the 16th century where it belongs.

So, here’s what we’re going to do in today’s sermon. First, I’m going to a give a biblical defense of this practice based primarily off of our Gospel lesson from John chapter 20, which, by the way, is the main place we get it from. And then I’m also going to explain a few things about confession in general, and how we still offer private confession in our church as well. Because that’s the other thing that going on here. Besides people not understanding why the pastor says “I forgive you” in front of the whole congregation, lots of people don’t even know that you can go to the pastor individually and he’ll hear your confession and forgive your sins there too. I’ve encountered life-long Lutherans who didn’t even know that we still practice private confession and absolution. They thought that was just a Catholic thing. One time, I had a kid in Confirmation class who told me that the reason why he wanted to be Lutheran and not Catholic was precisely because he didn’t ever want to have confess his sins to some priest. Yikes! Well, what about the thing that we literally just said in the Catechism like 5 minutes ago? “What sins should we confess?” Answer: “Before God we should plead guilty of all sins, even those we are not aware of, as we do in the Lord’s Prayer; but before the pastor we should confess only those sins which we know and feel in our hearts.” Or here’s something else. Turn with me real fast to page 292 in the hymnal. What’s it’s say there right at the top of that page? “Individual Confession and Absolution.” Folks, this is not just some Catholic thing. We got rid of a lot of junk during the Reformation, but we didn’t get rid of this. At least, we didn’t get rid of the good parts of it.

So, again, those are the two things we’re going to deal with in this morning’s sermon. How come our pastors say “I forgive you,” and what are the benefits of private confession and absolution? 

The reason why our pastors use the words, “I forgive you,” when they absolve the congregation, instead of just pronouncing a general statement of forgivness, is actually pretty simple. It’s because that’s what Jesus says. On the same day that our Lord rose from the dead, He appeared to His disciples in the Upper Room and told them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” Notice the language that Jesus used. It’s the same language that our pastors use today. 

Now, sometimes you’ll hear people object to this idea by saying that when Christ first spoke these words from our text, He was only saying them in references to the Apostles. It’s okay for Peter, James, and John, to say “I forgive you,” and for that to count before God in heaven, but it’s not okay for your regular pastor to do it. And certainly, we would agree that there are some differences between our pastors today and the twelve Apostles. For one, the Apostles had an immediate Call from Jesus. That means that Christ Called them directly to their Office without any involvement or participation from anyone else. He just said, “Follow me,” and they did. That’s not how it works today. Nowadays, as we read in Titus chapter one, God Calls men into the Ministry through the mediation of the Church. “Appoint men in every place,” Saint Paul says. Or here’s another one. Some of the Apostles were also inspired to write down the Scriptures for us. God the Holy Spirit communicated to them in a special way so that they could provide us with the Bible that we have now. Our pastors obviously don’t do that.

But just because they aren’t inspired to write Biblical texts anymore, or that they don’t have an immediate Call from Jesus, that doesn’t mean that they don’t share in the same Ministry of preaching the Gospel. Saying that only the original Apostles can forgive sins in Jesus’ Name, is like arguing that only the Apostles can do baptisms and give Communion. What was the original audience present when Christ instituted the Sacrament of the Altar and gave us the formula for Christian Baptism? Both times it was only the Apostles. And yet, anyone with a brain who reads the Bible can recognize that Jesus wanted those Sacraments to continue on in the Church today. So, why is it any different when it comes to proclaiming the forgiveness of sins?

It's not. In fact, I’ll show you three other places from the Bible that prove it. First, you’ve got what happened in Corinth with the man who was living in adultery. After that guy repented, here’s what Saint Paul said to them, “Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. Indeed, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ.” The guy in Corinth didn’t do anything to Saint Paul himself. Paul wasn’t the one he committed adultery against. And yet, Paul still talks about how he forgave him. That’s because the forgivness that comes from the Church through its pastors is the same forgiveness that comes from Jesus. God speaks to us by means of them. Confession and absolution is just one of the means of grace.

Or think about the account when Jesus healed the paralytic man. What were the Pharisees mad at our Lord for doing that day? They weren’t mad at Him for healing the guy, at least not this time, they were mad that He forgave him of his sins. They literally said the exact same thing that people still say now, “Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” But then what does it tell us at the end of that text? It says that the people that saw it glorified God “who had given such authority to men.” Does God still give such authority to men? Is He still present with His Church today, and does He still speak to us now? Of course, He does! And one of the ways that He does is through the Called and Ordained servant of the Word.

Finally, look at Matthew chapter 18. That’s the place where Jesus tells the Church how to deal with unrepentant sinners. He says, “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault between you and him alone.” Then, and I’m paraphing here, if he doesn’t listen to you, take some other people along, and if he doesn’t listen to them, bring it before the Church. And if he doesn’t listen to the Church, treat him like a gentile or a tax collector. For truly I say to you, “whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again, I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.” 

It's not like the pastor who says “I forgive you” is giving out his own forgiveness. We’ve never taught that. It’s not his forgivness, its God’s. But the forgiveness that comes from God, doesn’t come to us directly. Even when we ask for it in prayer, it’s not like we should expect to hear a voice from heaven saying that we have it. But God in heaven does send us people here on earth so we can know it and believe it. As Jesus also says in our reading today, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” God sends us our pastors. They’re not better than the people they serve. They’re not holier than the people they serve. But they do serve God’s gift to the people so that they can have the assurance of the forgiveness of their sins. And when they, “In the stead and by the command of Christ, I forgive you of all of your sins,” Jesus is saying it too. That’s why they use the that language. It’s to show how Christ is present through the Ministry. It’s one of the ways that He still comes among us to gives us the forgiveness that He purchased on the cross.

Now, I know that was a little bit long, but bear with me, because I do also want so say a few things about the practice of private confession and absolution as well since these two things are related. Again, as I mentioned at the beginning of this sermon, we Lutherans got rid of a bunch of junk during the time of Reformation. But one of the things that we actually kept was the practice of going to the pastor privately to confess our sins and hear the absolution. I already gave you those quotes from the Catechism and showed you where it’s at in the hymnal, but here’s another one from the Augsburg Confession: “Our churches teach that private Absolution should be retained in the churches, although the listing of sins is not necessary for Confession. For according to the Psalm, it is impossible. ‘Who can discern his errors.”

The problem with private confession and absolution wasn’t that the Catholics did it, it was that they gave the impression that you had to do it, and that you couldn’t be forgiven unless you literally listed out all of your sins. But no one could ever do that! That’s what Kind David means in Psalm 19 when he asks, “Who can discern his errors?” If we can’t have God’s forgivness until we literally say all of our sins out loud, then we’re never going to be able to get it. Because we commit too many sins! 

But that isn’t the purpose of private confession and absolution. It’s not about securing your forgivness through the act of confessing, or saying every single bad thing that you’ve ever done out loud, it’s about people who are especially troubled by certain sins having an avenue to get special comfort for them. The devil is a jerk! He preys upon our solitude and he wants to make us think that we’re all alone. He tries to get us to believe that our sins are uniquely bad, and that there’s no way we could ever have forgivness for them. Yes, we can get it through reading the Bible. And we can have it in corporate confession and through taking the Lord’s Supper too. But since other people get those things along with us, and we don’t take them alone, sometimes Satan can tempt us to doubt that they are really for us all, but there only for the other people. He can isolate our guiltily conscience so that we can’t have any peace.

And so, God gives us a place where we can go to hear His Word directly applied to us so that there’s no mistaking who His forgivness is for. We can go to the pastor. We can call him on the phone and set up an appointment with him in his office. Then we can tell him the sins that are bothering us, and he’ll forgive us for them in Jesus’ Name. He also promises never to speak of those sins again. All of our pastors, including myself, vowed to do that at our Ordination. Under the threat of being kicked out of the Ministry, and no longer being able ever to be pastors again, we said that we would never divulge the sins that had been confessed to us. Since Christ buried them in His grave when He died, they die in our ears too, and we bever bring them up again. We don’t use them as examples in sermons. We don’t ask you about them later. We forgive them and move on.

If you got something that’s eating you alive, and you need to get it off your chest, that’s what private confession is all about. Yes, you’ll have to get over the fear of telling someone else your sins. But I can tell you from personal experience, that that’s nothing compared to the relief of hearing God’s absolution for no one but you. And yes, for some reason there’s the idea that its embarrassing to be seen going to talk to your pastor to make confession. But you should be no more embarrassed by that than you are to go to Communion. Why do we go to Communion? What is every single person saying about him or herself when they walk up to the rail to take the Sacrament? They’re saying that they got some sins that need forgiving. The same is true when someone goes to Confession.

The main point of today’s sermon is that God wants those who are troubled by their sins and want to do better to be absolutely certain that they have the forgivness for them in Jesus Christ. That’s why the pastor says, “In the stead and by the command of Christ, I forgive you” and that’s why we still offer private confession for those who want it. It isn’t for the sake the confession. It’s for the sake of the absolution! It’s so that faith, which is often a weak and feeble thing, no bigger than mustard seed, can be made strong and confident in the redeeming work of Christ. It’s so that just like those disciples, who once cowered in fear, but became glad when they saw the risen Lord, we can be glad too, and be certain once and for all that we really do have peace with God in heaven. We have it because Jesus paid for it. We have it because His Word proclaims it. And we have it because His pastor’s say it. As our Lord once said, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you,” and “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Alleluia, Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed, Alleluia!

There’s no denying the fact that the Easter narrative makes for one incredible story. The characters. The conflict. The emotion. The drama. The plot-twist, if you want to call it that. It’s great writing. But there are lots of stories out there that are good stories too. And we don’t get together as Christians every year, or every Sunday for that matter, just to hear another good story. This isn’t entertainment hour. At least, it’s not supposed to be. No, we gather together as the Body of Christ because of what actually happened. We gather together because of how it benefits us eternally. And we gather together because of what it means for our daily lives here and now.

The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is not a fairy-tale. It’s not just some religious version of “Goldilocks and three bears” or “Harry Potter.” The things that we read about in the Gospels actually did take place in real life. They are historical facts. There really was, and is, a man named Jesus of Nazareth. He actually did heal the sick, cure the blind, and walk on water. He preached and taught the Word of God publicly for three years, claiming the whole time to be the Son of God, and then He was brutally put to death by Roman crucifixion. But after three days in a borrowed tomb, that same Jesus who was crucified and killed, came back to life again. 

The only reason why people are skeptical about the resurrection of Christ is because they’ve never seen something like that happen before. Sure, people still get sick and die all the time. But how many of them have you ever met that have come back to life again? I’m not talking about the guy who loses a pulse for 3 minutes in the hospital and then has to get CPR. I’m talking about somebody who was scourged, stabbed, suffocated, and then wrapped up like a mummy for multiple days. I’m talking about an Individual who was so obviously dead, that the only explanation for seeing Him walking around and talking again, would have to be that He actually rose from the grave.

Everyone who is suspicious about this being possible, though, should consider the fact that that’s exactly what all the other disciples of Jesus thought at first too. They didn’t believe it either. In fact, that’s why the women were on their way to the tomb that morning. They were going to anoint the body of Christ with spices so that it wouldn’t start to stink. And, of course, it wasn’t just the women who had their doubts. The men had theirs too. Thomas, who we’ll hear about next week, famously dug in his heels and said that he would never accept that Jesus was risen from the dead unless he got to physically touch the wounds on His hands and side for himself. And we all know what happened next, and Who showed up.

Besides all of the internal evidence from the Bible itself, and the litany of prophesies from the Old Testament that match up perfectly with the events that took place in Christ’s life, even though they were written down hundreds of years before any of it happened, the most compelling proof for the veracity of Jesus’ resurrection has to be the witness of the Apostles. These same men went from running away from Christ during His arrest, and denying that they ever knew Him, to later on maintaining that they saw Him alive even to the point of being tortured and killed for it. Who holds on to a lie for that long? Who makes up something like that and then refuses to let it go despite what they went through? Bartholomew was flayed alive. Peter got crucified too. Paul was beheaded. And John had years and years to think things over in exile. But none of them would take it back. Maybe one crazy person with a mental illness would fabricate a story and take it all the way to their grave. But all of them together? And that’s not even to mention the groups of people who saw Jesus alive at once. Remember how Saint Paul talks about that in 1 Corinthians 15? He says, “Then Jesus appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time.” If somebody can get convicted of a crime in court today by the evidence of two or three witness, then this case should be open and closed. Jesus Christ really did die and rise again. It’s not just a feel-good story. It’s what actually happened.

And yet, just because something incredible happened a long time ago, that isn’t a good enough reason by itself for us to be here today. Incredible things happen all of the time. But what makes this event even more incredible is what it accomplished for us. The Scriptures teach us that Jesus died and rose for a reason. His death and resurrection have real and eternal benefits for us.

To being with, it assures us of the forgivness of our sins. God’s Word teaches us very clearly that the wages of sin is death. That means that the reason why people die is because they deserve it on account of their sins. So, when God raised Jesus from the dead, one of the things that it proved, was that Jesus, unlike everyone else, didn’t deserve to die. He was made alive again because His dying was not for His own sins, but for the sins of others. As the Scriptures tells us in Romans 4, “He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for ourjustification.” When Jesus rose from the dead that was God’s way of telling us that all our sins have been forgiven. It was His way of showing us without a shadow of a doubt that all of our sins really have been paid for by Christ, and that God the Father has accepted that payment. The fact that Jesus’ lives means that you and I are forgiven. Salvation and eternal life are ours because Christ did not stay dead. He came back to life again.

And that, of course, isn’t all. Not only did Jesus’ death and resurrection purchase for us the forgiveness of our sins, but it also guaranteed us our own resurrection from the dead too, as well as for all those we love, who have died in the faith. Saint Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15, “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a Man has come also the resurrection of the dead.” When Jesus rose from the grave on Easter morning, He foreshadowed our own resurrection too. That’s what it means when the Bible calls Him the firstfruits of them that sleep. He was the first One made alive, never to die again, but He isn’t the last. The same thing will happen to all those who trust in Him too. They will not stay in their graves, but their bodies will be raised and glorified to be like that of Christ’s own body. They will be healed and restored. They will be transformed and made new. They will be perfected in every way possible, and they will be like that forever.

The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the proof of our own resurrection. It’s the promise of future glory. It’s God’s assurance of a joyful reunion with all those who share our faith. We gather together not just becauseof what happened, but because of how it benefits us eternally. 

And yet, just because the resurrection Jesus has eternal benefits for us, that doesn’t mean it has no meaning for us here and now. As we heard on Good Friday from 2 Corinthians 5, “For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” The impact and meaning of the resurrection should change our lives. It’s not something that we’re supposed to simply keep in our back pocket to take out whenever we want to. It ought to effect and guide every single aspect of our existence. Saint Paul said, we don’t live for ourselves anymore, but we live for the one who for our sake died and rose. We live for Jesus. 

That means we listen to His Word and seek to conform our actions to it. We follow His teachings and abide by His commands, repenting of where we fail, and seeking His grace to do better. His death and resurrection give us the forgiveness of sins, but it doesn’t give us permission to commit sin on purpose. We read the Bible daily, because it is the voice our Good Shepherd, who laid down His life for us. We seek to grow in our knowledge and understanding of the Scriptures because is the very Word of God. We pray and look to Christ for all good in every situation, because know that if He would suffer and die for us, He can be trusted to do all the rest. We come to Church weekly to receive His gifts in the Word and Sacraments and to be with our fellow believers. Every Sunday is a little Easter for us, because every Sunday the risen Lord enters into our midst to feed our souls us with the food that keeps us in the one true Faith. We cannot pretend to the Body of Christ while at the same time staying away from Christ’s actual body and blood. Jesus wants to be with us all the time, and not just once a month, or a few times a year. Everything that happens in our home, every decision that we make with our families, every thought, word, and that deed we do, yes, every single aspect of our lives is to be done for Jesus, because of what Jesus did for us.  

Our Lord has been raised from the dead. It’s more than just a good story. It’s a fact of history. Jesus died, but Jesus lives. And because He lives you have the forgiveness of your sins. Your body will be raised even after it has been put into the ground, and you will live with Christ forever. So, live for Him today too. Come and feast with Him at this holy altar. Take the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord. Do it today, next week, and the week after. And Christ who laid down His life for you and took it up again, will strengthen you by His grace, to life everlasting.

Alleluia, Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed, Alleluia!

In Jesus’ Name. Amen

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Confirmation is the most beloved tradition in the Lutheran Church. Many of us still look back with fondness on the day when we were Confirmed and remember it as one of the most influential times of our lives. I can still remember how my hand was shaking when I reached out to receive the cup for the first time, because apparently, my parents and my pastor, had done a pretty good job of teaching me that it’s actually the real Body and Blood of Christ. Personally, I like Confirmation. And I’m glad that we still do it.

But I also think that we need to be careful about how we approach it. Like every man-made tradition, there’s always the danger that we would elevate it into something that it isn’t supposed to be, and because of that, put aside the real Word of God instead. This is literally what Jesus accused the Pharisees of doing in the Bible. They were teaching as doctrines the commandments of men, and making void God’s actual Word for the sake of their own made-up practices. We don’t want to do that with Confirmation. 

So, what I’m going to try and do in this morning’s sermon is clear up some of the most common misconceptions about this practice, so that we can truly honor Christ in the way that we observe it.

The first misconception about Confirmation is that it’s a Sacrament. That’s isn’t true. In the Lutheran Church we teach that in order for something to be considered a Sacrament it has to have three things. First, it needs a clear command from God in the Bible. Second, it has to join God’s Word of promise to a visible element. And third, it needs to offer us the forgiveness of our sins. Confirmation, of course, has none of those things. God doesn’t tell us that we have to do it anywhere in the Scriptures. It doesn’t join His Word of promise to any visible element. And we don’t get the forgiveness of our sins by going through it. So, Confirmation isn’t a Sacrament, and we can’t make it a requirement as if it is one.

But just because something isn’t a Sacrament, that doesn’t mean that its unimportant or useless. There are all kinds of things that we do in Church, which even though God hasn’t specifically commanded us to, we can observe in Christian freedom because of what they teach us. A good example of this would be something like the vestments. There’s nothing in the Bible that explicitly says that our pastors have to wear certain robes during the worship service. But we still choose to do it in order to communicate the importance of the Office of the Ministry. What matters most isn’t the man who stands in from of us and forgiveness us of our sins, it’s the Office in which he stands. It’s the Word that he proclaims.

And there is something similar going on with Confirmation. Because even though Jesus doesn’t tell us that we have to do it anywhere in the Bible, even though He never explicitly commands us that we need to get up in front of the Church and make certain vows if we want to be Christians, He does tell us that we need to confess Him before others. As our Lord Himself says in Matthew chapter 10, which by the way, is one of the main verses used at the beginning of the Confirmation liturgy, “Whoever confesses Me before men, I also will confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.” 

God’s Word calls upon us to confess the faith. Under the threat of eternal damnation, it tells us that we need to “let our light shine before others” and not shy away from identifying ourselves with Jesus and His teaching. This shows the world around us that we actually do believe what’s in the Scriptures and aren’t ashamed of them. And that’s one of the reasons why we have Confirmation. It gives our young people, in particular, the opportunity to publicly confess their faith in Christ. We give them a chance to do what Jesus says in the Bible.

As a side note here, we should also mention the fact that when someone takes their Confirmation vows in our church, we aren’t asking them to simply make a generic confession that fits every single denomination out there. We’re asking them specifically to pledge their fidelity to the Lutheran confession. As one of the questions says, “Do you confess the doctrine of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, drawn from the Scriptures, as you have learned to know it from the small Catechism to be faithful and true?” Nowhere have we ever said that only Lutherans go to heaven, but we aren’t ashamed to assert that in the Lutheran Church, we have pure doctrine. The teachings of the Small Catechism are the same teachings that we find in the Bible. That’s where we got them from! So, having someone voice their support of the Catechism, and reject everything that disagrees with it, isn’t being arrogant. It’s being faithful.

Not every person who calls himself a Christian believes that Baptism has the power to wash away our sins or that you should baptized babies. Not everybody agrees that the Lord’s Supper is the true Body and Blood of Christ, and that we are saved through faith alone and not our works. Some people even teach that faith is a decision of our free will that we have to make for ourselves if we want to go to heaven. Well, is that what the Bible teaches us? No. So, we make our confirmands be clear. We ask them whether or not they want to be Lutherans, so that they can make a specifc confession about Jesus and not just a generic one, which isn’t really a real confession at all.

The second misconception about Confirmation, and this is very much related to that first one about it not being a Sacrament, is that Confirmation somehow secures us a place in heaven by the mere act of going through it. We’ve probably all encountered that individual before, or maybe we even know someone personally, who doesn’t go to church anymore or live a Christian life at all, but still makes a big deal about how they got Confirmed once, as if that’s some kind of get out of hell free card. But that’s not what Confirmation is supposed to be about. In fact, we could even say the same thing about the actual Sacraments, like Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Yes, God does offer us the forgiveness of sins and eternal salvation through them, but nowhere in the Bible does it teach us that they save us automatically. They only save us through faith. They save us because they present to us something that faith can trust and grab onto, namely, the promises of God. As Jesus says in Mark 16:16, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved,” not simply “whoever is baptized.” 

And the same thing applies to Confirmation. The mere act of saying certain things out loud in front of other people is not by itself the cause of anyone’s salvation. In fact, it’s possible to go through the motions, and take all of these vows, without actually believing in a single one of them. That’s the kind of scenario that Jesus is getting at in Matthew chapter 15 when He says, “These people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.” We need to be clear that no one will be saved who doesn’t believe in Jesus. No matter what else they say and do, even if they get Baptized, Confirmed, and take the Lord’s Supper every week, if they don’t repent of their sins and trust in Christ for forgiveness, they won’t go to heaven when they die. It doesn’t matter what else happens in their life, even if they get Confirmed in 8th grade.

The third misconception about Confirmation, and this one also has to do with the Sacraments, is that Confirmation is a sort of pre-requisite for Communion and that it entitles you to receive it whenever you want. Since we’ve chosen to observe the practice of Confirmation in conjunction with first Communion, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s also had some unintended consequences. One of them is the idea that going through Rite of Confirmation itself, and taking the vows, is what makes a person eligible for the Sacrament of the Altar. But that can’t possibly be true. How could the Rite of Confirmation do that when Confirmation isn’t even commanded in the Bible? That doesn’t make any sense.

However, the Bible does tell us that people need to be prepared before they receive Communion. This includes general instruction over the basic teachings of God’s Word, and specific instruction about the Lord’s Supper itself. As Saint Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11, “Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.” If we choose to link together instruction with the practice of Confirmation, we can certainly do that. And asking someone if they are confirmed before we offer them Communion as a quick way to figure out what they’ve been taught and what they’re supposed to believe isn’t bad either.  But we shouldn’t confuse the ceremony itself, with the Catechesis that happened before it. What prepares someone to receive Communion is having the right faith. It’s about knowing what God’s Word says and believing it. Can a person know what God’s Word says and believe it before 8th grade? Sure. Can a person in 8th grade not know what God’s Word says at all and not believe any of it. Yep. So, we need to be careful not to give the impression that being a certain age, or having said certain vows, is what allows you to take Communion. 

Along those same lines, another issue that we run into here is the idea that once a person has been confirmed, they are automatically eligible to receive the Sacrament in the Lutheran Church for the rest of their lives. Confirmation becomes kind of a like a punch-card at the YMCA that gets you into the club whenever you want. You can just come and go as you choose. I can’t tell you how many times in my Ministry I’ve dealt with this exact situation. A person was raised in the Lutheran Church and got confirmed here as a young adult. Then they grew up and left the Lutheran Church and started attending somewhere else. But when they come back home for the holidays to see mom and dad, or whoever, they march right up to the Altar and demand to receive the Sacrament just like they did before. Sometimes they literally say, “I was confirmed here,” as if that makes a difference now when they go to a different church. But what church did we promise to go to when we said in our Confirmation vows that we would continue in this confession until we die? Were we promising to be Methodist or Baptist? Were we promising to be Roman Catholic or Reformed? No, we were saying that we were going to stay a Lutheran. We weren’t not going to depart from the teachings of the Catechism, which are the teachings of the Bible. And what do you think it means when we take that vow that we intend to receive the Lord’s Supper faithfully? Well, it certainly doesn’t mean receiving at a Church that doesn’t even teach that it’s the actual Body and Blood of Christ, or puts up with false doctrine.

Confirmation was never meant to be something that allowed us to avoid doctrinal differences. It was supposed to be something that made it clear which side we took on them. It wasn’t supposed to be passport stamp for getting the Sacrament whenever we want it. It was supposed to be a way to make sure that everyone who received the Sacrament together held to the same beliefs. We’re supposed to have unity in our confession, before we have unity at the table. That’s the point of having Confirmation in conjunction with first Communion.

And, the last misconception about Confirmation, which is probably the biggest one of all, is that Confirmation is some sort of graduation. It’s just another rite of passage like drinking a beer with your dad, or driving a car for the very first time. And once you get it over with, you’re good to go, and you don’t have to do any of the stuff that went along with it ever again.

My father, who was also Lutheran pastor, used to tell a joke that I bet you’ve heard before. It goes like this. What do you do to get rid of bats in the Church attic?  Just Confirm them, and then they’ll leave. It’s terrible. But the only reason why it makes any sense, is because there’s also some sad truth to it. I haven’t been a pastor for very long myself, but even in my short time in the Ministry, I’ve already lost track of how many kids I’ve seen come and go and never come back. It breaks your heart every time.

When then attitude is, “Great, now I don’t have to study the Bible anymore” or “Sweet, now I don’t have to pay attention to the sermon,” or worst of all, “Awesome, now no one is going to force me to go to Church,” you know that that kid doesn’t stand a chance. At least, not unless something drastically changes soon. 

Confirmation isn’t about being done with all the “Church stuff,” it’s about accepting more responsibility for yourself. The Bible teaches us that we are life-long students of the Scriptures. That’s literally what the word “disciple” means. It means a “student.” We never stop needing to hear God’s Word and receive His Sacraments. Even if no one is watching us, even if we don’t have a pastor grading our assignments anymore, or making us do memory work, that doesn’t mean that we can just coast through life and our faith will be fine. On the contrary, it will wither and die if it isn’t fed properly. So, we need to stay close to where God feeds it, and not neglect His gifts. We don’t treat Confirmation like graduation. We treat it like initiation. It’s closer to the beginning of our walk with Christ, not the end of it.

I love Confirmation. I think it’s a wonderful tradition in the Lutheran Church. If this sermon gave you the impression that it isn’t, that’s not what I intended at all. My only point was that we need to do it for the right reasons. It isn’t a Sacrament. It isn’t a get out of hell free card. It doesn’t entitle you to Communion whenever you want it. And it’s not some sort of graduation from going to church and studying the Bible. But it is a good practice. It reminds us of the importance of being instructed in God’s Word and the necessity of being prepared to take Communion. It gives us an opportunity to confess our faith, and makes it very clear which faith we are confessing. 

Mason and Devin, that’s what you’re doing today. It’s not your act of confession that saves you. It’s what you’re confessing. Christ is your righteousness. His death and resurrection ransomed you from your sin. And in His Word and Sacraments He offers you forgiveness for every last one of them. What you learned in the Catechism is the Word of God, because the Catechism takes everything from the Bible. And what you have here in the Lutheran Church might not be automatic salvation, but it is access to the pure teachings of the Scriptures, which save those who believe them.

God is giving you so much today. He’s given you so much already. When you’re old, I hope that you’ll look back on this day with fondness too. But above all I pray that you’ll never forget the promises you made, and more importantly, the promises God’s made to you. “Whoever confesses Me before men,” Jesus says, “I also will confess before My Father who is in heaven.” May you live in this confession all the days of your life, and suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from it. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.