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.