But we need to be careful about this truth. It is an easy thing to confess that we are sinners. After all, everyone is in the same boat -- whether they believe it or not. It is the objective truth of the fall that has poisoned every person sent forth from Eden in the loins of our first parents. To confess original sin is an important confession. Are we sinners because we sin or do we sin because we are sinners? Of course, the only true answer is that we sin because we are sinners.
It is a very different thing, however, to confess our sins. It is distinctly different thing to admit and confess and regret that we have sinned in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone -- and to name those sins before God. This is the confession we work to avoid but this is the true confession of sinners before God. This is also why the general confession on Sunday morning is not a fair or a fit substitute for the individual confession of the sinner before the Pastor.
The general confession on Sunday morning is very good at admitting that of which we are all guilty. We are sinners. We have sinned in the thoughts of our minds, in the desires of our hearts, and in the words that come from our mouths. We have sinned in the evils we have done and in the good we have not done. We are not only guilty but we deserve punishment. All of this is true but as long as the me is hidden in the we, it is an easy and too easily a superficial confession.
How very different it is when I confess my thoughts and name them, when I confess my words and own them, and when I confess my deeds and claim them -- when I name them out loud and not simply to myself and God and when another set of ears hears them. How very different it is when the cover of a common malady no longer keeps me from saying in particular what I feel better confessing in the general.
The sad reality is that just as the general confession can generally confess little or nothing, so can the general confession leave what is unspoken and unsaid within us, carried back out the door and into our homes, workplaces, neighborhoods, families, friendships, and lives. He who wants to be a sinner holds onto his sin and lets go of God. But he who wants to belong to God lets go of his sin and holds onto God. One of the greatest blessings of private confession is not simply that we are forced to say out loud what sins we have thought, said, and done but that we cannot take back the words once said and heard by another. By saying them out loud, we surrender them to another. This means we cannot own them anymore. They belong to Him who has bidden our confession, promised us mercy, and forgiven them by His blood. They are God's now. And without them to trouble our conscience and afflict our souls, God has set us free to be His.
Let this be your Lenten thoughts on the way to the cross. And while you are walking on the way, make an appointment with your pastor and make your good confession -- even if for the first time. You will not regret it. Alas, if you fear your pastor will know something of you which you do not want known, remember this. He hears many confessions and knows many things of many people but, like you, he leaves them at the cross as well. And when he dies, he takes them to his grave -- so great is the seal of the confessional and the grace of absolution.
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