Were you at church for Vicar Daniel’s Lenten sermon about personal confession and absolution, on the first mid-week service after Ash Wednesday?

            We all confess our sin every Sunday in the Lutheran Church, corporately aloud and individually in silence.  But how many of us have confessed our personal sins outside of worship, privately to another person?  I, for one, have never done this.  Have you?

            In truth, I hadn’t even realized that this practice is part of the Lutheran Church.  Vicar Daniel assured me that it is, though voluntary, and that it is especially helpful for those of us whose sins weigh heavily upon our hearts.  He also witnessed to his own positive experience with confessing his sins to someone and hearing the words “you are forgiven” spoken to him, personally.

            Daniel’s witness to this is really powerful because I know him personally.  I like him.  I trust him.  His heart is in the right place, and this comes through in all that he does in the church.  He invests himself in the lives of other people.  Praise God!!  If I was going to confess my sins to anyone, it would be to someone like Daniel (or Pastor Bob, or my Bible study teacher, Joyce).

            Still, just the thought of speaking my sins – out loud in something more than a whisper – while face to face with an actual person, makes my cheeks burn red and hot!  Sweat breaks out on my forehead, my breathing feels tight and I experience an unusually strong desire to get busy doing something else, anything else – vacuuming the house!

            Confess my personal sins to anyone but God?  Confess my sins to someone I’ll have to face the following Sunday at worship?  After I’ve invested all of this time and energy into keeping all of that hidden safely away, so that people will go on thinking that I am a better person than I really am?

            I don’t know.  That sounds hard. 

            I would have to face and embrace the truth about myself on a much deeper level.  I mean, it’s not so hard for me to own up with the rest of the congregation on Sunday.  But it’s much harder to own up to my personal sins, like the pride that flared up in me yesterday, the mean thought I had last night, and the unkind word I spoke just this morning.  It’s hard enough admitting these things to myself, how much more to someone else!

            And what about all of those things that tempt me, do I dare speak of them?

            Well, as Faith pointed out in her post last week, God does encourage us to confess our sins to one another and to pray for each other,

            “…so that you may be healed.” (James 5:16)

            Maybe we need to think and pray about this?  Let me know, I welcome your comment!