1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,366 Grace, mercy, and peace to you from our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 00:00:07,366 --> 00:00:14,666 In a few moments, as Pastor Clark said, you'll all be invited, even urged, to come forward. 3 00:00:14,666 --> 00:00:21,766 First confess your sins here, and then to come forward for an individual absolution. 4 00:00:21,766 --> 00:00:27,400 Confession and absolution is one of the six chief parts of our catechisms, but yet one 5 00:00:27,400 --> 00:00:33,166 that probably doesn't get as much time spent on teaching as others. 6 00:00:33,166 --> 00:00:38,766 When Luther speaks about confession and absolution in the large catechism, he does a lot of urging. 7 00:00:38,766 --> 00:00:46,866 He urges that confession should be voluntary, not coerced as it had been under the papacy. 8 00:00:46,866 --> 00:00:52,633 Confession and absolution is for those people with stricken consciences, guilt-ridden, and 9 00:00:52,633 --> 00:01:01,266 who need to hear very directly from God and from his church that their sins are forgiven. 10 00:01:01,266 --> 00:01:07,966 He also says, when I urge you to go to confession, I'm doing nothing else than urging you to 11 00:01:07,966 --> 00:01:10,666 be a Christian. 12 00:01:10,666 --> 00:01:15,666 You see that every week, that quote every week in the Wednesday Bulletin, urging you 13 00:01:15,666 --> 00:01:22,966 to at least consider going to private confession and absolution with Chaplain Sieveking. 14 00:01:22,966 --> 00:01:29,233 In the verses just before our reading, the author to the Hebrews said these famous words, 15 00:01:29,233 --> 00:01:35,833 the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword and piercing to the 16 00:01:35,833 --> 00:01:43,600 division of soul and spirit and discerning the thoughts and the intentions of the heart. 17 00:01:43,600 --> 00:01:52,333 Throughout our lives, God's word of law continues to show us our sin, our personal idolatries 18 00:01:52,333 --> 00:01:56,566 at deeper and deeper levels. 19 00:01:56,566 --> 00:02:04,100 And throughout our lives, God's word of gospel continues to show us our savior and his love 20 00:02:04,100 --> 00:02:10,266 and mercy at greater and more divine levels. 21 00:02:10,266 --> 00:02:15,666 When we confess our sins, we are confessing our faith. 22 00:02:15,666 --> 00:02:22,466 We are confessing our need for our savior and confessing our confidence in his grace 23 00:02:22,466 --> 00:02:26,533 and mercy shown in his absolution. 24 00:02:26,533 --> 00:02:33,333 A few years ago, here when Professor Norman Nagel's funeral was held, the pastor who preached 25 00:02:33,333 --> 00:02:40,033 in this pulpit said that that was the most confident thing that Norman had in his life 26 00:02:40,033 --> 00:02:44,333 was Christ's absolution. 27 00:02:44,333 --> 00:02:50,000 We regularly do corporate confession and absolution in our divine services on Sunday and here 28 00:02:50,000 --> 00:02:54,333 in chapel on Wednesdays and that is good. 29 00:02:54,333 --> 00:02:59,733 But do we sometimes take it for granted? 30 00:02:59,733 --> 00:03:06,966 Take it for going through the motions, the liturgical motions. 31 00:03:06,966 --> 00:03:11,433 In Ted Kober's' book, Confession and Forgiveness, he tells of a pastor who thought his parishioners 32 00:03:11,433 --> 00:03:14,733 were going through the motions. 33 00:03:14,733 --> 00:03:19,333 So one Sunday after their corporate confession, he chose to do a little dramatic teaching 34 00:03:19,333 --> 00:03:23,033 before going directly to the absolution. 35 00:03:23,033 --> 00:03:27,000 Instead of stating the absolution, he said, ah, that's all right. 36 00:03:27,000 --> 00:03:29,333 Your sins probably aren't that bad. 37 00:03:29,333 --> 00:03:30,333 Everybody does it. 38 00:03:30,333 --> 00:03:31,333 It's no big deal. 39 00:03:31,333 --> 00:03:34,266 Well, except for some of you, yeah, what you've done is really horrible and you should feel 40 00:03:34,266 --> 00:03:42,233 guilty and then he took a few minutes to teach about not taking it for granted, confessing 41 00:03:42,233 --> 00:03:46,233 their own sins and receiving that forgiveness. 42 00:03:46,233 --> 00:03:52,633 I did that dramatic teaching here once about a dozen years ago here in this chapel and 43 00:03:52,633 --> 00:03:59,166 I never saw the eyes get wider and more shocked when I withheld that absolution for just two 44 00:03:59,166 --> 00:04:05,533 or three minutes for that particular little teaching opportunity. 45 00:04:05,533 --> 00:04:07,800 I did it once. 46 00:04:07,800 --> 00:04:09,966 I don't ever plan on doing it again. 47 00:04:09,966 --> 00:04:14,766 I encourage you to at least read about that in Ted Kober's' book if you ever want to do 48 00:04:14,766 --> 00:04:15,766 it. 49 00:04:15,766 --> 00:04:17,766 Don't do it your first year in pastoral ministry. 50 00:04:17,766 --> 00:04:22,633 Wait, three or four years maybe. 51 00:04:22,633 --> 00:04:26,000 But I don't plan on doing it again for two reasons. 52 00:04:26,000 --> 00:04:32,833 One, I didn't realize how difficult it was going to be for me to withhold that absolution 53 00:04:32,833 --> 00:04:34,133 for that two or three minutes. 54 00:04:34,133 --> 00:04:39,166 My stomach was just churning and I don't know if it was me or the Holy Spirit saying, get 55 00:04:39,166 --> 00:04:41,566 on with it. 56 00:04:41,566 --> 00:04:46,000 And then after the service, two people did approach me and said they weren't angry, they 57 00:04:46,000 --> 00:04:51,233 weren't frustrated, but they wanted me to know that when they had confessed their sins, 58 00:04:51,233 --> 00:04:58,066 they had confessed real sins that were troubling their consciences and they found it difficult 59 00:04:58,066 --> 00:05:04,466 not to hear the absolution directly but had to wait for those two or three minutes. 60 00:05:04,466 --> 00:05:08,533 And I guarantee you when you come up here, you're going to hear the absolution. 61 00:05:08,533 --> 00:05:11,833 Those of you at the back are going to have to wait two or three or four or five minutes 62 00:05:11,833 --> 00:05:17,433 perhaps to get there, but you can be confident that you will receive it. 63 00:05:17,433 --> 00:05:21,800 I want to thank the dean for continuing this practice to use this liturgy of corporate 64 00:05:21,800 --> 00:05:26,400 confession and absolution with individualized absolution. 65 00:05:26,400 --> 00:05:33,066 I hope it is a liturgical bridge that we can be using in the Missouri Synod to urge our 66 00:05:33,066 --> 00:05:39,866 people to start practicing individual confession and absolution more often. 67 00:05:39,866 --> 00:05:45,933 Which gets me to a little poll that I do each year in class, have for 18 years now. 68 00:05:45,933 --> 00:05:50,633 How many of you by a show of hands grew up in a congregation where you were formed kind 69 00:05:50,633 --> 00:05:57,000 of ages 10 to 21 or so, where you knew that the pastor regularly practiced individual 70 00:05:57,000 --> 00:06:02,533 confession and absolution and that at least some of the members of that congregation went 71 00:06:02,533 --> 00:06:05,366 to him for individual confession and absolution? 72 00:06:05,366 --> 00:06:06,600 How many of you? 73 00:06:06,600 --> 00:06:08,533 Yeah, that's about what? 74 00:06:08,533 --> 00:06:13,833 I tend to get about 10% in my classes and when I burrow down a little bit, I find out 75 00:06:13,833 --> 00:06:21,266 that a certain portion of those grew up Roman Catholic, not Lutheran. 76 00:06:21,266 --> 00:06:25,833 It actually holds with a study that was done quoted by Koehler back in the 1960s that only 77 00:06:25,833 --> 00:06:31,266 about 10% of our congregations then were practicing individual confession and absolutions. 78 00:06:31,266 --> 00:06:39,400 And in one more recent research by Pastor Chris Morris in a large LCMS district, he 79 00:06:39,400 --> 00:06:46,400 polled anonymously the Missouri Synod pastors there in a district that was probably pretty 80 00:06:46,400 --> 00:06:53,366 representative of the Missouri Synod in general and found out that only 36% of LCMS pastors 81 00:06:53,366 --> 00:06:59,366 were receiving individual absolution on a regular basis. 82 00:06:59,366 --> 00:07:02,666 Not many in the LCMS have been using it. 83 00:07:02,666 --> 00:07:07,033 Professor or President Emeritus Meyer has told me that he doesn't remember learning 84 00:07:07,033 --> 00:07:13,666 about individual confession absolution when he was a student here over 50 years ago. 85 00:07:13,666 --> 00:07:17,866 There are many historical reasons why we don't practice it as much as we should in the Missouri 86 00:07:17,866 --> 00:07:19,533 Synod. 87 00:07:19,533 --> 00:07:22,600 In the 1600s, it was a 30 years war. 88 00:07:22,600 --> 00:07:25,433 In the 1700s, it was Pietism. 89 00:07:25,433 --> 00:07:31,433 In the 1800s, it was Martin Stephan's abuse of the pastoral office and individual confession 90 00:07:31,433 --> 00:07:32,433 absolution. 91 00:07:32,433 --> 00:07:37,133 I think in the 20th century, it was a bunch of Lutherans not wanting to look very Roman 92 00:07:37,133 --> 00:07:41,033 Catholic in a Protestant country. 93 00:07:41,033 --> 00:07:45,433 But we faculty here, and I know the faculty at Fort Wayne as well, are trying to teach 94 00:07:45,433 --> 00:07:51,333 its importance now and have been for the last 25 years that I know of. 95 00:07:51,333 --> 00:08:00,500 So I urge you, let us confess our sins knowing that we have a high priest who is able to 96 00:08:00,500 --> 00:08:09,733 sympathize with our weaknesses, who is tempted just as we are, yet without sin. 97 00:08:09,733 --> 00:08:16,233 Because of Jesus, let us confidently draw near to his throne of grace and receive his 98 00:08:16,233 --> 00:08:21,466 mercy and grace and forgiveness. 99 00:08:21,466 --> 00:08:31,233 In the name of Jesus. Amen.