Advent: The Gift of Confession...

Week Three: Gifts of Faith Community...

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Hebrews 4:15-16

How is confession a gift? The gift would be no confession. God would just understand that we don’t mean to, that we aren’t always aware of our wrongdoing, that we are fundamentally decent people and we appreciate our forgiveness. Why confess when God forgives us our sins?

As we ask questions about the value of young black men’s lives, the purpose and reason for enhanced interrogation techniques (that seem torturous to me), the response to Ebola no longer on our shores but devastating west African nations, as well as the questions of our personal lives and relationships, we need the gift of confession. We must stand together and articulate our failures. We must learn to recognize our sins (in our classic language). If we do not confess in worship, where will we even start to admit we are less-than-perfect? Nowhere in our culture can we admit we are wrong. Nowhere can we admit we have failed others. Nowhere can we show weakness or claim fully that we are to blame for brokenness.

A relationship counselor will tell you that a broken relationship cannot be healed until fault is recognized, admitted, and amends are made. Twelve step programs start the same way. Healing begins with acknowledged brokenness. We act like healing begins with excuses, or justification, or the insistence that we are nice people and should be given every consideration. But healing--the receiving of promised mercy, the finding of grace that helps in time of need--healing comes when we boldly uncover and confess our brokenness to the one who understands what it means to be human.

We. are. broken. Sometimes we know it. Sometimes we need to be reminded. All the time, we need to practice standing boldly in our brokenness before the throne of grace. The faith community is the last place that enacts this most precious gift...the gift of confession.

God, our brokenness is complete. We confess to You that brokenness again and again, knowing that Your greatest wish is our healing and the health and wholeness of the whole creation. Begin the healing in us by teaching us how to look at our sin, know our shortcoming, speak our faults. Then use us to continue Your healing, stretching the ripples of Your love across the universe.