Thoughts on Corporate Confession
This morning’s devotion was about the act of confession. I must confess (see what I did there?) that it is a part of Christian practice to which I haven’t given an overly large amount of thought over the years. I would guess that this may be the case for many. We tend to often fall into going through the motions in our worship services and increasingly my experience has been that many services either omit a corporate confession (and absolution) or the wording has been changed from the traditional so that, although it is there, while the worshiper is “on auto pilot” it may be missed. In recent years, I have been finding more and more meaning in the familiar rhythms of the liturgy, probably something to do with getting older, although I’d hate to admit that, and corporate confession and absolution has become one of the more meaningful things.
Over the past month, this devotion marks the third time I have encountered the topic. I am helping a granddaughter work through the catechism, and we recently covered confession. Then, our pastor asked me to help out for a week with confirmation class and the topic to be covered, confession. Then, today, came this devotion.
In the formal act of corporate confession, we are often confronted with acknowledging not only those things we have done but also those things that we have left undone, and it is this category that the devotion dealt with. The act of confession shows us the importance of acknowledging our sin. It is easier to identify the things that we have done wrong, but sometimes we tend to gloss over the things that we have omitted to do. The author of the devotion put it this way. “…the act of confessing it puts a box [ ] next to all of the things we’ve left undone”. It forces us to be honest about ourselves. I think that it is this honesty, and including myself right along with all the others as a sinner, that enables the individual, me, to actually then “hear” the words of forgiveness in the absolution (something we don’t hear spoken in our private confession to God) and experience what the author calls “that moment of grace”. It encourages us and gives us confidence as we ,”enter the next moment, the next week” in our work of living for God and for others.
