We’ve come to the Confession and Absolution
We’ve engaged the enemy at the most basic level, declaring God’s sovereignty, God’s victory over every disease and broken place in our lives, both collectively and individually.
We’re about to enter into the very heart of the Father, the contemplation of a love so far beyond our comprehension that we can only stand and watch as it is re-enacted each week. This is the new Holy of Holies, and before we enter, we take a moment to make sure we’re not tracking any mud from the battle into the House.
At least, that’s the understanding I currently have of the reason for placing the confession after, rather than before the intercessions. I can imagine responding very personally to the Scriptures and the sermon by an act of repentance, and then going on to the battle. But that places the struggle immediately before the time of greatest intimacy, and I don’t suppose that makes a lot of sense.
After the battle, I need time to slow down, to refocus my attention on the true Victor and His purpose for us. Love. There is a tendency that I see in myself and others to get caught up in the excitement of fighting alongside the Lord of Creation. As I wield the sword of the Spirit in His service, I am likely, from time to time, to forget that while my lips are declaring His victory, it is His arm that has won it.
I am not able to enter fully into His presence as long as I carry with me any notion that it was by any virtue of my own that the battle was won. Exhilarated, breathing hard and laughing, clapping each other on the backs, we approach the threshold to the Father’s heart.
And we are invited to lay down all “our” victories and remember that we are but dust. All so that we might appreciate Him in all His mercy and majesty. Each bit of the victory that we carry in as our own dulls our appreciation of the completeness of His overcoming on our behalf through the Cross.
So we stop, and remind ourselves that we have not done what we could have, that we have done much that we could have avoided. We find our attention shifting from the battle to the One in whose Love we conquer. The Father begins to soften our hearts by reminding us that our first task was to love Him, and then His children, our neighbors, perhaps especially those we might mistake for enemies in the heat the moment. We discover again our presumption and our weakness, and we turn to the One who can heal them.
And then priest speaks the Father’s love over us again, so that we might enter into the contemplation of that Love unfettered either by error or accusation, resting entirely on the strong arm of His mercy.
Receiving this absolution though, isn’t a passive thing. It’s active. It is a taking in, a claiming for ourselves the mercy declared.
This act is complicated, in my experience, by two things.
First is the “I’m Okay, You’re Okay” culture in which most of us have lived for 40 years or more. I was taught that it was wrong to see myself as needful, as desperately sinful as I really am. Because I’m not so different from almost everyone around me, I must not be so bad. Because I pray every day, read the Bible (almost) every day, I’m really an okay kind of guy. I don’t set out to hurt anybody during the day. I try to be careful about how I talk to and about others. I’m not all THAT sinful.
Brothers and sisters, this is the most insidious lie of all.
It strips the Cross of its meaning, its power. It makes the Love that God shows in restoring me to Himself time and again a small thing! I know that I’m not able now to see the whole of my need for Jesus and His redemption. It would no doubt overwhelm me. But I want in the confession to witness to as much of that desperation as I can, to acknowledge my bereft state without God’s merciful love. And I want that for you, too.
Yes, it hurts, but only in the way that my belly hurts when my appendix is inflamed. Without the pain, I don’t seek the healer.
And having sought the healer, I encounter the second obstacle.
I am ashamed.
I remember, when I worked in the operating room, how bad the patients felt who came to us with gangrene. Not just the pain, but the shame that they felt because of the stench of their rotting flesh. If I am to receive, actively receive the absolution God pronounces in this moment, I have to deal with my rottenness.
Perhaps this is the reason for the “I’m Okay, You’re Okay” culture I mentioned above. Better to wrap our rotting toes in plastic bags and contain the smell than admit how bad things have gotten.
Whatever the reason, I have to endure the shame for a moment in order to allow Jesus to remove it from my shoulders. The more of my shame I can name, the more of it He takes.
Really.
He takes it.
That is the active part of the receiving of absolution. It is a giving. It is a choice to believe (the gift of Faith) that He wants it, and to respond to His desire in trust, holding up the nastiest, stinkiest part of me that I’m able to own.
I’ve learned, through my own experiences of confession and absolution that I am unable to receive anything, even absolution, without the gift of Faith. I mean, it’s obvious, isn’t it? Common sense tells me that no one, least of all the Holy One, would want to touch these rotten places in my heart. I can’t get my head around a God who treasures this horrible offering. But Faith tells me something different. (I think Mercy Me has a song that says the same thing…)
So, the priest speaks God’s love into the mess.
And I choose to let it work in me, breaking my chains, removing my shame.
And I’m ready to move into the time of communing with Him.
In Him,
Jeff
