A long, painfully detailed confession

"We come Savior to your altar to offer our sacrifice of confession.  We beg the mercy of your loving kindness.  Accept our prayer.  Forgive us, for we have sinned."

A long, painfully detailed confession: that's what I called it in my sermon, and I was the one who wrote it.  Not by myself, actually.  I edited a published form so all the voices in the gathered community could take part.  But still, it was long.  It was detailed, and I expect for some, it was a bit painful....which of course, was the point.

In some Christian traditions, the goal of corporate (meaning: the gathered community) worship is to uplift the people, to surround them with comfort and assurance.  In this way, the Good News is good news. Certainly that is the ultimate goal of Jesus: to assure one an all of God's faithful love in Jesus....regardless of the reality of our lived lives.  Jesus is the Good News.  However, it is Jesus the crucified and risen one who is the Good News.

There times when the truth about our lives that do not fit into this pattern of uplift and celebrate. There are times when we need to start at a different point.  First we need to lament, or express our anger; there are times when it is important to re-visit the great gap between us and the One Who Created Us.  There are times when the great mystery of God overwhelms, and times when it is impenetrable.  Those times require a different worship experience; a different ritual.

Twice a year our liturgical forms allow us to stop and contemplate this great divide between The Holy and ourselves.  On Ash Wednesday and Maundy Thursday we take time to give attention to the ways in which we are broken people and the harm that brokenness does to those around us.  This is a practice of truth telling, not an attempt to engender guilt.  As we yearn for God's love in Jesus to be the truth for us, we also confront the truth about ourselves.  From that point, a deep relationship can be forged.

I experience confession as a means of breaking through my defenses, my profession of innocence or the list of reasons I have for my short comings.  Confession is not interested in the reasons, it simply wants the truth.  Once the truth is spoken, then in union with the Holy Spirit and perhaps a good spiritual guide, we look at the reasons and seek healing.

In the end, however, there will always be something awry.  That is the very point where the Good News of Jesus' faithful love for all of creation becomes the Good News for me.  At the point where I can rightly see myself, the forgiveness Jesus grants becomes a forgiveness for me - with all my warts and imperfections.  At that point, forgiveness is healing and freedom.

If you are as old as I and chose to kneel during the Ash Wednesday confession, I expect you found it all a bit painful.  But the real pain is in the acknowledging the enormity of God's great gift of enduring love in Jesus.  Painful and Wonderful and Life Saving.