²¹Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” ²²When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” – John 20: 21-23

I thought I understood what Confession and Forgiveness was all about, after all I have been a Lutheran my whole life, and every Sunday in worship we begin our worship with the Confession and Absolution.  I can almost say the words from the LBW in my sleep, “I confess that I am in bondage to sin and cannot free myself.  I have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed; by what I have done and by what I have not done…”  As a kid, those 10 seconds of silence for self-examination seemed to last forever, as I tried to tell God the worst sins of the week that I could remember, mostly having to do with squabbles between my sister and I, or conflicts with my friends.  Then the pastor would announce that we were forgiven by Jesus Christ, and sometimes I’d “feel better” but other times the words went in one ear and out the other.  But, aside from asking forgiveness directly from people I’ve hurt or wronged in some way, I have never confessed my sins in front of another person, let alone a whole group of people.  Until last summer…

As part of the men’s retreat I attended last summer, we were to spend a couple of hours alone in the woods, reflecting on and writing down the things (sins) of our lives that were a burden and barrier to our life and faith with God.  That was hard and painful enough, but to find out that we would then be sharing our list of sins, failures, and brokenness in front of a group of men, that was almost too much to handle.  Yet after the tears of pain, frustration, guilt, shame, and deep hurt of my sins came out, these men all laid hands on me and prayed for me and in Jesus’ name forgave my sins!  The power and presence of the Holy Spirit flowed through those men as they prayed for me and forgave me my sins!  How can I describe the cleansing, healing, and joy from that experience of God’s grace?  Singing “Amazing Grace” barely touches the reality of the healing power of God’s forgiveness.  It was for me, a real taste of Easter, the new-life given to us through faith in the resurrected Christ.

Yet this taste of Easter, this Amazing Grace is the command and power that Jesus gives to us by the Holy Spirit, to forgive sins!   We forgiven sinners get to be bearers of the Good News of Easter, that Jesus Christ has risen from the dead and through faith in Him we have the forgiveness of our sins, the hope of the resurrection to eternal life, and the salvation of our souls.   We get to forgive people in Jesus’ name, who are hurting and burdened by the sin in their lives!  What an amazing gift we have been given, but not to keep for ourselves, but to give it away to a hurting world! 

In his Large Catechism, Martin Luther wrote this about confession: “Thus we teach what a wonderful, precious, and comforting thing confession is, and we urge that such a precious blessing should not be despised…Therefore, when I urge you to go to confession, I am simply urging you to be a Christian.  Those who really want to be good Christians, free from their sins, and happy in their conscience, already have the true hunger and thirst” (LC, pg. 104).

If you hunger and thirst for the forgiveness that comes from the gift of confession, to go a step deeper than the Corporate Confession and Forgiveness in Sunday morning worship, I invite you to call me to set up a time for a Individual Confession and Forgiveness.  We will walk together through a process to prepare you for this sacred rite of the Church.  And let us all receive and share this powerful gift given to us by Jesus Christ!