Confidence in Confession
Vicarage/Deaconess Intern Placement Service
Ezekiel 34:11-16; 2 Tim. 1:8-14
April 26, 2021
Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, IN
Video of the service is available here. The sermon begins at 33:50.
Walking briskly through the hospital corridor, my thoughts were interrupted by the man calling out to me. “Father! Thank God you’re here. Right this way.” He told me they’d been waiting for hours for a priest to visit his dying wife. I explained that I’d be happy to visit, but he should know I’m a Lutheran pastor. “Just a minute,” he said, and disappeared into the room. After a hushed conversation, he came back out and said, “Close enough!” I knew what to do. These people needed to hear that Jesus had defeated death and brought life and immortality to light.
It’s places like the hospital where you find out if you have anything worth saying. I thought back to the time on vicarage when I sat in my car in the parking lot at Baptist Hospital in Oklahoma City for probably an hour, trying to muster the courage to go inside. It was my first solo hospital visit. “I’ll make a fool out of myself,” I thought. “I have no idea what I’m doing.”
I’d been a pretty good student (according to everybody except maybe Bill Weinrich). But now everything I knew seemed utterly inadequate. I figured I needed some sort of personal charisma to pull this off, and I was self-aware enough to know that I didn’t have any.
The journey between that first hospital visit and the random one with the RC family years later was a journey of confidence. Not self-confidence; just the opposite: confidence in the confession that has been entrusted to us. “Do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord.” It’s not your testimony; it’s the testimony. It’s not your personality, it’s the Person of Christ Jesus. We are not sufficient for these things, the Apostle says. But we’ve been given a confession. In the New Testament, to be ashamed and to confess are polar opposites:
Whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels. [Mk. 8:38]
Whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. [Mt. 10:32]
Confessing Jesus is your primary identity. Not as a vicar or a deaconess, but as a saint. You have nothing to give from yourself. These words are true for every Christian: “[He] saved us and called us to a holy calling.” That’s not the call to church work, it’s the call to be a disciple of Jesus. It is entirely “of his own purpose and grace.”
That foundational holy calling is why you became interested in a churchly vocation. Rest in that gift, rest in that grace. When people look to you for the answers, don’t give them charisma, give them charis, grace. When people demand creativity, point them instead to the Creator. When people want to worship the created things, point them instead to the sacramental gifts that affirm God’s creation.
Satan will tempt you. People will ridicule you, despise you – or if that doesn’t work, they will praise you. All of this will tempt you to be ashamed of God’s Word in such a way that you make it comfortable, convenient, popular.
So don’t worry about how to please those who want comfort and convenience. Go to the hospital, the funeral home, the homebound and the homeless. Among those who know the corruption of this fallen world are where you learn to announce the incorruptible One.
Tonight’s NT reading says that Christ “abolished death and brought life and immortality to light.” That’s true, but immortality doesn’t quite do the job. I like imperishability or incorruption better.
My church is inside the beltway of Washington, D.C., the city affectionately labeled “the swamp.” The previous guy was going to drain it, but it’s still there. The beauty of the term is it works on two levels. Same with corruption. The old things in the back of your fridge are corrupt, and so are the politicians.
So is your heart. The propaganda in The Washington Post is mild compared to the propaganda we peddle to and about ourselves. That corruption can hold us in bondage. St. Peter warns that this is the way of the false teacher:
When they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption. [2 Pt. 2:18f]
To the Coronavirus patient and the porn addict, in the cancer ward and the homes of the wealthy, we expose the corruption for what it is and announce to them the Christ who has brought His incorruptible Life into the world. You cannot bind up the wounds or recall the lost with your own gifts. All you have is to point to what you yourself have been promised: the divine power of Jesus,
by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. [2 Pt. 1.4]
The world is corrupt, but Christ is incorruptible. That’s the confidence you need for the task ahead.
The flesh is dying, but in Christ’s flesh is life.
Our words fail, but the Word of God accomplishes the thing for which it was sent.
So be not ashamed. Confess the testimony about the Lord Jesus. He is able to guard you and what is entrusted to you.
Jesus is Lord, and the demons are put to flight.
Christ has trampled down death by His death.
Be not anxious, for Christ is your Good Shepherd!
Be not afraid, for Christ is your light in every dark place.
The world is corrupt, but Christ is incorruptible.
Alleluia, Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia!