Last week we looked at the message that was given to the women who came to the empty tomb after Jesus had risen from the dead. We looked at the implications of the empty tomb, the fulfilled promises, and the command to go and tell. Today, I want to continue the conversation about the implications of the Gospel message, though in a slightly different way. I’d like to look at how the resurrection impacts the way we relate to each other.
(I John 1:1-2) The author of John starts this letter by proclaiming the good news about the “Word of Life.” He states that it is what the apostles have been testifying about. Jesus had appeared to them, before and after death, and had spoken with them. But then the author goes and answers a more important question: “Why tell us this?” (vv. 3-4) The apostles had been going through the different areas proclaiming the message of the risen Christ at great peril. Several of them had given their lives for this cause; others would be required to do so later. But why do this? “So that you may have fellowship with us.” The apostles wanted the early believers to be in fellowship with them, and also with the Father and the Son. They knew that only then would their joy be made complete.
As we had our communion service two weeks ago, I was thinking a lot about the fellowship and community that we have been called into. I thought about how the early church not only believed this notion, but also how they completely lived it out in their lives. (see Acts: 4:32-35 as an example) And as I reflected on that passage, I couldn’t help but think about how much we romanticize the early church. We like to think of them as a close-knit bunch who settled arguments quickly and lived in harmony. Many people today bemoan the fact that we will never have that type of fellowship that the early church displayed. But the early church wasn’t perfect either. If you read through chapter 2, you’ll see that they had faults of their own. They had people who claimed belief in God but didn’t live by those beliefs. Others claimed to love God, but then had hatred toward other believers. Others were hampered by a love of the world. Still others turned their back on the church altogether and went out to do their own thing.
The point that I’m trying to make here is that the early church was not perfect, as Acts might have us believe. They had flaws that needed correcting, which was why this letter was sent out. We do not know who the original recipients of the letter were – unlike Paul’s letters, nobody is named. But this letter offers us remedies to overcoming the barriers that keep us from being in fellowship with one another. One such remedy comes in the form of confession.
There’s a story about Mark Twain that talks about one time when he was on vacation for three weeks in Maine, and then headed home on the train to New York. As he was making himself comfortable, he struck up a conversation with another passenger. The man asked him if he had been in the woods. Twain replied, “I have indeed, and let me tell you something: It may be closed for fishing up here in Maine, but I have a couple hundred pounds of the finest rock bass you ever saw iced down in the baggage car. By the way, who are you, sir?” The man replied, “I’m the state game warden. Who are you?” Twain answered, “Pleased to meet you. Who am I? Only the biggest liar in these United States.” Just like Twain, we often get uncomfortable about confessing our wrongdoings.
What’s the one thing you’ve done that nobody else can ever know about? The mere thought inspires a hard swallow and a pounding heart. Rest at ease. There are now quick and convenient, anonymous and even aesthetic ways to deal with those nagging sins of yours: cyberspace confessions. Think of it as an online confessional booth. If you have sin in your life and you don’t want to confess it to somebody, you can go to one of these websites and post it there, and the slate will be wiped clean.
Or, if you’re more of the artistic type, there’s another web site (see www.PostSecret.com if you like, but be aware that you’ll see some unsavory images) that will allow you to send in a postcard that allows you to draw a picture of whatever sin it is that you need to confess. Just include a statement of the issue that you need to reveal, and it is required that you keep it anonymous. These mail-in confessions are then posted on this website where others can read about your transgressions. Here are some sample statements that were posted on this site: “I removed the book jackets from trashy novels so that I look more sophisticated. Sometimes at night I fantasize about what I’d wear to a loved one’s funeral. I wish my daughter loved me. People think I enjoy being alone, but I am lonely.”
A user comment from one of the web sites reads, “I love this Web site! It makes me feel like everything I’ve done is closer to human. I look forward to the new postings as they open up my eyes each time.” Hmm… So not only do we get to confess our sins anonymously, but we also hear and read about the sins of others, and feel better about ourselves. Sure, we’ve done some bad things, but hey, compared to everyone else, we’re all right!
With a mindset like this, it’s no wonder reality TV shows are thriving, or Desperate Housewives continues to have such high ratings. We love hearing about other people’s garbage! It entertains us and shocks us, but it also makes us feel better about ourselves! This is why supermarket tabloids continue to thrive – we love hearing about the latest scandals involving celebrities.
This is the picture of confession that the world offers us. But our Christian beliefs offer us something a little more real and a little more authentic. There is a false reality that we just don’t seem to like to talk about too much. Christians who worship a God who is light still carry around dark things (vv. 5-6). We carry around dark thoughts and emotions and actions. John offers a great analogy here: we can’t be in light and darkness at the same time. If you walk into a room with the lights on and look for a dark place, it will be the furthest distance away from the light source. Or it will be in a shadow; a dark place that is hidden from the light. When we fall short of thinking, feeling and acting in ways that reflect the perfection of God, we’re like darkness in a lit room. We’re far from God, and we’re hiding from God.
So what is the solution? (vv. 7-9) We are told to confess our sins if we are to be in right relationship with God. We Protestants tend to have a negative reaction to the word “confession.” We tend to view it as a Catholic practice whereby we go and confess our sins to a priest who then assures us that God forgives us. But I don’t think that’s what the author of this passage had in mind when he said to confess our sins. I believe that confession is vital to having a healthy relationship with God and with others.
John describes those who are not walking with Christ as those who are walking in the darkness. How do we come out of that darkness? We have to be willing to confess our sin to God! Confession allows us to come out of our hiding and creates a clean relationship with God. Why else would confessing our sin to God be necessary? After all, God is omniscient. He knows our every thought and our every deed, even before we think or do them. It’s not as though our confessions would be a startling revelation to Him. So why is it necessary? Confession is necessary because it allows us to try to close that gap between us and God that our sin has created. Christ has already taken the first step toward closing that gap through His death on the cross and His resurrection. (2:2) But it is up to us to respond to His initiative by confessing our sins and asking for His forgiveness.
I also believe it is vital that we confess our sins to each other. This might seem like a scary proposition for us to hear, but it is Scriptural. (James 5:16) Confessing our sins to each other can help us to walk in the light and restore us to fellowship with one another, as written in verse 7. I read an article in Christianity Today a few years back that really captures the essence of this message. It was about a group of students at Reed College in Oregon. Every year this college would have a renaissance festival that was basically an excuse to overindulge in drugs and alcohol. So this group of students somehow came up with the idea to set up a confessional booth in the middle of this fair. That sounds pretty bizarre, doesn’t it? Well, it gets stranger… The purpose of this booth wasn’t actually for people to confess their sins, but instead it became a place for the students to come and hear the confession of the Christians who ran it.
The Christians decided to confess and ask forgiveness for all of the horrible things that had been done under the guise of Christianity. They thought it would feel good to apologize, to apologize for the Crusades, for Columbus and the genocide committed in the Bahamas in the name of God, apologize for the missionaries who landed in Mexico and came up through the West slaughtering people in the name of Christ. They wanted to apologize for the many ways they had misrepresented the Lord. They could feel that they had betrayed the Lord by judging, by not being willing to love the people he had loved and only giving lip service to issues of human rights. They had spent so much time defending Christianity because they thought to admit that they had done any wrong was to discredit the religious system as a whole. But it isn’t a religious system; it is people following Christ. And the important thing to do, the right thing to do, was to apologize for getting in the way of Jesus.
The article went on to say that their outreach was well received. Their testimonies and confessions were met with tears and appreciation and overall healing. They found that many people had been hurt and had suffered from someone who had a faulty view of Christianity. Even though none of these students had been personally involved in that wounding, it was still powerful to the others that someone would take the time to apologize for the ways in which they had been wronged. (article available at http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2005/summer/4.62.html?start=1)
I share this story to illustrate the picture of the heart of confession that is found in this passage. Confession is not just about revealing our sins. As I mentioned earlier, we do not need to reveal our sins to God, because He already knows them. In the same way, the students at Reed College didn’t need someone to come and tell them that Christians are sinful and imperfect; they already knew that! Confession is about owning up to the reality that we are not able to follow Christ perfectly at all times. Confession isn’t an information transfer; it’s a relational healing.
Confession restores right relationship with God. When we say something we shouldn’t to a spouse or a friend, things are usually a little off-kilter until we go and apologize and seek forgiveness. Relationship is awkward when there is an offense between people. Relationship between God and His followers is no different when wrongs between them remain unrecognized and unreconciled. But confession restores our relationship with other Christians. Coming out of the darkness and into the light grants us fellowship with one another. Confession puts us back on the common ground of our identity in Christ, as His co-followers.
But how much do we hesitate when it comes to this radical concept? Pop psychology has a familiar phrase, “I’m ok, you’re ok, we’re all ok!” Everyone likes to appear as though they have everything all together. We don’t like to be wrong, and we definitely have trouble admitting when we’ve been wrong. We are more concerned with being right than we are with getting it right. But this idea of confession turns that on its head! As we confess our sins to each other and pray for each other, we begin to see that none of us has it all together. We see the hypocrisy that is present in verse 8 and verse 10, and we see the need of forgiveness that is present in verse 9.
And as we see this need, we will begin to confess our sins and seek forgiveness, both from God and from each other. But this can only happen if we will commit ourselves to being a close-knit fellowship of believers. This is the beauty that was spoken about in Psalm 133. And this is the problem I have with confessing your sins on a website. That type of confession is announcing your wrongs to an impersonal web site. True confession is ownership of wrongs both to a personal God and to caring people. Confessing sins online results in entertainment and amusement for others. True confession results in connection and relationship with others.
Is this type of relationship easy to obtain? Absolutely not. It takes time and an intentional effort to connect with people. However, it is definitely more rewarding and fulfilling to go through life with these types of authentic relationships. There is a story told about an elderly woman who was in line at the post office waiting to buy stamps. As the line was rather long, people were starting to get impatient. Another woman behind the elderly lady decided to “help her out” by letting her know that if all she was doing was buying stamps, she could go over to the machine to take care of her transaction. To which the elderly woman replied, “Yes, I could do that, but the machine wouldn’t ask me about my arthritis.” Indeed, it is easier to simply go through life and never try to connect with another person. But it is far less rewarding. It is also not life the way God intended for it to be. Our passage today reminds us that Jesus came so that we could have fellowship with Him and with one another. So as we leave here today, I challenge and encourage you to ask yourself what barriers are keeping you from knowing this type of fellowship, and then taking the first step to break down those barriers.
