Confession—a proposal
Feb. 22, 2021
One of the first Sunday mornings we visited Park Avenue Church of Christ in Memphis, the first prayer was a prayer of confession. The preacher that morning had instructed the person leading the prayer to pray a prayer of confession, and then pause for everyone in the congregation to confess their sins to God silently. That made a huge impact on me. Imagine a church where everyone knew and confessed they were sinners! How humble. How honest.
In Scripture, God’s people are constantly turning away from him, but God constantly reaches out to them, calling them to return. This reaches its climax with Jesus—having had prophet after prophet rejected, God takes on flesh himself to call his people to return. Instead of listening, God’s people reject him. The rejection may start with the religious leaders, but when Jesus is arrested everyone flees. Everyone turned away from God.
How does that happen? How do the people who see Jesus heal the sick, give sight to the blind, feed the hungry, and even raise the dead, go from fawning over him to abandoning him? Or how can the people who have dedicated their lives to studying the Scriptures be the ones who put the Word become flesh to death? And if they did that, what’s to stop us from doing the same?
I suggest the problem is hardness of heart, and a solution is confession. Jesus routinely criticizes the Pharisees for hypocrisy and pride, a heady and heart-hardening mix that feeds into self-righteousness and spiritual blindness. Instead of humbly confessing their sins, they proudly proclaimed their righteousness, not recognizing the interior decay in their spirits.
I think the church needs to pray prayers of confession more often. Studying God’s word is important, but even the Pharisees did that. Study by itself doesn’t lead to godliness if the heart is hard and the ears are closed. But the Pharisees were blind to their own hardness of heart, and we may very well be, too. We need to remind ourselves that we are sinners and that our hearts may well be hard, to ask God to forgive us, and to plead with God to soften our hearts. If you, like me, struggle to know where to start, I offer this prayer:
Almighty and most merciful Father; We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; And there is no health in us. But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare thou those, O God, who confess their faults. Restore thou those who are penitent; According to thy promises declared unto mankind In Christ Jesus our Lord. And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake; That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, To the glory of thy holy Name. Amen.
—John Coffey
