"Forgiven!"

So…

Have you ever been forgiven?

Had to go and confess that you have done something or said something, or left something undone or unsaid, and now have had to admit you are at fault? 

It is hard, sometimes heartbreakingly hard!

We know we are guilty and so does the one we have to confess to. 

Even worse is having to confess our actions and words to someone who is blissfully unaware, but who we know now will be furious, hurt beyond words, feeling totally betrayed.

Yet, we have decided that we must confess, perhaps because our beloved is about to find out, or perhaps because we have figured out that our own souls will never be right until we speak the words of confession.

It is one of the reasons in the Reformed tradition, like in the Presbyterian church, we practice confession every week. 

At both 8:30am and 11:00am we take time to confess our sins, and we hear the words of forgiveness.

We say, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, God who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleans us from all unrighteousness. In humility and faith then, let us confess our sins to God in silence.”
We confess because confession is the first step in what may be a challenging righting of our relationship with others and with God.

Now, sometimes, forgiveness comes quickly. 

Sometimes it doesn’t come at all.

But it is our responsibility to confess, to fix the record, to speak the truth and to admit our own wrongs. Then perhaps others will forgive us, and then we can deal with that forgiveness.

Because accepting forgiveness is a thing in itself, isn’t it!

Intellectually understanding that we have been forgiven by someone we have egregiously wronged is never easy. 

Sometimes it is very hard to imagine that the forgiveness is real, especially since we have to admit to ourselves that we might not forgive another if they had hurt us the way we have hurt our spouses, friends, and relatives.

And understanding emotionally is a whole additional thing!

Jesus’ story of the Prodigal Son, as we discovered a few weeks ago, tells of a son who has come to his senses after having taken his inheritance and blowing it on “wild living” and goes home to confess - and a father whose love is amazing and forgiving - and an older brother who just doesn’t get it.

But there is something it really doesn’t speak about – about the younger son’s need to understand and accept that he is forgiven. 
Yes, he puts on the robe, the sandals and the ring. 
Yes, he accepts his father’s hug and the party with the fatted calf and the singing and dancing…

But there is so much more to process when you have been forgiven for so much, so much trust to rebuild, so much confidence that has been destroyed and must be reconstructed. 

Can’t you just image the younger son going to his father every single time he is asked to make a decision, to make sure that it is okay, that he really is a son once again, that he can speak for the family, that he really has been restored.

The father has forgiven him. He really is forgiven.

But living forgiven is hard.

Which is why each week after we confess our sins, the worship leader says these words or words like them, 

“Hear the good news! The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance that Christ Jesus entered the world to save sinners. He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, that we might be dead to sin and alive to all that is good. I declare to you that in the name of Jesus Christ you are forgiven.”

Words of grace and love that change everything!

We are not asked to carry a burden of guilt, a sense that we are less in anyway than the children of the great King, the Lord of Lords, our heavenly Father who has blessed us with the robe, the sandals and the ring!

We are forgiven!

So now, we are supposed to act like it! 

To everyday be the children of God!

And to extend the gift of forgiveness to this hurting world.

Do you understand?

Amen.