Brave

Scripture: The Fifth Sunday of Easter, A.D. 2014 A

Sermon:

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  AMEN.

This morning’s sermon is addressed to our confirmands.

Sam, Lacy, Tanner, Nathan, Sharnea—congratulations, one and all! You have successfully completed three years of catechetical instruction on Holy Scripture and the Christian faith. Today, at last, you come to your Confirmation. And none too soon, let me tell you, because we need you out there.

Confirmation is an ancient rite of the Church, stretching back to the Acts of the Apostles. We read in the Bible that, in those early days after Jesus’ Ascension into Heaven, a group of Samaritans had been baptized as Christians, yet had not received the fullness of the Holy Spirit. The Apostles Peter and John, leaders of the early Church, traveled north to investigate and there laid hands on the Samaritan converts, confirming the faith they had received and imparting to them a more perfect bond with Christ’s Church.

The Samaritans had already been baptized. They were already the recipients of Christ’s sure promise and full members of His Body the Church. The Apostles simply confirmed what God was already doing amongst the people, and this led to a special outpouring of the Spirit upon the faithful, in much the same way that the Spirit had been outpoured upon the Apostles at Pentecost.

Ever since that day some 2,000 years ago, Confirmation has been integral to our life as the people of God. When you were children, Christ chose you as His own and gave to you his sure, inviolable promise. Your parents spoke for you when you could not yet speak for yourselves, assenting to and cooperating in this astonishing gift both for you and on your behalf.

Now you have come of age; you have the years, the maturity, and the education to speak for yourselves. Confirmation is the sealing of our unbreakable baptismal covenant. It renders our bond with the Church more fully perfect. And on a purely practical level, it welcomes you as full voting members of this congregation and all the 10,000 congregations of the ELCA. Each of you has already received the Spirit of Christ. Now you will gain His special outpouring to strengthen you for your lives ahead.

In the early Church, Confirmation was the sole duty of the Apostles, and then of their successors the bishops. This guaranteed everyone a connection to the bishop. But since then, quite frankly, the Church has grown much larger, and so authority has been granted to your pastors for your Confirmation in the Holy Spirit. Christ breathed His Spirit upon the Apostles; they have passed this same Spirit on through the laying of hands down to this very day; and now we pass Him on to you in the same manner in which we inherited Him—as pure grace. You stand in a long line of witnesses, bridging every century and continent, every ethnicity and race, every conceivable talent and strength. You have been called out from the nations. You have been called to be God’s own.

Traditionally, Confirmation involves chrism: the anointing of your heads with oil. This is because oil, a sign of abundance and consecration, has symbolized the Holy Spirit Himself, as when you were sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the Cross of Christ forever in your Baptism. After the anointing and laying on of hands, the bishop would customarily bless each confirmand by saying, “Peace be with you,”—and then slapping you in the face! Didn’t see that coming, did you? Well, relax. In more recent times, the slap has been softened to a touch on the cheek.

Now why on earth would a bishop slap each confirmand in the face? It was the Church’s admonition to us to be brave! In Confirmation the Spirit grants to us many gifts, many strengths. He embraces us more deeply in divine filiation, that we may with confidence call out to God, “Abba! Father!” He unites us more firmly in Christ, from Whom the Spirit proceeds. He increases His many baptismal gifts in us: “the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord, the spirit of joy in God’s presence, both now and forever.”

All this grants to us a more perfect bond with the Church, the community of God’s people, and engenders within us a special strength, a boldness of word and action, that we may witness to Christ with power, and never stand ashamed of the Cross. Because of this strength, this supernatural courage, the Church Fathers spoke of Confirmation as making us “soldiers of Christ,” fully capable members of the Church Militant here on earth. And that means we have to be brave.

For indeed we are soldiers of Christ, practitioners of spiritual warfare—but spiritual warfare is a war against war, a battle against violence. We are called not to fight other men and women but to serve others as our neighbors, as our friends, as our beloved sisters and brothers. Christians are called out from the nations to be a holy people, a priestly nation, just as our Israelite forebears were called. We wage war not against human beings but against hatreds and prejudices, vices and wickedness. We wage charity and hope and faith. We wage everlasting peace.

That is why we need you; why the world needs you; why Christ needs you. We live in a broken society, a broken time. We live amongst people drowning in possessions that cannot satisfy. We live in a sea of information, all knowledge without any wisdom. Our culture exalts the cost of everything and the value of nothing. Our people are entertained, drugged, distracted, and seem to have everything in the world—except for meaning or purpose or a reason to go on living. Our battle cry is to go out there, as soldiers of Christ, and offer to a needy world the Goodness, Truth, and Beauty of God. We are to free our brothers and sisters from the shackles of egotism, ignorance, and affluence. We are called by Christ to make a difference; we are called by Christ to save the world.

You have everything that you need. You have the Holy Scriptures and Sacraments, through which God Himself enters your lives. You have the seasons and traditions of the Church to bring holiness and significance to the rhythm of each year and each day. You have the universal community of the Church, existing in every land and time, to support you and love you and welcome you home. And most of all, you have the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, to slay your vices, liberate you from sin, forgive you all your trespasses, and raise you up to new life, beginning now and stretching throughout eternity in the life to come. You are the soldiers of Christ, defenders of His Church. You are the living stones by which He builds His Temple for the world. You are holy.

These, then, are your marching orders: to love God above all and to love your neighbor as yourself; to serve the needy, give to the poor, and defend the defenseless; to constantly witness to the love of Jesus Christ by letting that love fill you up and overflow for all those around you; and to never give up, for there is no sin that cannot be forgiven, no loss that cannot be healed, no death that cannot be raised up from out the grave. Through you, my brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ will save the world. Truly I tell you, He already is.

All of this was imparted to you in your Baptism. Today these promises are confirmed.

Thanks be to Christ, Who strengthens us to serve. Go forth and wage peace. In Jesus’ Name. AMEN.