Confession and healing
by Pastor Fraser Pearce
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Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed (James 5:16).
Our Lord Jesus has taught us to pray, ‘Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us’. Every time take these words on our lips, we all confess we have sinned. Every time we pray the Lord’s prayer, we also grow in our understanding that our freedom to forgive others comes from the forgiveness we have first received from God in Jesus’ name.
In our reading today, St James encourages us to confess our sins to one another. He encourages us to be real with ourselves and others, admit when we have made mistakes, and speak the truth about the wrong and hurtful things we have said and done to other people.
The point of confessing our sins to one another is not to make us feel bad or ashamed and other people embarrassed. The crux is that through confessing our sins, healing comes.
When we hurt someone, we often want to avoid them: we don’t want to be in the same room or even make eye contact. We can even so much as want to avoid the fellow Christians we have hurt that we stop going to church. This can lead to spiritual sickness – even physical sickness – as we try on our own and away from the community of God’s people to deal with guilt and anxiety.
As we confess our sins to each other, we take the path of healing. We come back into each other’s presence. We speak as people who have been forgiven by God and are free to forgive each other. We experience that God does not want to humiliate us or others because of our sins but lift us up into restored relationships with each other and make us strong in body and soul to life eternal.
Thank you, Father, that you forgive us and heal us. Please give us your Holy Spirit so that we may confess our sins to each other and grow together in love as your people. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Fraser Pearce is pastor at Bethlehem Lutheran Church, Flinders Street, Adelaide. He grew up in Sydney, where he attended St Mark’s Lutheran Church, Epping. He was ordained in 1997 and served at St Paul’s Box Hill, Victoria, and Bethlehem Lutheran Church, Bendigo, Victoria. Fraser has been married to his wife, Margaret, since 1995, and they have four children.
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