One of the traditions that has been passed down through our church history is the confession of sins in the worship service. At our church, this prayer takes place early in the service. At times, I wish that I wouldn’t need to confess my sins because I hadn’t commited any since the last service, but I have never had that kind of week in my life! Sunday morning is a “worship service,” so how does a prayer for the confession of our sins contribute to the worship experince? And why is it the “doorway” to intimancy with the Father?
In Gen. 28:10-19, we find Jacob on the run from his own family. He had deceived his father Issac into giving him the blessing and inheriance of his brother Esau. One night, Jacob had a dream in which he heard God identify Himself as “the Lord God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants.” This is the first personal religious moment that the Bible records in Jacob’s life. Jacob awakes from his sleep, and proclaims this is a place where God dwells. He named the place Bethel, which means “The House of God.” The years that followed were not easy for Jacob. Even after Bethel, Jacob’s sinful traits of deception and manipulation were still present. Finally, in Genesis chapter 32, God breaks the stronghold in Jacob’s life, and restores his relationship with his brother. Jacob begins his journey back to Bethel. On the way, Jacob has the experience of seeing his sins duplicated in his sons. The result was the slaughter of all the men in a nearby village. In Chapter 35, Jacob declares to his family, “Let us arise and go up to Bethel,” but first, he had everything pagan in his family posessions removed and buried under the terebinth tree. In other words, Jacob was saying, “Before we come into God’s presence, we need to remove those things that aren’t of God from our lives. In a way, this action is much like our confession of sins at the beginning of the service. Each Sunday, we return to Bethel (the House of God) with the knowledge we need to get rid of the stuff that is not fitting of such a holy place.
But there is more to the story of Jacob’s visit to Bethel. After he builds an altar, he renamed the place as El Bethel, which means the God of the House of God. Jacob was saying that his spiritual jouney went beyond just going to a house dedicated to God; it is a journy to draw near to the God of the house. In our vocabuary, it’s not about just going to church, but rather going to church to draw near to God. It is in the act of confessing our sins and seeking the Father’s forgiveness that we draw near to El Bethel! Receiving the Father’s mercy and grace gives us the basic motivation to enter into worship of the “God of the House of God.”
En agape,
Fr. Mark
