This coming Sunday we will have “confirmation” for eleven young people. I know not all Christians practice this event, so I thought I might tell you a little bit about what it is and what it means.
The formal rite states, “Confirmation marks the completion of the congregation’s program of confirmation ministry, a three-year period of instruction in the Christian faith as confessed in the teachings of the Lutheran Church. These who have completed this program were made members of the Church in Baptism. Confirmation includes a public profession of the faith into which the candidates were baptized, thus underscoring God’s action in their Baptism.”
Here’s what that means. We Lutherans practice “infant baptism” with the conviction that God’s saving grace through Christ’s death and resurrection can be imparted into the heart of an infant child through the Water and The Word of Holy Baptism by the power of the Holy Spirit, which claims this child for the Lord and the Church.
But it is not a “one-and-done” scenario. In the act of baptism of infants, parents also promise the continuation of the event of baptism. The rite of baptism includes this extensive question.
The pastor asks the parents, “In Christian love you have presented this child for Holy Baptism. You should, therefore, faithfully bring her to the services of God’s house, and teach her the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments. As she grows in years, you should place in her hands the Holy Scriptures and provide for her instruction in the Christian faith, that living in the covenant of her Baptism and in communion with the Church, she may lead a godly life until the day of Jesus Christ. Do you promise to fulfill these obligations?”
And the parents respond, “We do.” This is a commitment with tremendous importance and responsibility.
So then what happens? The parents set out to fulfill these serious commitments to their child by doing everything they can to live out their own Christian faith and life in the presence of the child, so the child will see, hear, and catch The Faith as a natural, everyday experience.
Parents pray with their children, especially at mealtime and bedtime. Parents read Bible stories from Bible books designed for children with pictures to help children learn about Jesus. They will live out their faith in full fellowship and membership in a local congregation, making a relationship with Jesus as meaningful and natural as anything the child knows.
The church also becomes a vital part of the process. The pastor and congregation do all they can to show the love of Jesus to the children and tell them they are baptized children of God. Weekly Sunday School classes, a week of Vacation Bible School every summer, music and singing about the love of Jesus, and special ministries designed to connect children to their personal faith in Jesus are all part of the “journey of faith” for the children. Then we have special instructions for children ten years old to begin taking Holy Communion.
This brings us to caring for the spiritual lives of young people in middle school. It is through these three years that we offer specialized weekly instructions called “confirmation classes.” The students and their parents go through a thorough and intensive encounter with scriptures and biblical teaching.
Sixth graders study through the story of “salvation history” as it threads its way through the Old Testament.
Seventh graders study the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus as told in the four Gospel accounts.
Eighth graders delve into the ministry of St. Paul, the early church, and the life and influence of The Protestant Reformation and Martin Luther.
It is after these three years, and after a life-long experience of coming to understand The Faith and what happened to them in their baptism, that these young people stand in front of God and the congregation and “confirm” (thus “confirmation”) that they are baptized children of God and a true believer in Jesus as their own personal Lord and Savior.
This Sunday I will address the eleven “confirmands.” “Brothers and sisters in Christ: In Holy Baptism our Lord Jesus Christ received you and made you members of his church. In the community of God’s people, you have learned from his Word God’s loving purpose for you and all creation. You have been nourished at his holy table and called to be witnesses to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, therefore, I ask you to profess your faith in Christ Jesus, reject sin, and confess the faith of the church, the faith in which we baptize.”
In response each one will indeed boldly profess his or her own faith in Christ Jesus, declare their rejection of sin, and confess the faith of the church using the words of the Apostles’ Creed, which profoundly professes God as One, yet Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Wow. Powerful. I have said many times, an event involving young people as great as this is what should lead the six o’clock news. Amen.
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[Find Kollmeyer at www.princeofpeacefayette.org]
