Jeremiah 31:31-34
Psalm 46
Romans 3:19-28
John 8:31-36
Well, Joshua and Trevor are being confirmed today. Who here remembers their own confirmation? How do you feel about it? I know that when I remember my own confirmation, it’s always with a mix of pride and guilt. I’m proud that I was confirmed, but at the same time, I feel a little guilty about the whole thing. I mean, I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I took my confirmation as seriously as I could have, or even should have. I didn’t really know what the big deal was. My family was excited, and I got presents, and we all went out for a nice lunch afterwards, but the whole faith thing, well, I was a little bit iffy about that. I didn’t know for sure whether or not I believed that God created the world; I didn’t really understand what it meant that Jesus died to free us from our sins. I had a few misgivings about getting up in front of the whole congregation and pretending that I was making some grand choice to follow Christ when in fact I was just doing it to make my family happy. I kind of wish that I had done confirmation a few years later, when I understood more, and when I knew more.
I sometimes feel the same way about being baptized as a baby. Once when I was about 20, I was on a bus and the guy sitting next to me asked me if had been "born again." I knew what he was asking - he was asking if I had "made a personal decision to follow Jesus as my Lord and Saviour" and so I felt a little inadequate when I had to say, "Well, I was baptized as a baby." That answer just didn’t seem as powerful or mean as much as saying, "Yes, I made that personal choice. I chose Jesus." But I couldn’t say that at any point in my life I actually had made that choice, or said those words. Even now, there are times when I kind of wish I had been baptized as an adult, in the river Jordan or something, where I could say, "Yes, I chose to do that. I chose to do something righteous." Sometimes my infant baptism and my half-hearted teenage confirmation seem somewhat inadequate. They seem to somehow fall short of what Christian righteousness is all about. They seem to "fall short of the glory of God."
That shouldn’t be a surprise, though. Of course they do. As Paul reminds us in today’s letter, everything we do falls short of the glory of God. Our baptism as babies or our baptism as adults, whether we’re confirmed knowing exactly what we’re going into or whether we’re just going through the motions, it all falls short. Although we like to think we get credit for trying our best, even our best falls short of what God demands of us: perfection. And don’t we know it? Sure, we go to church, and we attend Bible study, and we pray regularly - when anybody asks us if we’re good Christians, we say, "Well, yes, I think so." We’re the descendants of Abraham, so to speak. Most of us have come from a long heritage of Christians - naturally we expect to get credit for our Christian background. And yet despite all of those efforts, all of those advantages, there’s that nagging feeling that we’re not measuring up. That somehow we’re inadequate. We know, rightfully, that we’re not good enough. As Paul so eloquently puts it, we know that "no human being will be justified in God’s sight."
How lucky we are, then, that Paul follows that up with, "since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." We’re more than lucky, actually. We’re graced, we’re gifted, we’re justified, we’re redeemed. We finally measure up to the law that God "has placed in our hearts," as Jeremiah puts it, not by any of our own sincere efforts or informed choices or well-meaning actions, but solely because of Christ. Only because his efforts were enough, his choices perfect, only because his actions actually measured up is God able to overlook our shortcomings. Only because God sent Jesus Christ to die for us, only because the Holy Spirit brought us to be baptized, as infants or adults, are we able to share in that death, and the resurrection that followed, making us able to claim the righteousness and perfection and forgiveness that belongs to Christ alone.
So, in fact, being confirmed as a teenager when you don’t quite get it, standing up and professing your faith when you’re not sure if you should be, shows a good deal more faith than you would think. Allowing yourself to be content with your baptism as a baby and not claiming personal responsibility for being "born again" shows a good deal more faith than you would think. You see, it takes a good deal of faith to throw yourself on the mercy of God and to trust that it really is Christ who saves you and not the strength of your decisions or the conviction of your promises. That it is, in fact, God who has brought you to be confirmed as unprepared as you are, or to be baptized as immature as you are. That it is the Holy Spirit who stands beside you and makes those confirmation promises with you, who enters you and makes that baptismal commitment for you. It takes a good deal of faith to agree with Paul’s words - "What becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law? By the law of works? No, but by the law of faith."
So it’s an interesting twist, isn’t it, that those who seem to be weakest in their faith, because they didn’t fully believe in their confirmation or because the decision to be baptized was made for them, should end up being the ones who are actually strongest in their faith. That’s not to say that those who were baptized as adults have weak faith - the Holy Spirit brought them to make that decision just as the Holy Spirit brought the baby’s parents to bring their baby to baptism. But it’s interesting that those who end up being the strongest in their faith have done the least to deserve it. But that’s the point - because the ones who deserve it the least are the ones who need most to rely on Christ. "For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law." And that’s what God wants. God wants us to rely on - to put our faith in Christ - not in ourselves. That, in a nutshell, is what Luther struggled to remind the Christians around him of. That’s why we baptize people when they’re incapable infants. That’s why we ask uncertain teenagers to go through confirmation.
So, please, have no regrets if you were baptized as a baby, or if you went through - or are about to go through - confirmation without really getting it. Have no regrets about having made decisions that turned out to be imperfect. These things serve to drive you to Christ, who achieves your perfection, who secures your righteousness, and who brings you all measured up before God. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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