SUNDAY of the PASSION

Palm Sunday

April 17, 2011

Text: Philippians 2:5-11

Pastor Dale G. Bauer

This is a letter to my six confirmation students, who affirm their baptism at this service today. I can do this because letter writing to fellow followers of Christ Jesus is part of our heritage. It was, after all, Apostle Paul who wrote to many fellow Christians called churches.

So here I go.

Dear Friends in Christ:

So far, you’ve been working through your confirmation requirements. You’ve done a slug of sermon-listening sheets, eight hours of community and church service, learned the small catechism—and memorized parts of it. Depending on when you became part of our program, you’ve been studying Scripture and faith for up to three years. You have served as
acolytes and have been a regular member of our worshipping community. Worship is at the heart of what we do, where we joined with Christ Jesus as we hear his Word and share in the sacrament of the altar, Holy Communion.

Now the next step. Today, you will be asked to affirm publicly that Jesus Christ is your Lord. Apostle Paul puts it dramatically in—you guessed it—a letter:

Therefore God also highly exalted him, and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

When you affirm the Lordship of Christ, we lay hands on you. Laying on of hands stretches back to the distant past when the fathers of our faith passed on their gifts to their children, as Isaac did to his sons. As Moses did with Joshua, commissioning him to be the leader of the Hebrews into the Promised Land. As did Jesus who laid hands on children blessing them and laying on hands to heal the ill. Since the very birth of our faith, laying on of hands at baptism confers gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, insight, counsel, boldness, the presence of God, joy, and reverence for the God we worship. Proclaiming Jesus as Lord is the leap of faith that puts you into a deeper relationship with Christ. We believe that this relationship puts in your life things like peace, hope, and joy. These are things that your education, your relationships, and your accomplishments cannot achieve.

The other day I walked the west hallway, here at Cross of Hope, looking at more than twenty confirmation students. I know all of them by name. Some disappeared almost the day after their confirmation. Some hung around for a while and then moved on. Some of them are very much active in this congregation today, while others are active in other communities of faith. This doesn’t surprise me. One of the dynamics of growing up, which you are now doing, is to establish your own sense of identity, who you are. For some that is accomplished by pushing away from parents and their values. My parents sent me off to college as a Republican; I came home as a Democrat. (I’m not telling you what I am now.) Once you get out from under your parents’ thumbs and rules, you can do pretty much what you want. Church often becomes a casualty of your independence and your exploration of this great big world we live in. I also know that this thing called the church, and especially attending church, isn’t very cool. Lots of your friends don’t do it. And there is a growing trend for young adults to say that they believe in God, they are spiritual, but aren’t part of something as irrelevant as religion, especially as it is practiced in the church. I mean, church has so many rules, people who say one thing and do another, worship that hauls practices from ancient times into the present. Who would want to be part of that?

But don’t be fooled. It is impossible, I believe, for you to be Christian without the church. Across my desk comes a flood of articles about how to keep you in church, to focus on your needs, to entertain you, and abandon what has been passed down by our Forefathers and Mothers. The church is always in need of reforming, but its core is from Christ himself and has been passed on from generation to generation. There is a lot of bogus spirituality out there. Besides, shouldn’t the church be different than the rest of your life, the frantic and frenetic world you live in? A place of the enduring rather than the immediate? Shouldn’tit remind you of your sin, call you to repentance, and then help you live life in Christ, which is reflected by your love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control?

Never forget that the people here, at Cross of Hope, need you. They are your brothers and sisters in Christ. They need your prayers, your leadership, your ideas, your questions, and your presence. If you want Cross of Hope to be faithful, it will come largely by your efforts. You can’t lead us if you are not here.

You are now on stepping out in faith as adult members of this congregation. It is by your actions that people will know that you love and follow Jesus. Remember, it was he who said that his disciples are known by their love for each other.

Thank you for the years of hard work and thank you for this year in eighth-grade confirmation. I—we—hope that you have come to know a loving God in Christ Jesus and will be his forever. And that you are always welcome with open arms here, at Cross of Hope.

Yours,

Pastor Dale