A reoccuring theme the last few days is the idea of confession. Confessing sins to one another is biblical. James 5:16 says, “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other that you may be healed.” That’s the motivation behind the song This Is Where The Healing Begins by Tenth Avenue North. Now we have to remember that James was the brother of Jesus… he grew up with the only perfect brother… ever. He saw Jesus day in and day out. He gets the whole holiness thing that Jesus had going on. It’s easy to think that James could be resentful… I mean, I would be if my brother were prefect. But we’re talking about Jesus, and part of being perfect means that he’s not prideful or pushing it in James face that he messed up… but he is honest about James’ shortcomings. James knew what it meant to confess to a loving brother.
So then I’m also reading Stuff Christians Like by Jonathan Acuff… which is a hilarious yet true book. While Jon is very satirical, you can tell that he is also deeply convicted by his relationship with God, especially near the end of the book. On particular thing that Christians apparently like is “confessing ‘safe sins’.” We love to confess the ‘easy’ sins (as if we could rank them as not so bad, a little worse, bad, pretty bad, and hell worthy). It makes us feel slightly better, and yet not too embarrassed. It’s as if we feel the need to show people we’re not perfect, but we don’t want them to know how dirty we are. Why? We are all broken. We are all dirty.
We’re like those little potbellied kids who have been rolling around in the dirt, covered in peanut butter & jelly, grass stains on our knees. And yet, we try to wash our hands before we get together for dinner and hide our dirty faces and clothes. Why don’t we come together with wash clothes and soap and help each other come clean? Why don’t we help each other take off our stained shirts and trade them in for the garments of Christ? Because that would make us vulnerable. Because it’s scary. Because we don’t know how hard the other person might have to scrub to get the dirt off if we let them. Because it might hurt a bit. Because it’s going to require a chance. I’m not sure I’m willing to do it.