Confirmation Sunday - Fifth Sunday of Easter
May 6, 2012 - Pastor Adam Moline
Acts 8:26-40 1 John 4:1-21 John 15:1-8
He is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Amen! Our text today comes from
the Gospel lesson just read, especially these words, “Whoever abides in me and
I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” Thus far our text.
Dear friends in
Christ, especially our confirmands today.
Today we celebrate confirmation.
Today we celebrate the bold public confession that two young people from
our parish make, that they believe in Jesus and would rather be killed, that
they would rather die than renounce their faith. It’s a huge promise. It’s a bold promise, with years of Sunday
School and years of confirmation study leading up to this day. It’s a difficult promise to make, especially
in this day and age, when faith is laughed at, ridiculed, and often forgotten. It’s
a promise made here in the very presence of God. And dear friends, it is a promise that all of
you who are confirmed have made as well.
In a few minutes
we will turn to page 273 in your hymnal and ask these questions. Do you intend to live according to the Word
of God , and in faith, word and deed to remain true to God, Father Son and Holy
Spirit, even to death? Do you intend to
continue steadfast in this confession and Church, and to suffer all even death,
rather than fall away from it? Do you
intend to hear the Word of God and receive the Lord’s Supper faithfully? In other words will you come to church
regularly? Will you participate? Will you give to the church of your time and
talents? And will you continue to do
this – whatever the circumstances – until at last your life comes to its end?
Today,
(Betsy/Theresia) will make this promise.
And many of you have made this same promise. So how well have you done? How well will you do? Have you kept your promise to God? And I don’t mean just a little bit, or even 99%
of the time, have you kept your promise completely and totally? And will you, young confirmand, will you keep
it as well?
I am the vine, and
you are the branches. Whoever abides in
me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do
nothing. You promise today to be a
faithful branch, to remain connected to the vine, to bear fruit in this church,
and in every part of your life forever more.
We make that promise, and then we forget about it. We move on with our life, we “graduate” from
church and have more important things to do with our time.
We don’t have time
to serve on a church committee or board.
We don’t have extra money to give to our church. The world offers us all sorts of other
activities to do on Sunday mornings – many of them important no doubt, many of
them maybe even more fun than church. We
can’t seem to find just one hour, maybe an hour and a half if the sermon is long,
to come to church. We become dead
branches. We don’t bear the fruit we
promise in our confirmation. We are cut
off from the church and as our text says, deserving to be burned in the eternal fire. Because
of your sin, you are a dead branch.
But today, on
confirmation day, Christ speaks to you, and as the text says, “you are already clean because of the word I
have spoken to you.” And the word
that Christ speaks to each one of you confirmands, both past and present, is
this: “God is love. In
this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only
Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved
God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for
our sins.”
God loves you dear
confirmands. He knows that you have
sinned, and still he has sent his only Son into the world to die on your
behalf. He takes your sin away. He rescues you from sin death and the
devil. He purchases and wins you as his
own, not with gold and silver, but with his holy precious blood, and innocent
suffering and death. He delivers you
from evil, calls you by the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, and now will
sanctify and keep you in the true faith.
And he does it all because of his love for you.
Dear confirmands,
you are grafted back onto the vine. He
takes you a dead branch, and firmly reattaches you to himself, using his own
blood shed for sin as the glue. He sends
eternal life coursing through your veins, raising you to life in baptismal
waters. He feeds you with his own body
and blood, so that you can blossom and grow in the true faith and so that you
can bear much fruit in service to your neighbor. And all of this he does only out of his
divine goodness and mercy, without and worthiness or merit in you at all. That’s his love. And it is for you, you dead branch, so that
you might become alive once more, and this time forever.
Dear friends, that’s
our confession of faith. That’s what the
catechism says because that is exactly what scripture says. You poor sinner are rescued because Jesus
loved you and give his life for you.
Today is not really about you at all.
It’s not really about what you are promising to do for God, it isn’t
about what you should do or worse what you have failed to do. Its about what Christ has done. He created you. He baptized you into his own Triune
Name. He brought you here today, and he
will be with you as you go throughout the rest of your life.
He will guard and
keep you in the one true faith as you grow older. He’ll be with you as you leave for
college. He’ll be there when you finally
get married. He’ll serve you as your
hair turns gray and as your body slowly falls apart. He promises.
And dear friends, he will raise you from the dead to serve him in
everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as He is risen from
the dead and lives and reigns to all eternity.
“I am the vine,” Jesus says “and you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is
that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing… If you abide in
me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done
for you. By this my Father is glorified,
that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. ”
Dear friends, dear
confirmands both young and old, both this years and those from years gone by, today is
Confirmation Day. Today is the day for
promises, promises made by God, sealed by Jesus’ blood, and given to you freely
by your gracious and loving God. You have overcome the world, for he who
promises to dwell with in you in greater than the world. You are dead branches who are made alive again in Christ. Amen.
