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“Little children, let no one deceive you.”
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from our Lord and our Savior, Jesus the Christ.
Well, here we are. All of you here made it through this year. You all survived through all of the class sessions, all of the tests, all of the quizzes, all of the projects, all of the memorization, and you all survived my first year here with you. Which is no small feat I might add.
But now … I have you all together as a group for one last time.
So I have a question for you. And that question is … “What is confirmation?” Well if we quote Luther’s Small Catechism, it says, “Confirmation is a public rite of the church preceded by a period of instruction designed to help baptized Christians identify with the life and mission of the Christian community. The rite of Confirmation provides an opportunity for the individual Christian, relying on God’s promise given in Holy Baptism, to make a personal public confession of the faith and a lifelong pledge of fidelity to Christ.”
That’s a lot to swallow, isn’t it? But let’s talk about what we discussed in class first. One of the biggest things that we talked about in class were the six chief parts … The Ten Commandments, The Lord’s Prayer, The Creed, Confession, and the two sacraments, Baptism and the other being what you’ll all be taking part in in a minute, The Lord’s Supper.
But that’s not all that we talked about, is it? We talked about prayer. We talked about whether animals go to heaven or not. We talked about other denominations. And we also talked a good bit about cults and other non-Christian religions. And in fact, there were a whole host of other things that we talked about this past year.
I want take a moment here and switch gears for a little bit and share an online editorial that I read this past week. The title of this editorial was, “Old Wives Tales: Fact or Fiction?” This is what the editorial said.
“As a child, I was constantly encouraged to eat the crusts of my bread because they supposedly made my hair curly. Well I refused, because my hair was already curlier than anyone else’s, and after being crust-o-phobic my whole life, my hair’s still as curly as ever. Chalk that old wives’ tale up to myth.”
“Who exactly are these old wives, and why do they seem to have an opinion about everything? Before modern medicine and technology, women were the keepers of medical information. They delivered babies, healed the sick, and were considered experts in nutrition, children, folk medicine, herbs, and death. The “old wives” of these tales were most likely just wise village women—grandmothers, mothers, midwives, and healers. Perhaps once rooted in truth, now old wives’ tales are synonymous with unsubstantiated traditional beliefs and urban legends. They exist for everything from health to pregnancy to forecasting the weather. Some old wives’ tales are just silly superstitions, but some may just have a nugget of truth.”
The author then goes on to list and talk about some of these “old wives” tales, “swallowed gum takes up to seven years to digest, if you pluck a grey hair, two more will grow back in their place, touching toads will give you warts, don’t swim for an hour after eating or you’ll cramp up and chocolate will give you acne.”
The author then finishes the article by saying this, “Even though many old wives’ tales have been debunked as superstitious myth, their origins as folk medicine remain important. Luckily, we know that we don’t have to be so superstitious. Go ahead, have a candy bar, take a dip in the pool, and pick up some toads. I’ll keep avoiding bread crusts, though. You can never be too careful.”
Old wives tales. So what do they have to do with anything? And more importantly, what to they have to do with you today. This day being the day that you confirm your beliefs.
Well, remember the reading from 1 John 3 that we heard just a little bit ago? Let me refresh you memory a little as to what it said. “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.” “Little children, let no one deceive you.”
“Little children, let no one deceive you.” Now let me just preface this by saying that I am not calling any of you a little child. However, God is calling us His little children. What a huge thing it is, for our heavenly Father to call us His children. Not just children … but His children.
There are so many other beliefs and belief systems out there. Some of them sound pretty similar to what we believe. And then, there are some out there … which sound as if they are straight out of a science fiction novel. And one in particular actually is.
But once again … what’s the point? Well, in just a little bit, you, as a class, will be confirming your faith. Confirming your faith to God and to the whole church.
Confirmation class is what I like to call a Christian “growth spurt.” There were so many things this past year which were new to you. With many of you, one of the things that several of you mentioned in various ways, was how prior to confirmation, you hadn’t realized that things like The Lord’s Prayer and the Creed aren’t just rituals and traditions that the church does and says. Some of you may have even thought that they were just empty words
The fact is, that they do have real meaning. And not just to the church as a group but to each and every one of you personally.
“Little children, let no one deceive you.”
So once again … what is the point? What is the point of confirmation? What is the point of this sermon? Well if God’s charge to you is to “let no one deceive you,” then this past year, this Christian “growth spurt,” that you all went through …hopefully has put you well on your way.
Well on your way to a closer understanding of your relationship with God. Well on your way to seeking a closer relationship with Christ who loves you so much that He paid for your sins with His very life. Well on your way to understanding that what is in the Bible isn’t a bunch of rules and stories, but rather God’s love letter to all of us.
My hope for you … my prayer for you … is that each and every one of you continues to seek out that relationship with God. And that your passion for Him would grow and become an unquenchable fire, so that no one would be able to deceive you.
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.
-Amen
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