I’m going to make an assumption here: like me, you have sinned. Are we all in the same boat? Got it. 

I also assume that you, like me, have sometimes sinned on purpose. Like, you knew what you were doing, you knew it was wrong, and you did it anyway. Hopefully, that hasn’t happened often or lately, but I assume it has happened.

Here’s one more: I’m guessing that you, like me, have sometimes sinned… and didn’t realize some of the effects of that sin until later. You know, you gossiped about someone and then later found out that what you said got back to the person in question, and then you had some ‘splainin’ (and hopefully apologizin’) to do. Or you got super angry and broke something that belonged to someone else, and then it turned out that the item you broke was something sentimental and impossible to replace. Know what I mean?

On a recent Sunday morning in worship, our worship minister led us through a time of confession, based on Psalm 51. As our leader reminded us, confession is a deeply important but sometimes challenging thing for us. Some of us have been in worship settings where confession of sin was used as a weapon, causing more painful shame than helpful guilt. Others of us have been in contexts where confession was neglected out of a desire to focus on “celebrating Jesus” and wanting to “avoid the negative.” At other times, we have hesitated to emphasize confession for a theological reason: if Jesus has truly washed our sins away (1 Corinthians 6:11), if the slate has truly been wiped clean (Romans 3:21-26), if God has indeed put our transgressions away from us as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:8-12), then what is the point of naming them out loud? Why confess our sins at all if they have already been forgiven?

There are a number of answers to this question; I’ll name three, focusing on one of them. First, studies show that confession is good for us at a human level. Even if everyone knows the truth, it is still important that we name that truth and take responsibility for our part in it. (And by the way, this is the New Testament connection between “confessing” sin and “professing” faith; they both translate the same Greek word that means “saying the same thing.”) 

Second, confession of sin is a practice that the church has engaged in for basically all 2,000 years of our existence. Two texts from the first hundred years after Jesus’s resurrection confirm its antiquity: 1 Clement 51-52 talks about confessing our sins to God, and the Didache 14 tells us to confess our sins “in the assembly.” It would be arrogant of us to assume that we know better than our ancestors in the faith, especially those closest to the apostles in life and spirit, and so we might want to follow their practices!

But the third reason is the one that pricked my heart that morning during worship: we can never know the full effect of our sins. If I am the gossip whose words get back to the victim, I can apologize for my words, but I may never know precisely how much they hurt the other person, how much they confirmed the lies that the Enemy might have been speaking to them, or how much they affected that person’s view of me, or my family, or teachers or preachers, or Christians, etc. If I am the angry one who broke someone else’s possessions, I can apologize and try to make some semblance of restitution, but I may never know whether the other person came from a family with a history of violent anger, whether they are confirmed in their opinion that my violence was actually appropriate (even if what was broken was unfortunate), or whether they will now repeat what they have seen from me.

As a parent of adolescents, these thoughts often cross my mind. Of course, I am imperfect—often very much so. My sinfulness is not just private, or in my mind, or when I am alone; sometimes it comes toward or in the presence of my children. And I can and do apologize, I try to repent, and I try to talk openly about how my sin may have hurt them. But as we know, humans don’t always like to talk about how they have been hurt, so they may not want to talk about it. Further, it is obvious to me that my children are and have been affected by my actions, whether or not they themselves are aware of it. 

Perhaps this is one of the reasons for Jesus’s statement on the cross in Luke 23:34: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” The religious leaders and Romans thought they knew what they were doing: crucifying someone, getting rid of a problematic street preacher, helping keep the peace, etc. Of course, one thing they didn’t know was that they were crucifying the actual Messiah! 

But what else did they not know? They could not know the depth of despair they would cause the disciples (see the beginning of the “walk to Emmaus” story in the very next chapter), and they could not know the level of guilt that would be produced in Judas (Matthew 27:5). To put it bluntly: they could not know that their actions would literally change the world.

What do I not know about my sin? Every time I sin, it is like a rock that is thrown into the middle of a body of water. A pebble makes small ripples, while a boulder makes big ones. My sin may not seem to be an undersea earthquake that causes a tsunami… but the ripples are undeniable, and it is impossible for me to see them all.

If you’re in this boat with me, let’s take action and work on this. Let’s not deny our sinfulness but be willing to name it, so that we can make it right and try to repent. Let’s talk about our sins specifically—perhaps with discretion, and certainly with a wise spiritual friend—so that we may hear again the good news of God’s forgiveness and turn away from those sins. Let’s talk to the Lord when we are tempted, confessing the reality of our weakness and asking for help, not turning away in shame or seeking to hide. 

These things will help us, as I heard in my preacher’s text on that recent Sunday, to rend our hearts and not just our garments, returning to the Lord our God who is compassionate and gracious (Joel 2:13). It will help us to throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles us, running with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith (Hebrews 12:1-2). It will help us to build our house on the rock (Matthew 7:24-27).