By Charlie Fuller
There’s an interesting tradition in the English Boy Choir Schools. These are schools where young boys receive their education along with singing in cathedral choirs. As you would expect, the rehearsing and performing are extensive. There are hardly any worship services in those settings without a choir.
If you watch one of their rehearsals, you’ll see a singer here and a singer there pop their hand in the air and then bring it down. To the uninitiated it’s a puzzling thing to watch. Why do these seemingly random hands go up and down while they’re learning new music?
What’s happening is this: Each time a singer makes a mistake they raise their hand and then lower it. Why? It tells the conductor or teacher that the singer knows they’ve made a mistake. The first and most fundamental part of correcting an error is acknowledging that an error has been made.
That’s what confession is. It’s an acknowledgment that sin has occurred. We’ve made a mistake. Whether intentional or incidental, we’ve wronged someone else or wronged ourselves. We’ve done something we know we shouldn’t have, we’ve said something we shouldn’t have, we’ve held an attitude we shouldn’t have, etc.
Without confession, we continue in the same patterns that have failed us in the past. We fail to challenge our own way of being in the world and in so doing we remain trapped, unable to move forward in ways that are not only better for us, but better for everyone around us, including the ones we love.
We don’t like to confess. It’s not human nature. Even in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve weren’t looking to take responsibility; they were looking for someone else to blame.
Confession requires taking responsibility. But before that, it requires looking at our lives and seeing what’s there. What are we doing and thinking that needs some attention?
Let’s raise our hands today when we sin. If not to the world around us, at least to God. The first step to correcting our sin is to acknowledge that we’ve sinned.