Word from Father Tom…
So, what does it “look like” when we confess our sins as Christians? Due to our western and heavily Protestant influence, most of us think of confession as a private matter between ourselves and God. However, as with the Creation of Adam and Eve, their disobedience, and their salvation as prescribed by Elohim-Yahweh (the Creator-Covenant God of Israel), personal actions always have pronounced communal repercussions.

Paul tells us in Romans that when Adam “sinned”, somehow, so did we. In the least, he is the symbol of our disobedience against God, but I believe Paul sees much more going on here in a mystical and relational way. The first human beings had a chance at getting and keeping things right with God relationally. When they sinned, we, and the rest of the created order, reaped the whirlwind (see Genesis 3 and Romans 5:12-15, Rom 8:18-25). This is why Christ comes back as the “new Adam” to represent us in his obedience, sacrifice, resurrection, and glorification. In a certain way of speaking, he undoes what Adam, Eve, and others got wrong. Thus, we see a communal context and starting point regarding our disobedience and redemption.

Similarly, the Covenant people see their sin, struggle, and redemption firstly as a WE thing. We are in this together, including the needs and sinfulness we still struggle with.

For anyone interested, I would enjoy walking personally with you through the different and varied texts in the Old and New Testaments, which support understanding the communal and personal nature of our confession and forgiveness.

How has the church confessed its sins together and privately over the years? We will begin to look at this more closely in our next article.

Fr. Tom

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