Writers explore it.  Psychologists study it.  Prosecutors lean on it.  And preachers encourage it.  We all acknowledge it is real.  While the consensus of mental health professionals is that it is a form of compulsive behavior, surely the ‘urge to confess’ is much more than that. 

Unless you are a nihilist, you must acknowledge that guilt and shame are real, that they are more than cultural conditioning.  After all, guilt is universally observed and universally experienced.  And we all seem to intuitively know that confession is the first step in unloading its crippling burden. 

The Biblical word we translate ‘confession’ literally means to ‘agree with.’  Relief from guilt begins with ‘agreement’ that we have done what is wrong or failed to do what is right.  And that in doing or failing to do, we have wronged both God and man and must seek forgiveness.   But forgiveness requires more than a sinner’s agreement that he has sinned. More than mere repentance.  For if God is unwilling to forgive, our confession provides no relief from our crushing guilt or shame.  In fact, it only aggravates it.

While there is some mild release from getting things off our chest.  Such confession is cold comfort in the face of all the heavy temporal and eternal consequences each sin unleashes.  Another confession is needed.  A confession of faith.  A confession that rests completely upon the person and work of Christ as the only and sufficient savior of sinners. That is the urge to confess that makes the difference and unties the knots our sin has securely fastened.

The Bible tells us that if we “confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised him from the dead we will be saved.”   But this confession is more than “magic words.”  It is no mere orthodox mantra conjuring a spiritual forcefield to shelter us from the righteous judgement of a Holy God.  Faithful confession flows from a Spirit-enabled ability to embrace the person and work of Jesus Christ as he is freely offered to us in the gospel.  Not as we imagine or desire that he might be.

The ‘Elephant in the room’ of Mark’s gospel is the question, “Who is Jesus?”  Is he a mere prophet? A reincarnation of John the Baptist?  A returning Elijah?  Or a new Moses?  Or is he a demon-possessed, anti-establishment rabble-rouser?  A political rebel?  Just who is he?  Until halfway through the gospel, only demons seem to know. 

The most religious of men are insensible.  The crowds more and more inflamed.  While the disciples are becoming dull and duller.  But apart from the effective working of the Holy Spirit, we are all equally incapable of understanding the person and work of Jesus, freely offered to us.

In Mark 8, following the progressive healing of a blind man, Jesus leads his spiritually blinded disciples to Caesarea Philippi and to spiritual clarity.  He asks.

And on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And they told him, “John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.” And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.” –Mark 8:27-30

The language of Jesus’ second question is emphatic and direct.  “But you, who am I to you?”   The disciples are beginning to understand, but like the blind man, they need a further revealing touch from their Master to understand fully who he is and who he is calling them to be.  How do you answer Jesus’ question?  For his question is no less for us than for the crowds of Caesarea Philippi.  Is he the Jesus of our imagination or our felt need?  Or is he the Jesus freely offered to us in the gospel?

Join us as we examine Mark 8:27-9:1 and consider what it means to us and for us that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. We meet Sundays at 10:30 am on the square in Pottsville, Arkansas right next to historic Potts’ Inn for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube.