The vision of God

Very few people have ever seen God during their life on earth.  Isaiah the prophet was one of them, and the sight of God had the same effect on him that it has always had on all those who have seen him.

One day, when he was a young man, he was attending a service in the Temple at Jerusalem, and as he watched the smoke of the incense rising from the altar, the walls and the roof of the Temple and everything around him seemed to fade away.  The great cloud of smoke opened and he found himself looking at the Lord God sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up.  As soon as Isaiah looked at him, he realised that he was totally unfit to be in the presence of the all-holy God.  “Woe is me!” he said, “I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” (NRSV, Isaiah 6:1-5).

Sin and confession

That is exactly how you and I would feel if we could see God now.  Our sins – all the wrong and nasty things we think and say and do – make us totally unfit to approach God.  When we sin we are working for the Devil, the Lord of Evil, and are in rebellion against God.  That is why, when we approach God in worship or prayer, we confess or own up to our sins.  We do this, not because God does not know about them – he saw us commit them – but in order to show him that we want to have nothing more to do with them.  We say, as it were, “In the past I have done this and this and this, but now I hate those things and have finished with them”.

If we refused to confess our sins, it would show that we liked them and were still on the Devil’s side.

General and particular confession

General confession

In the public services of the Church we make a general confession.  We all say it together and we tell God that we have done wrong and are not fit to approach him.  We do not mention particular sins out loud but sometimes the priest may have a brief silence before the confession so that in our minds we may recall our personal sins.

At the beginning of the Eucharist we make a general confession and Evensong also begins with a general confession.  Interestingly, if you look in the Prayer Book after the Psalms, you will find a section called, ‘Forms of Prayer to be used at Sea’.  Here it states that on board ship in a storm or before a sea battle, a general confession is to be said by everyone aloud, and at the same time a particular confession is to be said by each silently.  “Where there shall be imminent danger, as many as can be spared from necessary service in the Ship shall be called together, and make an humble Confession of their sin to God: In which every one ought seriously to reflect upon those particular sins of which his conscience shall accuse him: saying as followeth”… (1)

Particular confession

In our private prayers we ought to make a particular confession of our sins, that is to say, own up to them one by one.  Every evening when we say our prayers, we should think over the happenings of the day and pick out all the wrong things we have thought and said and done.  This is called making a self-examination.  Then we should tell God that we are sorry for the way we have gone on.

The only other times when we make a particular confession are in preparation for Communion and, of course, when we confess our sins to a priest in the Sacrament of Reconciliation (Penance).  We shall be talking about that another time.

SUMMARY

1. Our sins of thought, word and deed make us unfit to present ourselves before God.  Therefore in public and private prayer we confess (own up to) our sins – either in general or particular – in order to show that we want no more to do with them.

2. Every evening we should think over our sins committed during the day (self-examination), and confess them to God and tell him we are sorry.  We should also do this before we make our Communion.

Reference

Church of England (1662) Book of Common Prayer. Forms of prayer to be used at sea.Available from:

http://www.cofe.anglican.org/worship/liturgy/bcp/texts/27-forms-of-prayer-to-be-used-at-sea.html (Accessed 17 August 2010) (Internet).