It was the second night of our senior high youth retreat, and we were gathered together for songs and Bible study. Our youth director handed each of us a 3x5 index card. We were instructed to think about our sins, and then write them on the card. I finished in a couple of minutes. After all, if we could get done early we would have more time for Mountain Dew, Cool Ranch Doritos, and getting even with the girls who put toilet paper all over our dorm. We had an arsenal of water balloons, Tabasco sauce and shaving cream. After a Bible reading, we were given a hammer and nail, and one by one, we each nailed our “sins” on a handmade cross. Later, another scripture and devotion was read, and our youth director removed the cards from the cross, placed them in the fireplace. They were quickly reduced to a smoldering pile of ash. It was pretty good,I thought.In fact,I even wished that I had taken it a bit more seriously. We still had plenty of time for “revenge,” and as I watched the smoke and flames, I felt like my sins were really being taken away. It was certainly the high point of the retreat, even better than the communion service we had the next morning. Nailing our sins to the cross and then watching them vanish in smoke was pretty moving.
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But in the end, it was just a performance, and the cross was little more than a prop. And worse than that, I had found assurance in a manmade experience, more so than even the real thing, the forgiveness that is truly and concretely given in the Divinely instituted Sacrament of the Altar.
Self-chosen forms of religious devotion and man-made devises may seem to do the trick. We may come away with a mountaintop experience or feeling emotionally uplifted. But feelings can be deceived. Just because you felt something doesn’t mean that anything happened. The opposite is also true. You may not always feel strengthened and forgiven after hearing the Gospel or eating Christ’s Body and Blood. But that doesn’t mean that God isn’t working in you. Whether you noticed it or not, God was and is at work in you. Filling you with His life, refreshing you with His strength, cleansing you with His forgiveness, establishing you in His grace and kingdom and salvation. While events like our “sin burning”ceremony may do a good job in describing the forgiveness of sins, our Lord gives us the real thing in His absolving Word, and in the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. The Rev. Daniel Woodring is pastor at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Buffalo, Michigan. He is the executive director of Higher Things.
Sacraments or Substitutes? by the Rev. Daniel Woodring
