Your Post-Confirmation Life

By Rev. Mark Buetow

Confirmation. It’s a rite of passage for most Lutheran kids. Maybe it happened at the end of 8th grade in Lutheran school. Maybe you were a bit younger and had Saturday morning catechism classes with the pastor. Maybe it was just a year. Maybe you went for two or three. You probably memorized most of the Small Catechism. You might have gone through a grueling questioning process in front of the whole congregation. Or maybe you just had to talk with the pastor and your parents. Perhaps you had to wear a white robe. Maybe you wore a dress or a tie. However it happened, you got confirmed. So throw that Catechism in your closet! You’re done! You never have to learn all THAT stuff again!

Wait. That’s not right... Sadly, for many this is their Confirmation experience. It’s like studying for a final exam: You cram as much as you can into your head and then happily forget it when it’s all over. But that’s not what Confirmation is about at all! It’s not a “graduation.” And it’s certainly not the end of your learning as a Christian. So what exactly is your life supposed to look like once you’ve been confirmed? Let’s take a look, beginning with a refresher on what Confirmation is in the first place.

The Small Catechism was written to teach Christians what their baptism is all about, to learn to confess their sins, and to prepare them to receive Jesus’ Body and Blood in the Lord’s Supper. It was also written to teach us how to pray and to guide us in our daily callings (vocations). When you were baptized (for most Lutherans, as a baby), your sins were forgiven, you were rescued from death and the devil, and given eternal salvation. But if you were a baby when that happened, you probably don’t remember it. So Confirmation is nothing more than the public recognition that (1) you are baptized and you know it, and (2) you know what the Sacrament of the Altar is and you are prepared to receive it. Confirmation is a nice rite, that is, a structured part of the liturgy with questions and answers and Bible verses. But that’s it. There is nothing given to you in Confirmation that you haven’t already received in Baptism. And the next gift Jesus has for you isn’t in the Confirmation itself but in the Sacrament of His Body and Blood. Confirmation is just the opportunity for you to stand in front of the church and say, “Yes, I’m baptized. And as a baptized sinner and child of God, I am prepared now to receive Jesus’ Body and Blood for the forgiveness of all my sins.” So Confirmation is not anything in itself. You don’t get forgiveness by being confirmed or get “topped off” with the Holy Spirit.

At its very heart, your Post-Confirmation life looks like you, with your ears open to the preacher’s words and your hands and mouth open to Supper of Christ’s Body and Blood. It’s you, the sinner, receiving forgiveness in the many ways Jesus delivers it to you. Your Post-Confirmation life is you, under the care of your pastor, who cares for you by putting God’s Word in your ears and Christ’s Body and Blood into your mouth. We aren’t prepared to receive the Sacrament of the Altar just so that we can forget about it!

Your Post-Confirmation life is also about growing into your many callings. A calling (sometimes called a “vocation”) is a position into which God places you in life in which you love and serve your neighbor. Vocations include things like being a son or daughter, a brother or sister, a member of a Christian congregation, a student, a fast-food worker or babysitter, or lawn-care technician. As you get older, you may be given new callings as a husband or wife and then maybe as a father or mother. Your job may become a career: a soldier, or engineer, or assembly-line foreman, or miner, or bank teller, or software engineer. The possibilities are nearly endless. Your Post-Confirmation life is learning to use the gifts and skills the Lord has given you to do well at whatever you do, not just for yourself, but to be a blessing for others.

And each and every vocation is also an opportunity to hurt others. To sin against them. To make mistakes. To let your selfishness take control. Every calling the Lord gives is a calling which you may want to rebel against. You don’t want to honor your parents or care for them when they are old. You don’t to be stuck with just one person the rest of your life. You don’t want to do someone else’s work or follow someone else’s orders. You want to be your own boss and the center of the universe. Sometimes you’ll sin and mess it all up. And that’s when you need that forgiveness Jesus has for you all the more.

So when you put it all together, your Post-Confirmation life looks something like this: You live your life, doing the best you can in your various callings. Do what your parents say. Help take care of your brothers and sisters. Pay attention in and do well in school. Be nice to the customers at your job and follows your boss’ instructions. In each and every calling, do your best, and love those whom you are serving and obeying. And when you mess it up, blow it, turn your back on others, and generally sin and make a mess of those callings, then back to church! Back to remember your baptism in which the Lord has washed away your sins and put His name on you, calling you His beloved child. Back to absolution, the comforting announcement by your pastor that God won’t hold your sins against you. Back to hear the Good News that your Savior Jesus perfectly lived for you and also died for you, taking away all your sins and clearing your account with God. Back to the altar, where the Body and Blood of Jesus are His promise that you really are forgiven, your mistakes are paid for, and that whatever you’ve messed up doesn’t count against you in God’s sight. And from all these things, you learn then, by the Holy Spirit, to love God and to love your neighbor. So then back into the world to do it all again. And in your sins, back to Jesus for more forgiveness, and back to your callings to do your best. And so it goes, your whole life long. Forgiveness. Callings. Forgiveness. Vocation. Life as a Christian in Christ’s church. Life as whatever you are out in the world. That’s what your Post-Confirmation life looks like.

When it all comes down to it, getting ready for Confirmation is all about Jesus: what He gave you in Baptism and what He’ll give you in the Supper of His Body and Blood. Confirmation is really about Jesus, too, now that you’re old enough to say, “Hey! That Jesus is for me, too!” And your Post-Confirmation life is all Jesus, too. Jesus forgiving and saving you, Jesus living in you, and Jesus being with you by His gifts until He comes again and raises you from the dead. I guess you could say your Post-Confirmation life is really nothing more than the continuation of the eternal life that has already begun in your baptism.

Rev. Mark Buetow is pastor of Bethel Lutheran Church in DuQuoin, Illinois and serves as the deputy and media services executive for Higher Things. He can be reached at buetowmt@gmail.com.