Confession vs. Evangelism

Sometimes it takes a while to sink in. I've been praying the Tuesday prayer in Treasury for months. It asks, among other things:

Teach us through their example and the example of so many holy martyrs to be ever watchful of the confession of Your Son's name.

Confession. We're used to speaking of "evangelism" but sadly the word itself is rather tainted with the hucksterism of the American religious marketplace. But to be watchful for the confession of Christ's name... Now, that's a bit of a different ball game. We pray that through the example of those now suffering and those who have suffered in the past, that we'd be strengthened to look for and seize every opportunity presented us to confess Christ, and to do so regardless of what suffering may come our way.

I'd suggest we'd be better off if we thought of our task vis-a-vis the world in such terms, rather than "evangelism." Evangelism has about it the scent of "result" whereas confession is utterly innocent of that odor. What those who HEAR Christ confessed will do with that confession is completely out of our hands and it always will be. Our task is to simply confess Him. And it's a HIM we're confessing, then, not a strategy of "soul winning" we're working on! That's what He demands of us, after all:

Whoever confesses Me before others, I will confess before my Father in heaven; whoever denies Me before others, I will deny before my Father in heaven.

The Holy Spirit loves to use the confession of Christ's name to bring people to faith! I still remember those young catholic boys who confessed Christ to me (a young teenager at the time myself) - basically reciting the Apostles Creed to me and telling me that this was what I needed to believe to be saved. It set me on the path to Christ! And as Lutherans, we're resourced not only with the ecumenical Creeds, but with the wonderful explanations to the Creed that are part of our own catechism.

What does it mean to confess Christ? Try this on for size:

"I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord, who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death and from the power of the devil not with gold or silver, but with His holy precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death, that I may be His own and live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness, just as He is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity. This is most certainly true!"

What better confession of Christ could we place onto the lips of God's people? I think Higher Things should make a T-shirt with THAT on it! Can't you see a bunch of Lutheran young people running around with such a confession not only on their lips, but on their backs for everyone to read?

P.S. I bring the T-shirt up because I wore my Sola T-shirt to work out in today and one of the employees at the Y struck up a conversation with me about where I go to Church. He's drifted from going to Church at all; I invited him to come out to St. Paul's!