{"id":276,"date":"2019-06-02T14:01:28","date_gmt":"2019-06-02T14:01:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/?p=276"},"modified":"2019-06-03T02:03:32","modified_gmt":"2019-06-03T02:03:32","slug":"seventh-sunday-of-easter-confirmation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/2019\/06\/02\/seventh-sunday-of-easter-confirmation\/","title":{"rendered":"Seventh Sunday of Easter, Confirmation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

    John 17:20-26<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grace to you and peace\nfrom God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus\u2019\nprayer, the one that I just read, is very pointed. Jesus was praying, not only\nfor his Disciples, but also for other people, the likes of you and me, people\nwho would later come to believe. His prayer was that we will come to believe in\nhim, that we will learn to love each other (as he had tried to teach his\nDisciples) and that we will come together as a unified community. Jesus\u2019 hope\nwas that two thousand years after his death (and beyond) we and yes others, would\nbe doing exactly what we are going to do after this sermon, confirming our\nyouth; receiving them as believers and faithful followers of Jesus. Often, we\noverlook the importance of this day for our youth, for the church and for the\nwhole Body of Christ. But I don\u2019t think those who are being confirmed today do!\nI asked them to write a short paragraph about their faith and why they were\nbeing confirmed. Most of the class obediently wrote for me a paragraph; one\nover-achiever wrote a page and a half; their honesty and insight are worth our\nlistening to; in many ways they wrote today\u2019s sermon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(The\nfirst shall be last and the last shall be first) I received this short but\ninformative paragraph last, but I think it is the place for us to start; it\nreads: \u201cI believe in this God and the Holy Trinity because I grew up learning\nabout it. It was what my family believed in. It is what my family wants me to\nbelieve and learn about. Confirmation means to me that I can be a member of the\nchurch and can make my own decisions with the Lord\u2019s help.\u201d We all come to\nfaith from different directions, but there are similarities among all Jesus\u2019\nfollowers. And many of us have come to faith thanks to the efforts of our\nparents and other family members. Another confirmand described the faith\njourney like this: \u201cGod has been in my life almost since I was born. God has\nbeen helpful throughout all of the troublesome times I have had. I feel God\nstarted to be important to me when I was baptized. Confirmation is putting me\nto the test. If I really believe in God and Jesus, I think I can pass the\ntest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thankfully\nthey all passed the test. Thankfully their faith is more to them than simple belief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They\neach seem to feel open to ask God for help when they need it. Another\nconfirmand wrote, \u201cThe faith in Jesus means a lot to me. Sometimes I ask God to\nhelp me in sports and believe that everything that happens to me makes me a\nbetter person. I think that if you really try hard and trust in God, good\nthings will happen to you. He helps me to fall asleep at night because I trust\nin him to protect everything I like. The faith in God can never be broken and I\nwill never stop trusting in God.\u201d Such trust in God is the hallmark of faith\nand important for us all. Listen to the words of yet another confirmand: \u201cTo me\nconfirmation means I am an adult member of St. Peter\u2019s Lutheran Church. I have\nbeen going here since I was three weeks old and I love church and have been\ninspired by it. I have learned it is important to know that I can rely on my\nfaith at all times. For example, one time I prayed to God to help keep pain\naway from me as my family tried to remove a splinter from underneath my\nfingernail. After a short period of time they removed it and I didn\u2019t feel much\npain. I know God was with me and will continue to be with me. I can share my faith\nwith others. At church it is easy to share faith with others. At school it\nmight be harder, but I shouldn\u2019t be afraid to share my faith. I am proud to\ncontinue my faith at St. Peter\u2019s.\u201d Trusting in God\u2019s help and being willing to\nshare his belief is something that, we are all asked to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each\nconfirmand emphasized a slightly different understanding of confirmation and\nfaith. Here is another: To me Christianity means that God is always there for\nyou when you need him. God helps me find a friend in people. Jesus is always\nfinding ways to help me when others make fun of me and when people I love aren\u2019t\naround me. My faith in Jesus has helped me to see how I can help others. I\u2019m\nglad that I am getting confirmed into this loving and supporting church. The\ngood friends are in this church\u201d (and the writer listed his friends). Here we\nhave a faith that acknowledges a need to trust, a willingness to ask for help\nand a knowledge that Jesus offers his comfort to us, but this last one, from\nour over-achiever is willing also to trust to the point of asking questions of\nGod.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhenever\nI was stuck on a math test, I would ask God to make the answers pop into my\nhead so I wouldn\u2019t get a bad grade. Well, as I got older, I learned that God\ngave everyone a brain so that they could study for tests, not so that He could\ngive you the answers. This is probably why there have been times in my life\nwhere I have questioned why things hadn\u2019t gone as I had hoped. We have all\nquestioned God at one time or another. I know that I did whenever I found out\nthat someone had passed away at a young age or when someone got a sickness. I\nalways asked him, why did you end that person\u2019s life? Why do you take away the\nthings that are a part of our lives? It\u2019s never easy to find out these things,\nbut guess what? It\u2019s life. We would never know the happy times without the sad\nones. Getting confirmed was something that I honestly wanted to do until I\nreached the age where I would actually get confirmed. The stuff that I\u2019m taught\nin science class can really make me question if God is even real. It was only\nin the last few months that I asked myself, why question God\u2019s existence when\nyou love going to church and learning about Christianity? It\u2019s a question that\nkept nagging me for an answer. So, when confirmation classes started, I\nlistened closely for any ways to strengthen my faith. One of the ways I\nstrengthened my faith was my parents. Every time I had a question, they almost\nalways had an answer. If I did something wrong, they forgave me and we moved on\ntogether. School has been a really tough obstacle, but I know that they are on\nthe sidelines cheering me on until I cross the finish line. I always get\nannoyed when I am sitting at the kitchen table at eleven at night and nobody\nunderstands my math homework. Not even me. It\u2019s really stressful when your\nfather knows how to do it in a confusing way and your mother is still on her\ntwenty third year of third grade math. I love my parents because even when I say\nhurtful things out of anger and scaredness, they still love me and provide me\nwith comfort.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Now,\nI\u2019m going to skip a part of this writing about family, which is all good. Simply\nstated there is a lot of love and appreciation for t writer\u2019s family. Back to\nthe writing: \u201cI have been able to see how fortunate I am that God blessed me\nwith amazing family and friends. At the end of the day, it doesn\u2019t matter what\nhappened. All that matters is that God gave me a family and God gave me a heart\nto love church and everything about it. Looking around at our world gives me\nthe feeling of happiness and sadness. I believe that God has given each of us\nthe heart to notice the flaws in our world. I think that if we let our religion\nguide us through the darkness, we can find the light together and help those in\nneed. With that being said, I would like to thank each and every person I know\nfor making my memories so precious. It means the world to me that everyone here\ncame to see me and the other youth get confirmed. Thank you so much for\nlistening to this slightly long version of what I was supposed to write!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\nhave a few prospective pastors in this group. They\u2019re a good group, who have the\nbeginnings of a well-grounded faith and understanding of Christianity; I hope\ntheir words inspire you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    John 17:20-26 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ Jesus\u2019 prayer, the one that I just read, is very pointed. Jesus was praying, not only for his Disciples, but also for other people, the likes of you and me, people who would Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-and-services"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":277,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276\/revisions\/277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}