Hey folks! Our current unit in the kids curriculum is about the Church: what it is, what it does, and what it means to be a part of it.
Click here for a general overview of the unit.
For the next three weeks we'll be continuing to discuss the "Ecclesial Sacraments."
We've been saying that the Church’s mission is to go and to gather. As it gathers, we are to be learning everything Jesus commanded us (Matt. 28:20).
One of the most important things Jesus taught all of God’s people is that they are part of a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation” before God (Ex. 19:6), and as a “holy priesthood” we are to offer “spiritual sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2:5).
Confirmation has been fittingly called the “ordination” of the laity (laity being anyone who has not been ordained to Holy Orders). Note too that is fittingly a prerequisite for ordination to Holy Orders: Through this rite all Christians are given their basic vocation to be a holy priesthood for the life of the world.
Confirmation is a rite by which we officially enter into that calling, with the laying on of hands by the bishop.
This priestly calling has always been the case for the people of God (see Exodus 19:6), and here we come to the actual meaning of the “priesthood of all believers.”
The priesthood of all believers is not, strictly speaking, about any one individual’s “access” to God (though, of course, anyone who is indwelled by the Spirit of God has such access!). To be called a priest is to be called into a “mediating” task, and the mediating all of God’s people are called to enact is the mediating of the presence of God to their neighbors.
To be a Christian is to be one who carries the “dying of Jesus,” in their bodies (1 Cor. 4:10), one whose body has become a dwelling place for God by his Spirit (1 Cor. 3:16; 1 Peter 2:4; Eph. 2:21-22), one whose body has “rivers of living water flowing from within them” (John 7:38).
All of this is a person’s equipping for the work of the royal priesthood of God’s people: to mediate God’s very life to a world desperate for it. And in Confirmation a person is officially sent by the Church into that way of life.
It is also the rite by which the baptized publicly “receive” the power of their baptism: confirmation is a public profession of an individual’s believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Savior of the world (cf. Romans 10:9-10).
*Note: There's no fixed age for when confirmation is appropriate. In the Eastern Church, confirmation happens immediately after baptism, whether the person is an adult or an infant. In the Roman Church, it happens after an individual has grown into the "age of discretion" or "reason" (hard to say exactly when that is). In Anglicanism we are allowed a great deal of latitude on this. In my opinion, and because of some of the characteristics of our time and place, both culturally and theologically, Confirmation is best left for high school-aged believers.
Scripture to consider:
Ephesians 2:21-22
John 7:38
1 Cor. 3:16
1 Peter 2:4
Questions for your kids
Why do you think the church makes such a big deal of a person's public profession of faith, in front of the rest of the Church?
What must God think about you if he wants to come and live within you?
Did you know being a part of the Church means getting sent on a mission? How does that make you feel?
Holy Imagination
Learning the faith isn't just about memorizing facts. It's about seeing the world as it really is: "charged with the grandeur of God."
Y'all, I made it almost 8 years of pastoral ministry without using a Chronicles of Narnia illustration. It was a good run. All that ends today.
Watch the coronation service from the 2005 adaptation The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, linked here. Better yet, read the passage from the book!
After you've taken the painfully bad special effects in stride, ask your kids: was Lucy valiant before Aslan named her in public as such? (hint: Yes!) How about Edmund the Just? What about Peter and Susan? If they were, what difference does the service itself have? How does it change them?
Peace,
Danny+