01 - The Definite Desición
I THE DEFINITE DECISION THE Lord Jesus makes His appeal to humanity in our time with all the power with which He has appealed to men and women all down the ages. History, biography, and our own experience tell us what efficiency, beauty, and joy come into lives which answer ’Yes,’ when He summons them to follow Him. Any man who has made this supreme discovery of the fellowship of Christ longs to have the whole world understand the gift which Christ holds for everyone. This book is written to tell one way in which Christ is being loyally followed, and in which His power is being received. I do not for a moment think that it is the only way in which people are consciously entering His radiant discipleship. It is the one way which I happen to know best. It is the way of confirmation.
Therefore I venture to put to you certain definite questions. Why should you wish to be confirmed? What demands has Confirmation upon you as a member of the Christian Church? What good would it do you? What is required of one who desires Confirmation? These are very common questions. They deserve frank, clear answers. I shall try to give them to you.
You do not become a member of the Church at Confirmation. The Sacrament of Baptism is the formal initiation into the Church. Every baptized person is a member of the Church. Confirmation is the completion of Baptism. In the Eastern Church the infant is confirmed by the priest immediately after his baptism, the two services being united. In the Western Church an interval of several years intervenes, and the child, having reached ’years of discretion, is brought to the Bishop, and the Bishop confirms him. In the Church of England and in the Episcopal Church of America, the period of adolescence is generally the time when a boy or a girl seeks Confirmation. We have discovered that this is the time when religious aspiration and responsibility awake; the spirit within craves expression and seeks the outward and visible assurance of God’s help.
Good Christian people have found other ways of sealing the discipleship of the members of Christ’s Church. But Confirmation is the old way. We find its use continuous through Church history, from the time of the New Testament. The eighth and the nineteenth chapters of the Book of the Acts record instances of Confirmation in the first century. To people whom others had baptized the Apostles came, and laid their hands upon them; these people so confirmed are declared then to have received the Holy Spirit. Not the most important reason why you should be confirmed, but the first reason, is that Confirmation is the time-honoured way in which boys and girls, men and women, have all through Christian history come into the full fellowship, responsibility, and privilege of Christ’s discipleship.
Among other things, Confirmation means decision. One of the most serious defects in character is drifting with the stream, whatever the stream may be.
Even if the stream be a good stream, the man who simply floats in it fails to be any thing but a colourless, innocent nonentity.
If the stream be bad, the badness of one who drifts in it is in some ways even worse than the badness of one who deliberately chooses badness. A man can lose his soul through drifting.
If you decide to be confirmed, you definitely choose your leadership and your company. You are an independent, selfdetermining character. You choose whom you will serve; you say to the world that you are a follower of the Supreme Master, Jesus Christ, If you follow Him, you will hear Him say to you, ’One is your Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren.’ Then you openly acknowledge yourself part of the great fellowship, the community of Christ’s brothers. In other words, you declare to yourself and to the people about you that you are openly en4 listed on the side of Christ and His Church. That decision is filled with untold possibilities of good. Men know where you stand. The friends of good causes and of righteousness count you on their side; the foes of good causes and of righteousness know at once that they may expect from you nothing but warfare, and they let you alone. A man who goes through life with out any definite allegiance is of no use to anything or anybody. A man who stands up squarely for Christ and His Church is a tower of strength, first for his own life, and then for the world about him. He is a help towards the best everywhere.
Some people feel that they ought not to be confirmed unless they have a revulsion of feeling concerning their past life, an overturning of all their experiences. This we are apt to call conversion. There is no doubt that a great many people need converting, quite often people who least suspect it. If a man has been hard, exacting, with his children or his servants or his neighbours, he needs converting to tenderness, patience, compassion. If a man has been indulging in some secret sin, he needs converting to the courage and the strength to snap his sin off with relentless promptness, however it begs him to give it longer hospitality. If a man has been conventional, self-complacent in his orthodoxy, making hard rules for others, a veritable Pharisee and hypocrite, he needs to become like a little child, all trust and all love.
Confirmation is a time to look in on one’s life, and ruthlessly to take full account of its defects, its failures, its sins. When a man becomes aware of his need of Christ, and when he finds Christ coming in to refresh him, to bless him, to re-create him, to give him new life, then he must disown his past, and make ready for a new future. He is converted as truly as Saint Paul was converted in the light of the Damascus road; as truly as Saint Augustine was converted from a life of vileness. But there are other lives which come so gradually towards the best, that it is impossible to announce the moment of conversion. A child brought up in a Christian home, taught to love the right and thetrue from the beginning, has had conversions daily to the best, but there has been, let us say, no one convulsive moment when life is turned upside down, and all behind seems darkness, and all before seems light.
Such a life is a life of gradual unfolding in the grace of our Saviour. It is such a life as tradition ascribes to Saint John.
I recall a period of great religious excitement in a certain town near which I once lived. The leader in this emotional appeal to Christianity one night before a great throng of people appealed to the leaders of the community who were seated about him to tell the exact moment when they were converted. One after another glibly told the experience which had come to him. At length a man stood up who said simply, ’As I cannot tell when first I loved my mother, so neither can I tell you when first I loved my Lord/ There was a hush. The testimony was real. The leader bowed his head, and asked no more questions.
Therefore conversion, in the conventional sense, may or may not be a requisite for confirmation. I suspect that this conventional kind of conversion ought to into people’s experience more often than it is. Everyone must be converted, re-born; but the experience is not always a conscious experience. The one test that is essential is this: Are you whole-hearted in your loyalty to Christ? Do you surrender absolutely and entirely to Him? He has said quite definitely that it is impossible to serve God and Mammon. To follow Christ means taking up a cross and following the Man who was nailed to a cross. The story of the young man who knelt before Christ and asked what he must do to inherit eternal life, the young man whom the Lord Jesus instantly loved, is an exact case in point. The youth was told that the price he must pay must be all that he had.
Christ must have every bit of him. You may, therefore, test your conversion by asking if you are ready for complete surrender. If you are ready for that, you are ready for Confirmation. You know that in the secret places of the Most High you have been born again.
IV Some of the people who read this book will have pledged themselves to Christ’s discipleship in some other Communion, and now, drawn to a Communion which cherishes the ancient rite of Confirmation, will desire to be confirmed. Confirmation, for such people, cannot mean what it is for a young person who finds in Confirmation the seal of the first glad awaking to the power of Christ in the soul. That thrill, that joy, has been given him before.
It was real, and is not disowned or minimized by the submission to the gift which Confirmation has in store for him. God’s gifts and the ways in which He bestows them are manifold, and we should dishonour His goodness to us, if in receiving further benefits we made little of the benefits received in former years. They are all from the same loving Father, and we should be thankful for all His blessings.
Thus far I have spoken of your decision, the things you do for yourself in Confirmation. Think now of what God does for you as you open your heart to Him in this sacred rite. You will naturally expect some gift. For we discover that all life is filled with illustrations of ways in whichprofound gifts are given to those who deliberately and purposefully yield themselves to one who is stronger and nobler, richer in experience and in character. The boy, with admiration and love, tries to do all the out ward deeds which he knows will please his father. Through this outward conformity to his father’s will, the boy begins to take into his life his father’s inner qualities. He reminds others of his father, not only in facial resemblance, but in the hidden things of the spirit. His father’s soul is taking possession of the boy. The alert boy or girl, if fortunate, will at length come under some teacher who is beyond all other teachers. This teacher will become to the youth a true and inspiring master. Out ward traits, such as phrases, choice of words, handwriting, perhaps certain physical mannerisms, will unconsciously be copied. People will smile, and speak of the young person’s imitating his betters. But the discriminating will see a richer reward in this ardent discipleship. The heart and mind even more than the body are open to the gracious influence. The master’s genius, the deeper traits and achievements of his spirit are entering into the loving pupil.
He is receiving gifts which cannot be measured. In the same way, the awaking life of the boy or girl, man or woman, coming with adoring love into the presence of the Most High, as He is revealed in the life of our Saviour Jesus Christ, tries to do what, it is believed, will please Him. He does out ward things. He reads the Bible more earnestly; he goes to church with sincerer purpose; he kneels, he closes his eyes, he whispers the words of his private prayers; he decides to be confirmed, he goes to the classes or reads an informing book, he presents himself on the appointed day for Confirmation, bringing to God a great decision, and, with the Bishop, his Rector, and all the congregation, he prays for a gift from God. All these outward words and deeds are symbols of something far below the surface, an offering of the whole self, an opening wide of the heart, an emptying of the old life, that a new and higher life may flood the soul. The gift in Confirmation is not magically given. It is given as naturally as the man, awaking from sleep, opens his eyes to the glory of a new day. God, as a loving Father, gives to the earnest and devout person, seeking, Confirmation, a great gift. That gift is a new and surprising infusion of His Holy Spirit, His inmost Grace and Power and Love. I
We must remember that the Holy Spirit is not given for the first time in Confirmation. The Church has always taught that the Holy Spirit is given to every child in Baptism. The Holy Spirit is with everybody who kneels at his bedside to say his prayers. The Holy Spirit rejoices in every kindness achieved, and grieves over every injustice. Indeed there is not a moment of life when the Holy Spirit is not touching with His encouragement or His warning the being of every individual on the earth.
Often, perhaps most often, mankind is unconscious of this abiding Presence. But now and again come great moments when the soul knows its good fortune, the heart is kindled to love and adore, and, space being made wide and deep, the Spirit of Wl*tr, the Living God comes in with might and joy, and the life is possessed altogether by the Holy Spirit.
We cannot limit the ways in which God gives this supreme visitation of his Love.
Whenever and wherever the soul of man knocks at God’s door, God opens that door and the man enters. The poets and the prophets give us innumerable illustrations.
All I am concerned with now, however, is to assure you that, if you will come to Confirmation with loyalty and an open heart, you will receive such an inpouring of God’s happy and strengthening gift of Himself as you never have known in all your past.
You will look back upon the day of your Confirmation as the day in which, above all other days, you received the gift of the Holy Spirit.
VI What difference may you believe that this gift will make to you? i First, it will save you in temptation.
There are some temptations which you can overcome in your own strength. There are other temptations which are so fierce that you cannot conquer them in your own strength: you must have God’s help.
Whenever, therefore, a temptation comes to you, whether you think the temptation great or small, say to yourself, ’I have within me the Holy Spirit/ Then turn to Him with all your life, and in that temptation He surely will give you the victory.
2 Then 3 there is trouble awaiting everyone in this world. Trouble is of various sorts.
Sometimes it is physical pain such pain that you think you cannot endure it for another minute. Sometimes it is failure, you have prepared yourself for a high task, you are ready for the test, your friends stand around you, and you collapse, you utterly and completely fail. Failure is one of the darkest moments in any life: men, in its blackness, sometimes dash their brains out. Finally there is bereavement, one you love unspeakably, goes out of your life, and you must make the rest of your journey alone.
Now, whenever trouble comes to you, whatever its form may be, say to yourself with confidence, ’I have within me the Holy Spirit/ Turn to Him for help, and He will give you such help as you never dared to hope. I had once a friend who lost by death his little child. I did not see how he could go on without that bright presence. A day or two later I met him, and we talked of various affairs in the world. Suddenly he snapped off our conversation, and cried, *I never loved God as I do now/ What was the reason? Don’t you see? In that greatest sorrow of his life he had found that he could not help him self; he had discovered that his dearest friends could not help him sufficiently; and so, perforce, he had turned to God. And he found God as if he had never found Him before. God was waiting for him, under standing, caring, loving him as no mother ever loved her child. Then God did more than comfort him. God lifted him high above all human friendship: God took him up into His blessed love, and he became consciously the friend and companion of God. The exaltation of that discovery was so great that he almost dared to thank God for his misery. For through it he knew that his dear child was completely safe, and he had entered into the highest joy of his whole life.
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There is yet more that may come through the conscious receiving of the Holy Spirit in Confirmation. Confirmation may be the moment when the earnest can didate will see all life spread out before him, and he will ask God what he shall do with it.
Some people boast that they never make any plans for their lives. They simply live from day to day. They think themselves devout because they abandon all plans.
They are not devout; only foolish. I am more and more convinced that God has a plan for each person in His world. It is our task to discover what that plan is, each for himself. The time of Confirmation is the best time to ask God what He means you to do, not with to-day or to-morrow, this week, this month, or this year, but with your whole life. So, as you kneel in Confirmation, I trust that you will ask God to tell you what He means you to do. If you ask Him, I am sure that He will tell you.
It will certainly be a dream which will be too glorious to tell to your mother, your father, your teacher, or your best friend.
All these might laugh, and say that you were presumptuous or conceited to have such a dream for your life. This God-given dream is then to be a secret between God and you. It may be vague at first, but as you look on it day by day, it will become clearer. You will adapt your life to its vision, and day by day you will grow towards it, you will grow into it, and at length it will absorb all your energy and thought. You will have become the dream which God has revealed to you in the power of His Holy Spirit.
VII What will be the immediate fruits of your Confirmation? Our Saviour once said that men should be known by their fruits.
Sometimes, I fear, people are outwardly confirmed, but do not receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit. It is possible to break the outward shell, and to find no meat within.
How then, as the days pass, may you tell yourself that you have been truly confirmed? I could mention a good many fruits of Confirmation, but I shall tell you only three. i The first fruit I shall mention is strict honour in word and deed. A good many years ago I asked a young woman if she did not think that the time had come for her to be confirmed. ’No,’ she replied: C I do not wish to be confirmed this year, and I doubt if ever I shall be confirmed/ I asked why. ’Well/ she said, ’a girl in my school who was confirmed last year I saw the other day cheating in the examination. So what is the use of Confirmation?’ I think I never have prepared a class for Confirmation that at least one man has not said to me: ’I am not sure that I wish to be confirmed. I know a man who is a confirmed member of the Church, who goes to church regularly, who even goes to the Holy Communion. He is not square in his business; he is not honest. I wonder if Confirmation is not after all a sham?’ These are serious charges. Because a seed is bad, and fails to get anything out of the soil, is no argument against the soil in which it is planted. So because someone has abused a religious privilege is no reason why you should deny yourself the same privilege. But it is arrant scandal if any one is confirmed and does not do his very best to be strictly honourable in word and in deed. A rector was one day approached by a maidservant who said that she wished to be confirmed. He was doubtful if she were ready, so he asked her why she thought herself in the right spirit to come. She instantly replied, ’I never used to sweep under the rugs; now I do The wise rector accepted her as a candidate. She had won a sense of strict honour in word and deed. There are other fruits of Confirmation, but the very first is this. The second fruit of Confirmation which I shall put down is kindness. Kindness seems to many people a very easy virtue.
It is easy for most people about half the time. There may be a multitude who can be kind three quarters of the time. But the people who are kind all the time are so rare that, among your acquaintance, you can probably count them on the fingers of one hand. Even normally kind people, when provoked by the irritating, will let flash the piercing, unkind word which bites and stings. To say that the foolish meddler deserves such sharp rebuke is not to explain the unkindness away. You quickly discover, if you stop to think, that invariable kindness is a difficult and rare virtue.
Kindness or graciousness was so marked a characteristic of our Saviour, that the Church has associated grace [which is an other word for kindness] with His life. The grace of Jesus Christ stands side by side with the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost as of the essence of the divine blessing. Read the Gospels and note how our Lord Jesus was kind under the most exasperating circumstances. Con firmed, you are bound to exert every effort to be invariably kind. Kindness is a rich and true fruit of Confirmation, The third fruit of Confirmation which I select for you is this: Show God your love.
It seems preposterous to many to think that anyone could dare to believe that the Almighty and Omnipotent Father would care whether such tiny atoms as men should show Him love. But we know how a human father craves the expression of his child’s affection; and we naturally infer that the Maker of men who put that longing into the human heart must Himself long for the expression of the love of His human children. Admitting that instinctive belief, how shall we show God our love?
I find two ways. The first is by worship in church. We do not come to church, first of all, to hear sermons, or to sing hymns, or even to pray for the things we need and desire. We come to church, first of all, to tell God frankly that we love Him. We leave our pleasures and our human obligations to come together, at least once a week, with all our friends and neighbours, and in a public and dignified way to tell God plainly our love. It is a great act of gratitude and affection which we give to our Heavenly Father.
Then there is the Holy Communion. I shall later give you several reasons for this supreme service of the Church. Now I give you only one reason. Our Lord Jesus said, ’Do this in remembrance of me/ The Holy Communion is the Feast of God’s love for us. We come to that Feast because we wish to give love for love. So if you are really confirmed you will determine that you shall regularly and insistently tell God your love. You will be each Sunday in church, and at regular intervals, by a fixed habit, you will partake of the Holy Communion. There are ways in which you can tell God that you love Him which resemble the ways in which you tell your relatives and friends that you love them. These two ways belong to God only.
We may rightly believe that He rejoices in them.
If you are not ready to try with all your strength to be strictly honourable, to be kind, and to be constantly at church and regularly at the Holy Communion, you are not ready to be confirmed. These three fruits will test the reality of your Confirmation.
VIII
You may now say that you are not good enough to be confirmed. I answer that of course you are not good enough. Nobody is good enough. God’s gifts are not to the deserving but to those who feel the sense of their need of Him and who really desire to be their best. To the humble and meek Christ gave His richest blessings. God will make you worthy, and only He can.