[The joyous occasion has come once again in the life of our congregation when our young brothers and sisters, our children, voluntarily take upon themselves the commitment they have made in baptism by confessing their faith. Confirmation is such a matter of the highest importance, such a matter of the heart for all of us, that we now turn to you, dear sons and daughters of confirmation, with the message of God's Word. We would like to make this day an everlasting memory for you, when for the first time you made a solemn vow to become true followers of Christ and faithful, obedient and sacrificial adherents of our Reformed Mother Church until death. We, the older ones, feel like those who give those who are setting out on a great journey much good advice and blessing. We would all like to have something useful, something good, something memorable, something encouraging to say to you, even though we know in advance that you will forget it anyway. But more important now than our advice and wishes is God's word to you, which I have prayerfully sought in the Bible, and surely under the guidance of His Holy Spirit, I have found in this Word: "God's will is your sanctification." So, at this momentous turning point in your lives, God is binding on your hearts and on all of us with you to be holy, to be holy! So that you may live this whole earthly life as holy people!Why? Because God wills it so! In the words of our founding sacrament, "This is the will of God: that you be made holy!" And here I want to emphasize very much that this is the will of God! And this is a great power for you! For indeed - I tell you frankly - there has been a great deal of confusion of conscience about the idea of daring to bring you here before the living God to confess and make profession of faith. For the time of preparation was so very short, so very little of Christ, of following Him, of the life of His Church, had you yet come to know! What guarantee is there that your profession of faith is a sincere, true, self-conscious profession of faith, that your vows are really a lifelong commitment to the Christ you have come to know? What guarantee is there that the tiny flame of the Gospel of Christ that we have tried to kindle in your hearts will not be extinguished by some wind or storm? Will you not behave like that young man whom I finally saw on the tram a few years after his confirmation, and he did not even want to receive my greeting? What guarantee do you have that you will remain truly faithful to Christ and to his church? Nothing! At least in you, nothing. But also in us, in the church: nothing! These are the thoughts that have plagued many of us about your confirmations.
Well, what can we trust in? In the will of God! He wants your canonization! This means that you are here not only because your parents wanted you to be confirmed and because you wanted to be confirmed, but above all because God wants you to be confirmed! It is not we who choose the living God to be our partner in life, but He chooses us for Himself forever. It is not we who ask him to be our Father, to adopt us as his children, but he makes it known to us in Jesus Christ that we are his! He has already decided for us, He has already accepted us, He has already opened His heart to us, He has already redeemed us, He has already prepared even our place in His glory in heaven! And He has made all this known to us by giving Jesus Christ to die for us and in our place, and by raising Him from the dead.
And brothers and sisters, even if the storm of the world blows out of your hearts all that you now profess and vow, every time you see a cross, every time you hear the name of God, every time you pass a church, remember that you are members of an eternal covenant which the Lord Jesus sealed with his blood! May it come to your mind that God loves you, that he is waiting for you, that you are his, that you will always find an open heart with him! Yes: it is God's will that you should be made holy, and I know that the God who has begun this holiness in you now in Confirmation will remain faithful! So His will remains for you to be holy to the end! And therefore, relying on this sanctifying will of God, we dare to confirm you now!
What does it mean to be holy? Let us not be frightened by this word! We are not talking here about the bloodless, pale, pious saints that you see in the so-called holy pictures. No! But to be a saint is to walk in communion with Jesus, to walk in the world everywhere! The Apostle Paul says it in our basic verse, "according as you have learned from us, in what manner you ought to walk and to please God." (1 Thess 4:1) What Jesus Christ taught us about our turning in the world, our turning to please God, can be summed up in one expanded sentence, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength...Love your neighbor as yourself." (Mt 22:37-39) If only you could experience that this is the truly happy life! An adventurous, varied, interesting, joyful life is lived by those who love God and love people! In all our lives there will be great difficulties, crosses, storms, sufferings. Yours too! But happy is the man who can say, "I love God, because I know that He loves me!" The jealousy, the suffering, the bad temper of the people around us, will bring us all, and you too, many bitter tasks! How happy is the man who feels with honest sincerity, "Yet I love these people because Jesus loves them!" Believe me: this is the way to live! This is the way to live a useful, productive, edifying, blessed life: loving God and loving people! This is the happy life, this is the holy life. And you are free to live this happy life, because it is God's will, your sanctification!
Our Word says: in this holy life "increase more and more"! So grow, grow strong! So, do not think of confirmation as a way of reaching a summit of faith life and biblical knowledge, where you have now learned everything you need to know about this subject. You've passed it with flying colours, so now you can forget all about it! No! Confirmation is not the end of the Christian life, but the starting point. Not a finis, but a start! It is not a finish, but a start! It is the beginning of a voluntary life following Christ. From now on, you will not read the Bible because you have to, you will not go to church because your parents send you, you will not belong to the church because you were born Reformed, but voluntarily: because you are free. Use this freedom, use this opportunity! This is what the Word says: "Increase more and more!"
This increase, this strengthening, happens in two ways. One is to have a regular, constant relationship with Christ. This is done by meeting and talking with him in our daily silence. The means of this meeting and conversation are the Bible and prayer. You have a Bible, you are free to pray. Do not let a day go by without such an encounter with Christ! You will see how such a daily, quiet time with Christ will be an inexhaustible resource in your life! There are already many in our congregation who feed regularly and consistently on the Word of God and regularly discuss all things with their Saviour. Enter, then, into this great, invisible spiritual community of Word and prayer! Another way to grow in spiritual life is to be incorporated into the life of the visible church. Here is a church: yours. All of us - those of you who are here - are your brothers and sisters! Feel that you are now welcomed into a big family circle! This church, this church is yours. Here you are always and always at home! Twenty-five years ago, when I stepped out of the school gates after my school-leaving exams at the Kecskemét Gymnasium, I felt that a phase of my life had irrevocably passed: the school gates had closed behind me. Well, confirmation is not like that! It is not the gate of a school that has been closed behind you, where you will only return now and then to look for memories of the past, but the gate is opening, and you are entering the Church, the community of the life of the Church!
So we do not want to say goodbye to you, but to welcome you as newcomers, to embrace you, to welcome you into our prayerful love! So come, we need you, we need you, so that together we may build, together we may grow, together we may serve, together we may love God and people, together we may continue on the path of sanctification. Together as children of God, people of God, for whom it is God's will that we be made holy. Let us now tell our Lord together that we are coming, we are offering ourselves to Him, we want to commit ourselves to holiness! Let us sing, let us pray together:
I lift up my heart to you And trust in you, Lord;
And I will not be ashamed, No one will laugh at me,
For they shall not be ashamed that cry unto thee,
Let those who live in unbelief be scornful.
(Psalm 25:1)
Amen
Date: 31 May 1953.
Lesson
1Thessz 4,1-3