121 The Lutheran Service Confessions, 1958 and 1978

I think I prefer the Confession in the green hymnal, "Lutheran Book of Worship," rather than the 1958 red hymnal, "Service Book and Hymnal." I don't have a copy of the black hymnal which I used as a child, but it is my recollection that it was similar to the red hymnal. When I first heard the service in 1974 after over 20 years of not attending a Lutheran service, it sounded very familiar.

The LBW reads:

We confess we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves.
We have sinned against you in thought word and deed
by what we have done and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our whole heart.
We have not loved our neighbor as ourselves.
For the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us.
Forgive us.
Renew us and lead us,
so that we may delight in your will
and walk in your ways
to the glory of your holy name.

The Red Book order of worship and liturgy weren't terribly different from the 19th century hymnals with thees and thous, so the green hymnal was the first to use modern English. But I think this confession is also a wonderful sermon outline. If every sermon included these elements, then used the last line as the jumping off place for the advice and teaching of the day--"walking in God's ways to the glory of his name"--it would just be so refreshing. Some like to quibble that it has bad baptismal or conflicting baptismal theology--but I don't think so. It is a good reminder that it is because of what Jesus has done we are free of this bondage.

Of course, it would be refreshing just to use it in a Lutheran service, too.