With the adoption of the Common Service (originally put into English in 1888 and later adopted by the English Synod), the people in our congregations got used to making a confession of their sins and hearing either a declaration of grace or absolution right after the opening invocation. However, in the Agenda published by Walther and company and put into English in 1881 as Church Liturgy for Evangelical Lutheran Congregations of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession, a different order obtained. It was the custom in Saxony from the time of the Reformation onward to have the confession and absolution after the sermon. This option was still in place right up to the publication of The Lutheran Hymnal in 1941 (as Divine Service, Second Form). Here, immediately following the sermon, we find this:

Having heard the word of God, let us now humble ourselves before the supreme Majesty of God, and make a confession of our sins, saying:

O Almighty God, merciful Father, I, a poor, miserable sinner, confess unto Thee all my sins and iniquities with which I have ever offended Thee and justly deserved Thy punishment in time and eternity; but I am heartily sorry for them and greatly repent of them, and I pray Thee by Thy boundless mercy, and by the holy, innocent, bitter suffering and death of Thy beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to be gracious and merciful to me, a poor sinful being. Amen. (Church Liturgy, p. 45)

The Absolution then followed:

Upon this your confession, I, by virtue of my office, as a called and ordained servant of the Word, announce the grace of God unto all of you who heartily repent of your sins, believe on Jesus Christ, and sincerely and earnestly purpose by the assistance of God the Holy Ghost henceforth to amend your sinful lives, and in the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ, I forgive you all your sins, in the name of God + the Father, God + the Son and God + the Holy Ghost. Amen. (Church Liturgy, p. 46)

This is followed immediately by the Prayer (i.e., Prayer of the Church).

Obviously, the Missouri Synod lifted this form of confession and absolution (though without the provisos in the absolution) and transferred it to the beginning of page 15 in The Lutheran Hymnal, whence it has more or less remained as an option in our successive liturgies. The placement toward the first part of the liturgy mirrors the place of the old Confiteor, and fits with several 16th century orders, and of course the Common Service.

What fascinates me, though, is that the old Saxon position doesn’t treat the Confession and Absolution as some generic purification rite such as almost any religion features. They literally issue forth from an encounter with God’s Word in the sermon. Our invited response to that word is to humble ourselves before the supreme Majesty of God and make a confession of our sins that we might hear from Him His word of absolution.

I have no way of knowing if that placement helped the folks who originally used this liturgy not succumb to a perfunctory recitation of the confession or not, but I would not be surprised if it did help it not to be so ill-used. Maybe those old Saxons were onto something…