This, then, is our reward—that now, in confessing him, in the very act of confession, we are permitted to learn that we are not strong men who stand up like Luther (actually a misunderstood Luther) and strongly and passionately declare, “Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise,” and thus as men who are relying on their own strength and courage. Nor does confessing mean that we stand like strong oaks of the Lord with mighty roots clutching the earth as the storms of godlessness, doubt, and mockery sweep through their branches. (What shaking reeds and glimmering wicks, what miserable doubting Thomases we are, even though a few people may have called us confessors and fighters for God! Let us not fool ourselves.) So, “confessing” does not mean that we are like oaks, weathering the storm by our own power. To be a confessor means to bear witness to the power of the living God and to start from the fact (note this, from the fact) that this power of God is a force that sovereignly embraces the good and the evil, the faithful and the mockers, and that nothing is beyond its dominion. But when I do this, when I venture to do this, a miracle happens; for then what happens is nothing less than my proceeding to make room for heaven, to break a path for the reign of God in our lives. And just by doing this, my confession gains the power to detonate a greater power; what happens is simply that now I let God act and rule, while I am content to be only his instrument. And when that happens, or better, when I let this happen, then I am acting in good earnest with the faith that “our commonwealth is in heaven” and that here we are acting in the name of one whose name is above every name.
