Psalm 32

Psalm 32

Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them, in whose spirit is no deceit.

When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy on me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.” And you forgave the guilt of my sin.

Therefore let all the faithful pray to you while you may be found; surely the rising of the mighty waters will not reach them. You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you. Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding, but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you. Many are the woes of the wicked, but the Lord's unfailing love surrounds the one who trusts in him.

Rejoice in the Lord and be glad you righteous; sing, all you who are upright in heart!

When I was really young, 8-years-old or so, our family would buy big boxes of “cookie seconds” from cookie factory near where my aunt and uncle lived. Anytime we would go visit them we would go to the cookie factory and come back with boxes of either broken or slightly misshapen cookies. These large boxes would get put in the deep freezer in the basement of our house. And every once in awhile, the Tupperware cookie jar upstairs would get refilled with whatever happened to be in the freezer.

As kids, we quickly discovered we couldn't reach the cookie jar stored in the pantry of the kitchen – but we could definitely reach the bottom of the deep freezer in the basement. And so that large box of misshapen cookies would slowly but consistently become less and less full. And I must now confess, at the time I did not see anything wrong with what we were doing…I did not feel bad; I did not feel scared or worried that we would be found out. To be completely honest, I'm not sure I felt much of anything other than maybe a bit of a sick stomach after eating 15 or 20 cookies.

At no point did I feel what I understand David to be expressing in Psalm 32 when he says, “When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy on me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.” (vs. 3-4) David here speaks of guilt as a weight that settles down on him; there is seemingly something oppressive about the silence of unconfessed sin. And I didn't feel any of that. At least not until my mom went downstairs to fill up the cookie jar herself and looking in the deep freezer found the box full of only crumbs. Well, then she knew something was up. Then she called us out and sat us down. My brothers and I knew right away that there was no alternative reasonable explanation. But still, we said, “It wasn't me.” Maybe we blamed each other. Maybe we blamed our cousins. Maybe we blamed the neighbor kids. Maybe one of us even blamed a mouse.

My mom, ever the wise one and perhaps intuiting an application of Psalm 32, said something like, “Until one of you, or all of you, confesses there will be no more cookies in this house.” Perhaps it was the threat of the loss of cookies, but over the next while – whether it was hours or days I do not remember – the weight of guilt did appear and it did settle down upon us. Eventually the weight of unconfessed sin did move us to confession. And not unlike David relief was immediate. “Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.’ And you forgave the guilt of my sin.” (vs. 5) And you forgave the guilt of my sin. The gospel promise of reconciliation that lifts the weight of unconfessed sin.

Now, perhaps this little anecdote seems trite, simplistic, and juvenile – and maybe it is. But as I reflect again on confession and forgiveness, I wonder if many of us have not grown beyond such an approach to confession. While writing this devotional, I read again Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together. Especially Chapter 5 called Confession and Communion, which begins “He who is alone with his sin is utterly alone.”[1] Here he asks a question which struck me afresh as I read it again. Bonhoeffer asks:

Why is it that it is often easier for us to confess our sins to God than to a brother? God is holy and sinless. He is a just judge of evil and the enemy of all disobedience. But a brother is sinful as we are. He knows from his own experience the dark night of secrets in why should we not find it easier to go to a brother than to the Holy God? But if we do, we must ask ourselves whether we have not often been deceiving ourselves with our confession of sin to God, whether we have not rather been confessing our sins to ourselves and also granting ourselves absolution.[2]

It is this last part that strikes me as where we can learn. Like my confession of stealing the cookies was prompted by the potential loss of cookies - not by the breaking of relationship to my mother – perhaps much of our confession in life is to absolve ourselves the consequences for our guilt and sin? Bonhoeffer continues to probe: “Is it not the reason, perhaps, for our countless relapses and the feebleness of our Christian obedience to be found precisely in the fact that we are living on self forgiveness and not real forgiveness? Self forgiveness can never lead to a breach with sin; this can only be accomplished by the judging and pardoning Word of God itself.”[3]

Finally, the kind of freedom from the oppression of guilt and the weight of unconfessed sin that David expresses in Psalm 32 can only be found when forgiveness from God is offered and accepted. As Christians, we experienced this differently than David could ever have, because we know that Jesus came and lived the life we should have lived and died the death that we deserved as a punishment for our sin, and that by grace through faith we receive a righteousness that is not our own. By grace through faith, our confession yields a repentance because of the sacrifice of Jesus. But what's more, we can know this truth in community. In fact, it is by our community that this truth becomes even more real and alive in you. 

This realization, too, is part of Bonhoeffer's contribution. When we ask, how can we know if we are receiving self forgiveness or real forgiveness Bonhoeffer says that we can have certainty only through our brother and sister in Christ. He writes,

Our brother breaks circle of self-deception. A man who confesses his sin in the presence of a brother knows that he is no longer alone with himself; he experiences the presence of God in the reality of the other person. As long as I am by myself in the confession of my sins everything remains in the dark, but in the presence of a brother the sin has to be brought into the light. But since the sinned must come to the light sometime, it is better that it happens today between me and my brother, rather than on the last day in the piercing light of the final judgement. It is a mercy that we can confess our sins to a brother.[4]

As I write this, we are just a few days away from Good Friday. Standing, then, in the shadow of the cross hear this call to confession. Anticipating the kind of hope and confidence that can only come from the empty tomb of Sunday - Knowing that forgiveness is real and readily available – will you share your confession with a trusted community member? “You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.” (vs. 7) I believe this promise is made real by the brothers and sisters around you. Just as the Lord's unfailing love surrounds the one who trusts in him (cf. vs. 10) so too, are you surrounded by the family of believers in Jesus Christ.

Prayer
Lord Jesus, hear my cry for help! Forgive me, I pray. Help me to know your forgiveness even as I share my confession with a trusted brother or sister in the church. As I rest in your loving care, may it be made real in the loving embrace of my church family. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

 
[1] Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 110.
[2] Life Together, 115-16. Emphasis added.
[3] Life Together, 116.
[4] Life Together, 116.