AND DIDN’T HE RISE…DECEIT

A Sermon by Bill McDonald from Psalm 32

February 10, 2008

 

Psalm 32

1    Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven,

       whose sin is covered.

2    Happy are those to whom the LORD imputes no iniquity,

       and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

3    While I kept silence, my body wasted away

       through my groaning all day long.

4    For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;

       my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.

Selah

5    Then I acknowledged my sin to you,

       and I did not hide my iniquity;

     I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,”

       and you forgave the guilt of my sin.

Selah

6    Therefore let all who are faithful

       offer prayer to you;

     at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters

       shall not reach them.

7    You are a hiding place for me;

       you preserve me from trouble;

       you surround me with glad cries of deliverance.

Selah

8    I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go;

       I will counsel you with my eye upon you.

9    Do not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding,

       whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle,

       else it will not stay near you.

10  Many are the torments of the wicked,

       but steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the LORD.

11  Be glad in the LORD and rejoice, O righteous,

            and shout for joy, all you upright in heart.

 

The four boys came sauntering into their first hour class about 30 minutes after the bell had rung.  They told a repentant tale of how they had started out from home on time but along the way had had a flat tire.  And it took forever to take off the rusty old lug nuts.  And the spare tire was low as well and so they had to go find a convenience store to put some air in it.  And…well, they hurried as fast as they could without daring to break the speed limit.  Now they stood there with their cherubic faces and their imaginary halos glowing over their heads.  The experienced teacher, who had heard it all before, replied, “All right I won’t send you to the office, but you will have to take a pop quiz.  There will only be one question on the test.  And if one of you fails the quiz, all of you fail.”  She seated them in the four corners of the room and gave them pens and paper.  Then she asked the test question, “Which tire was flat?”

 

Deceit.  “Many are the torments of the wicked.”  I loved the TV series Friends.  But the characters were always getting themselves tangled up in preposterous lies in order to hide something from one of the six friends.  “Where were you last night?” Ross would ask Rachel.  And instead of just saying that she was out on a date with another man, she would say, “Well…umm…I was with Monica and we were…uh…painting fire hydrants.”  “Yes, yes, that’s it” Monica would chime in, “we were participating in the…Paint a Fire Hydrant Fuchsia Week in New York City.”  “The whatttt?” Ross would ask.  And Pheobe would expand the lie, “Yes, yes, it’s a calming color for older dogs who have trouble…you know.”  And the Scottish poet Robbie Burns wrote, “Oh, what a twisted web we weave when first we practice to deceive.”  Maybe you have been there before.  In order to hide some truth, you twist it a little and tell it like it wasn’t.  When the next person asks, you have to remember the lie you told the first in case they talk to each other.  But the second one asks further questions and so you have to expand the lie.  Now you have to remember the expanded version in case the first person asks more.  By the time you have lied to four or five people about the issue, the web is so tangled that you can’t remember who you told what.  And so you live in torment, trying to keep it all together while at the same time dealing with the guilt of lying in the first place.  And the additional lies have made it impossible just to go back and admit the whole thing.  Because then the response will be not only, “You did what!!” but will also include, “And you lied to me about it!”  Plus “you have made me look like a fool,” or “how can I ever trust you again” and…well…you probably know how it goes.

 

There are many varieties of deceit, aren’t there?  Hiding a transgression.  Trying to be somebody you’re not.  Conning people by playing with their emotions to get romance or a special favor or to get elected!  There is even self-deception, believing that you have more power and control in your life than God does.  Being so stubborn and independent that even the psalmist is calling us a mule or a horse that needs a bit, bridle and boss in order to do right.  I could spend the entire sermon describing the torments that deceit brings to a mind, to a relationship, to a reputation.  But that would be to miss the psalmist’s point.  Let’s just all agree that deceit is bad and will make you groan through the day and lie in your bed uneasy all night, that it will consume your attention and sap your strength, that it will eat away at the part of you that yearns for peace and harmony.  “Many are the torments of the wicked…but (now this is the psalmist’s point) steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord.”  Wow, what a turnaround that sentence is!  Steadfast love awaits after confession!  Not fair judgment, not shorter punishment, not “you will be forgiven but you will have to suffer the consequences”—the psalmist says none of those things.  Instead he says that confession is followed by steadfast love.  That’s what God is offering!  How incredible is that!

 

As we sat in our Ash Wednesday service this week on…well, on Wednesday, of course…as we confessed to God that we stand in need of prayer, that we are weak in the face of temptations and trials, that we are nothing but dust and ashes with a temporary shell of flesh and bones, as I sat there in prayer, a movie kept coming to my mind.  But it didn’t fit the season.  Here we were in Lent and I kept seeing a scene from a Christmas movie.  You can guess which one—It’s a Wonderful Life.  The part that kept ringing in my Lenten ears was the climactic scene on the snowy bridge where George is pleading for God to give him back his life.  George had been given a chance to see what his town, his family and his friends would be like if he had never been born and he was horrified by the changes he saw.  Now tormented by wandering through his own town and not having anybody recognize him, George wanted this vision to go away; he wanted his life back.  At that moment the police cruiser speeds onto the bridge and Bert the cop gets out and calls, “George, George!”  Having just had a tangle with Bert in his vision, George draws back his fist and says, “Now stay away from me, Bert, or I’ll hit you again!”  But the real life Bert says, “What in the Sam Hill are you talking about, George?”  And then George realizes that he is hearing his own name.  He stammers and then cries out, “George.  George.  Do you know me, Bert??  DO YOU KNOW ME??”  And that’s the part that sank its truth into my Ash Wednesday reverie, the startling, amazing truth, that God knows our names.  “DO YOU KNOW ME, GOD, DO YOU KNOW ME??”  As we sit immersed in our sins, up to our ears in deceit, God still knows the real person down inside.  And God calls us by name.  God is not a sniper out to gun down the sinful.  God is not a heartless hanging judge.  God is not a horrid gossip who thrives on your failure.  God is our Creator, our loving Parent, our most faithful Friend, our divine Booster Club, our Bert the cop who looks for us all night to rescue us.  God knows our names!  And surrounds us with steadfast love.  Isn’t that incredible?  And yet, it is true.

 

We don’t have to make everything right before we sit down to talk with God.  It’s the talking with God that makes everything right.  We don’t have to correct our sins before we can be loved; it is the love which helps us correct our sinfulness.  Sometimes we look at the perfection of Jesus’ life and it causes us to tremble, because we know we can never match that.  But Jesus is not a sales goal set unrealistically high by a merciless manager to coerce us into doing more.  Jesus is a love poem written by God.  Jesus is a note of encouragement sent by our closest Loved One.  The point isn’t that Jesus died, but that Jesus rose.  Nothing could keep him in the tomb, not all the lies of the Sanhedrin Council, not all the deceit of Judas or the betrayal of Peter, not all the arrogance of Rome, for he suffered all that and still…didn’t he rise?  By the power of a loving God, he arose above it all.  And so will we.  Not the darkest stain of our past, not the closet of hidden sins we all keep, not the power of evil or the persistence of temptation, none of these can keep us down.  We can rise above it all through the power of God.

 

Don’t hide yourself from God; let God be your hiding place, to keep you safe from trouble, safe even from yourself, to surround you with glad cries of deliverance, of real freedom at last, to surround you with forgiving, never-ending, steadfast love.  I know this true.  I wouldn’t deceive you on this.  Besides it’s easy to see, just look at Jesus.  When God called his name, didn’t he rise?