Facing Our Sins

Ash Wednesday
February 13, 2013
Psalm 51:1-17

“Facing Our Sins”

He had everything a man could hope to have: position and power, influence and great wealth, the respect and admiration of friends and people in general. He came from very humble beginnings, and was known for courageous leadership and doing the right thing. He was a man of God, and strove to honor God in all things. In short, this man’s star was on the rise. But then one day he noticed a woman who lived not far from where he lived. He found her very beautiful, and although he himself was married, and this woman was also married, he could not get her out of his mind. What started off as just a chance encounter had turned into full-blown obsession on his part. He worked out a plan for the two of them to meet. One thing led to another, and he slept with her. Sometime later, the woman found that she was pregnant and she let the man know. She chose not to tell her husband, who was active duty military and was deployed. Because the man who had gotten the woman pregnant was in a position of great influence and power, he was able to arrange for the woman’s husband to come home on furlough. The hope was that the man, temporarily home from the war, would be intimate with his own wife and that it would look like her pregnancy was through her own husband. But the soldier was a man of honor, and he refused to experience all the pleasures of home while his comrades were roughing it out in the open on the battlefield. Things were now starting to get complicated, and the man who started all of this had to do something to save face. Because of his great influence and power, he pulled some strings and arranged for the solider to be put on the front line of battle where he would certainly be killed. And that’s exactly what happened. The soldier, husband of the pregnant woman, was killed in action. After an appropriate time of mourning, the woman and the man came together and were married. It seemed as if their secret was safely hidden, but not from God. God raised up an individual who confronted this man of power and influence who had done all of this, and called him to own up to the truth and face his sins. Shaken to his core with the awful reality of what he had done, the man was inspired to write about his own sin and faithlessness, as well as God’s mercy and faithfulness. Here are the words that he wrote: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your lovingkindnes; in your great compassion blot out my offenses. Wash me thoroughly from my wickedness and cleanse me from my sin!” (Psalm 51:1-2).

The story I have just shared with you doesn’t come from reality TV or some trashy soap opera. This story comes from the Bible (see 2 Samuel 11-12). The man of power and influence who committed adultery and then tried to cover his tracks, was the great King David, and the woman he lusted after who later became his wife and queen was Bathsheba. Her husband, whom David ordered killed in battle, was Uriah the Hittite, and the man who confronted David with his sin was Nathan the prophet. That psalm of David, Psalm 51, was what began our worship on this Ash Wednesday. The words of Psalm 51 speak to us across the ages and call each one of us, like David, to face our sins. “Facing Our Sins” is the theme for the message on this Ash Wednesday as we enter into these forty days of Lent. May the Lord’s rich and abundant blessing rest upon the preaching, the hearing, and the living of his Word for Jesus’ sake.

Beginning today, and each weekend in this Lenten season, we set our faces on the cross of Christ that is before us. As we face the cross during Lent, we also face certain areas in our lives which are not always in alignment with the cross of Christ. We will seek to come to terms with these things through the cross of Christ, who came to save us so that we might see him face-to-face in heaven. “Facing the Cross” is the title of this series and we will look at such things as “Facing Temptation,” “Facing Our Fears,” “Facing Our Worldliness,” “Facing One Another,” “Facing Suffering,” and others. I invite you to be part of this Lenten journey.

Facing the sins he had committed could not have been easy for David, and it’s not easy for us. Like David, we may try to cover things up in order to save face. Like David, even if no one else knows, God knows. The interesting thing here is that many people today no longer believe that they do sin. That’s something limited to large-scale stuff that impacts great numbers of people: think Bernie Madoff and the thousands of people whose life savings that he stole, or people like James Holmes and Adam Lanza who go on shooting rampages that kill innocent victims. Now that’s sin! No argument here; that is indeed sin. But what about ordinary, everyday people like us? We’re pretty good people, right? We play by the rules, pay our taxes, don’t get into trouble. We don’t really sin, do we? The Scriptures tell us: “The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one” (Psalm 14:2-3). The truth is, we do sin – every last one of us – in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone. God’s Word has a rich and varied way of describing what sin is, and at its core sin is a twisting and perversion of God’s gracious will and purpose. It is a deviation from what is good and right. It is failing and missing the mark of what God desires for his people and his whole creation. It is defiance and rebellion against God. It is polluting and making unclean what God has created to be holy. It is turning in on self over against the needs of others. Sin is not just what we do, it is the state of being into which we are born. David himself speaks of this in Psalm 51: “Indeed, I have been wicked from my birth, a sinner from my mother’s womb” (Psalm 51:5). Facing our sins is what the Scriptures call repentance: a God-inspired change of heart and mind that moves us in a new direction. Facing our sins is doing an about-face, and this side of the grave, it’s never too late.

In Psalm 51, David prayed: “Wash me thoroughly from my wickedness and cleanse me from my sin… Purge me from my sin, and I shall be pure… Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:2, 7, 10). When we face the ugly reality of our own sins, this is our prayer also. Look at these verbs here: wash, cleanse, purge, create, renew… How does God do this? Note what Paul writes in the Epistle reading: “For our sake he [God] made him [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). This is how a just and righteous God is reconciled to sinful human beings: through the One who became sin in our behalf, Jesus Christ. This is how we face our sins – trusting that for Jesus’ sake, who gave his life to take away our sins, we really can “Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love” (Joel 2:13). Reminding ourselves that we have been marked with the cross of Christ and sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism, receiving the forgiveness and peace that comes through Christ’s true Body and Blood in the Lord’s Supper, feeding on the promises of God’s Word – these are the means by which God’s good news comes to us today.

My friends, facing our sins is not something we need do alone. On this Lenten journey that begins today, surrounded by fellow believers who are our brothers and sisters in Christ, let us lean on each other for support and strength to face our sins as we face the cross of Christ who came to save us. Amen.