Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen! Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:
“Have mercy on me, O God” (Psalm 51:1a).
Tonight, we begin the penitential season of Lent, which is a time of self-examination as we prepare for the Resurrection of Our Lord.
Now, have you ever thought: “If God is all-knowing, then He knows my sins already, so why do I need to confess my sins?”
Does God really need to hear me confess my sins? We begin each Divine Service with Confession and Absolution. Why do we do this? Is this just a ritual, or does it mean something?
It is true that God knows every single sin you and I have done in our lives. He knows everything you do in secret. Confession and Absolution isn’t about spilling the news to God, since clearly, He knows already.
Confession and Absolution is for you, and it is for me, so that by confessing our sins, God can get rid of them. We begin with Confession and Absolution so God can take your sins upon Himself. This is what Psalm 51 is all about!
Now, next to the fall of Adam and Eve, the account of King David’s fall is perhaps the most-familiar account of a fall in the Old Testament. The fall of David has been glamorized by movie makers, and many people even see it as an exciting love story. But it isn’t. David’s fall is a frightening reminder of how vulnerable we all are. It has been said, “Every man is two drinks and a wink away from ruining his life.”
So, if you think that you are not vulnerable, then you are vulnerable. You see, the times when we are most vulnerable to trial and temptation are the times when everything seems to be going your way. When life is hard and we are struggling, God is never far from our thoughts. But when life is good, that is when we are most prone to fall.
For King David, life was good. Life was very good. Practically all his wars had been fought and won. Even the war with the Ammonites was virtually over. So, instead of going off to war with his troops, as was his custom, David decided to remain home in Jerusalem.
While David’s men were at war, he was far removed from that scene. Instead of being active, David became bored. He was looking for something to excite him. In his boredom, David grew idle and complacent. He had too much free time on his hands.
Then one late afternoon, the bored David arose from a nap on his couch and decided to go for a walk onto the rooftop terrace of the palace. As he looked down over his kingdom, he saw a beautiful woman bathing. He gazed at her. Satan began tugging at his heart as he used sexual lust.
David gave into his temptation and sent one of his servants to find out more about this woman. His servant returned to David and said, “Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” (2 Samuel 11:3b). In other words, the servant is saying, “David, wake up! She’s married! She belongs to another!”
So, what does David do? Does he heed the warning? Nope! He insisted she be brought to him. A few weeks later, Bathsheba sent word to David, “I am pregnant” (2 Samuel 11:5).
So, what does David do now? Does he confess his sin? No. He compounds his sin by trying to cover it up and hide it from everyone. So, David comes up with a plan.
David called Uriah home from the front and pretended he was interested in learning how the fighting was going. What a hypocrite! His only concern was that people conclude the baby was Uriah’s. But Uriah was a man of honor. He would not go home, but slept on David’s doorstep. For Uriah, it wouldn’t be right if he were home with his wife while his fellow soldiers were still fighting.
That next night, David tries another tactic. He would get Uriah drunk. But even a drunk Uriah displayed more integrity than a sober David.
David, thinking only of himself, begins to panic and decides that if Uriah won’t be with Bathsheba, then he would have to find a way to get rid of Uriah. So, David sent Uriah back to the front lines with his own death orders in hand. Problem solved. Everything worked out for David. David’s sin is covered. Or so it seems.
To all outward appearances, it appears that out of the goodness in his heart, David took in the widow of Uriah to be his wife. Outwardly, this all appears to be honorable and decent. In the eyes of the people, David is a great king who has taken care of this poor soldier’s widow. Although David had deceived most of the nation, God knew everything.
Not once had David sought God’s counsel and forgiveness. His integrity with the nation of Israel may have been maintained, but his fellowship with God was broken.
David kept this cover-up going for more than a year. He refused to confess his wrong. But David went into depression and his prayer life became nonexistent. He was emotionally drained. He was in remorse for what he had done. But he was not yet repentant. He did not desire to change. He refused to act differently. However, he had remorse, and his remorse led him to bitterness and regret and loss of peace of heart and mind. But he would not confess his sin to God. This greatly displeased the Lord.
This is where Nathan steps in. Nathan was an old friend of David, a personal advisor and minister to David. And now, God is using Nathan to an unenviable task.
So, God used Nathan to tell David a story, a touching story about two men. One rich, the other poor. The rich man had everything he could ever want, the poor man had nothing but one ewe lamb, which was like a daughter to him. One day, a traveler came to the rich man, but he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the guest, but instead takes the poor man’s lamb and slaughters it and then feeds it to the traveler.
Now, David doesn’t know that he is being set up. David, not realizing this is just a story, is filled with anger and says, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die” (2 Samuel 12:5). Then Nathan says to David, “You are the man!” (2 Samuel 12:7).
In other words, this story was never about a rich and poor man, this story was about David and Bathsheba and Uriah. How could David have missed the point? But now David sees his sin. He understands what he had done. He is now contrite. He is penitent as he confesses, “I have sinned against the Lord” (2 Samuel 12:13).
God was waiting for this. God waits for each of us to confess and acknowledge our sins in the same way. So, why should we confess our sins? Well, look at David. He was a wreck. His remorse was eating at him.
You see, all sin is ultimately a sin against God. This is why David says in Psalm 51: “Against You, You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight” (Psalm 51:4). God is always involved when it comes to our sinfulness, because it all goes against Him. And God is the One who ultimately has to forgive the sin if it is going to be forgiven.
It is easy to separate the two tables of the Law. Yes, the first table of the Law focuses on God and the second table focuses on our neighbor. But if you would break the Fifth Commandment, you are really saying, “I am God. I can kill and make alive. I decide who lives and dies.” And if you would break the Sixth Commandment by not being faithful to your spouse, what you are saying is “I am God. I get to decide how I am going to treat other people.”
This is what David was doing. He was doing what he wants, when he wants, and who cares about the consequences. That is what sin does. Sin turns us in on ourselves and makes us into little false gods. This is what sin does to you.
In Psalm 51, David is admitting this. He is asking God to have mercy on him. He is asking God to blot out his transgressions. David knows that he has a major sickness known as sin and that only God can cleanse him and cure him. He can’t do any program, no ten step process, to get rid of his sin. He can’t try harder to get rid of his sin.
When you have been discovered in a sin, sometimes there is pride in that sin. Even the most pious Christian can in a twisted way become proud of their sin. So often, we don’t see actual sins as something to be confessed and forgiven. But all sins divide us from God. In God’s sight, there is no difference between a “small” and a “large” sin.
David says, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation” (Psalm 51:12a). This joy of salvation is the joy of absolution, the joy of forgiveness. This is the joy of hearing and receiving and recognizing and rejoicing in what God gives us in His Son Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection.
So, why do we confess our sins to God? So that God would clean your conscience.
Like David, we are all going to suffer in this life. We are all going to continue to have earthly consequences and trials because of sin, but through confession and absolution, we are found right with God. God alone declares us innocent. We have hope and joy because when we confess our sins to God our Father, He forgives our sins for Christ’s sake. Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,
keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.
+ SOLI DEO GLORIA +
