“When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long. Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat. Interlude Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, “I will confess my rebellion to the Lord.” And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone. Interlude” Psalms 32:3-5 NLT
We, as believers, as the Church, are a reactionary bunch. The Church practically ruined the process of confession by tying it to a sacrament involving a booth of secret exchanges between the sinner and a priest behind a veil. Confession was meant to be given to God and each other, not some mysterious sin eater. Then we bounced to the extreme of never having confession as a normal part of our fellowship and following Jesus in community.
Confession and repentance are not only threaded through the entire fabric of the Bible, they are clearly necessary starting from the beginning of our human existence. If Adam and Even had not blame-shifted responsibility off themselves, and just confessed who knows maybe the consequences or corrections wouldn’t have been as severe. Oh, sin would still be the death sentence that it is. But maybe the burden of labor and provision would be different for men and labor and delivery would be less painful for women?
Obviously David, after committing his heinous crimes, should have come clean before Nathan called him out. Was this refusal to confess before or after the confrontation? I’ve always had the theory that anyone who takes a life or commits violence against another human has to deal with a raging fire of guilt and the fear of getting caught. I imagined that the guilt eats the soul within and turns one into a beast, searing conscience and sucking out all emotion like love or compassion.
This Psalm carries a truth no matter the severity of sin or shame. We are not designed to carry guilt. And, it makes it paradoxically ridiculous when we have such a clear solution and simple option beckoning before us – confess and quit trying to hide it! To whom should we confess? First to God, then to one another.
It’s interesting that David, upon realization, confesses rebellion. Here we thought it was all about lust, objectification of a woman, lying, plotting and executing a murder, then trying to cover it all up. But rebellion? This is what the Bible has been trying to tell us all along. All sin is rebellion against God. It’s us, wanting our own way, not his. It’s yielding to cravings and what Augustine calls our “disordered desires” of what WE want, when we want it and won’t listen to anyone trying to dissuade us. The seven deadly fruits of sin are born from the roots of rebellion.
Whether it was before getting caught or after, David faces his sin, his guilt and the cancer lodged in his soul and vacates it to God. And in that, David finds forgiveness, freedom and a renewed spirit within. It’s not at all formulaic, but it is a process that yields both humility and a fresh start. Of course today, believers are supposed to assume that they are forgiven by Christ’s own permanent payment for sin – and we are. Have we come to believe the humiliation of confession is not necessary. That is not what the New Testament teaches is it? So we just skip the penitence, the humbling of ourselves, the constant admission that we are STILL sinners, saved by grace? Oh, that’s right, we want to heap upon ourselves a whole new layer of religion. The religion of perfection. You may want the perception of sinlessness and the right to judge the world because you are better than others. Not me brother, I know my own heart and it is quite ugly still. Psalm 32 is the perfect psalm for me. I will confess my rebellion to the Lord. And God will forgive me.
Prayer
Dad,
How dare I even for one moment think that Your righteous, Your mercy, Your forgiveness extends to me any privileges of pretense that I would be qualified to judge another, especially deciding who goes to heaven and who goes to hell. I am far too busy dealing with my own sin! I am thankful for confession, repentance and forgiveness as a regular process of keeping my heart and soul clean and clear before you.