February 10, 2019: “Covered or Counted?”

Exodus 30:11—31:18

Matthew 26:47-68

Psalm 32:1-11

Proverbs 8:27-32

 

Psalm 32:1-7  "Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered…I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD," and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.…You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance."

 

The next time you're bored, find the nearest child and challenge them to a game of hide-and-seek. Because they're just plain terrible at it. Comedically so. So, for instance, you'll count to 10, say "ready or not, here I come," and when you open your eyes, the children are in plain view. Maybe they have their face hidden by a window curtain, but their feet are sticking conspicuously out the bottom. But you're an adult, so you play along. You pretend to look for them. "Where's Jesse?" you ask loudly. And that's when you'll start to hear it: a series of stifled giggles coming from a corner of the room. "Where could he be?" you might continue—but often you never have to actually find him. No, children that age eventually come bursting from under the table, running to you grinning: "Here I am!"

 

Children understand something we've lost as adults: that there's more value in being found than staying hidden. "Man is not what he thinks he is," wrote a French novelist. "He is what he hides." We suppress our shame; we guard our guilt. And we're plagued with the fear of being found out. "No one would love me if they knew," we tell ourselves. After all, we are what we try to hide.

 

David was the consummate blues singer. Psalm 32 is replete with musical terms—some of which are lost the pages of history. But his lyrics paint a vivid contrast between a life of hiding and a life of being found. For David, the act of hiding brought a pain that went all the way to the bone (32:3). But there is joy, he says, in confession—because confession brings forgiveness.

 

Martin Luther would later claim Psalm 32 as among his favorites. When he read this text, Luther observed that "the sins of the holy are not counted but covered; and the sins of the unholy are not covered but counted." That is, God's people can be confident that their sin—and the guilt that goes with it—is covered. But how?

 

Christ-follower, your sins are not counted against you. They are covered in the blood of Christ. The gospel promises us the joy we once knew only as children: that there's more value in being found than staying hidden. And so we run freely to the throne of grace, a shout of deliverance on our lips.