Psalm 32

My junior English class is reading The Scarlet Letter, and each day I am amazed at how much spiritual truth is hidden within each chapter. Yesterday we discussed the confession of sins, and whether or not it is always necessary and right to confess one's sin. We looked particularly at 1 John 1:9 ("If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and purify from all unrighteousness") and James 5:16 ("Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed"), and determined that the Biblical standard does, indeed, call us to repentance and confession both to God and to each other. In the novel, Reverend Dimmesdale claims that sin should only be confessed when it will not harm one's public image, while his opponent (and ironically, an antagonist of the novel) says that repentance is necessary regardless of image. We determined that the Biblical standard is more correctly upheld by Chillingworth and that as humans, we are incapable of dealing with sin on our own.

We also read Psalm 32 in class (yes, I am learning daily that I am a Bible teacher trapped in an English teacher's body!), and I was struck by the word "covered" in vs. 1 and vs. 5 ("Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, who sins are covered" and "Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity"). Think back to the Garden of Eden in Genesis 1. When Adam and Eve were sinless in the garden, they were naked and shameless. Once they ate the forbidden fruit, however, they had to cover themselves with fig leaves to hide their shame, and ultimately, God himself covered them with animal skins. Even from the beginning, God had to shed blood and sacrifice life in order to cover the sin and shame of the human race.

Now let's think about Jesus. The blood He shed on the cross became the ultimate sacrifice that now clothes His children in garments of salvation ("I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness" [Isaiah 61:10]) and gives us a literal covering our sins. We can even take Jesus' death a step farther to remember that his literal clothes were ripped from him and were given to bystanders after lots were cast. Not only did his blood symbolically cover our iniquity, but his literal clothes were given out to cover the human race in a physical, tangible way, as well.

Look back at Psalm 32:3-5: "When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night, your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity... and you forgave the guilt of my sin." As humans, we try to sometimes cover up our sins on our own, keeping them a secret from others to maintain a positive image or living in denial that our actions are sinful in the first place. Psalm 32 is clear, however, that such a strategy is impossible for humans -- that is, we will never be able to cover up our sins on our own. There is only ONE who can cover our shame, our nakedness, our guilt, and our deepest insecurities:

Christ, Emmanuel, Bread of Life, Son of God, Savior, Jesus, Anointed One, Hiding Place.

Our God.

As we confess our sins to Him, may He "forgive the guilt of our sin" (Psalm 32:5) and "surround us with songs of deliverance" (Psalm 32:7).