Lent
Psalm 6
O LORD, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath.
2Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am languishing; heal me, O LORD, for my bones are troubled.
3My soul also is greatly troubled. But you, O LORD—how long?
4Turn, O LORD, deliver my life; save me for the sake of your steadfast love.
5For in death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who will give you praise?
6I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping.
7My eye wastes away because of grief; it grows weak because of all my foes.
8Depart from me, all you workers of evil, for the LORD has heard the sound of my weeping.
9The LORD has heard my plea; the LORD accepts my prayer.
10All my enemies shall be ashamed and greatly troubled; they shall turn back and be put to shame in a moment. (Psa 6:1-10 ESV)
Sermon: Save Me Because of Your Unfailing Love (Psalm 6 )
In the name of the Father and of the † Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Our text for tonight is Psalm 6.
O LORD, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath.
2Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am languishing; heal me, O LORD, for my bones are troubled.
3My soul also is greatly troubled. But you, O LORD—how long?
4Turn, O LORD, deliver my life; save me for the sake of your steadfast love.
5For in death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who will give you praise?
6I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping.
7My eye wastes away because of grief; it grows weak because of all my foes.
8Depart from me, all you workers of evil, for the LORD has heard the sound of my weeping.
9The LORD has heard my plea; the LORD accepts my prayer.
10All my enemies shall be ashamed and greatly troubled; they shall turn back and be put to shame in a moment.
Lent in many ways is a journey. We journey with our Lord to the cross and deal with the forgiveness of our sins. Each week we will hear a portion of the reading of the Passion story of our Lord, and we will reflect upon our Lord's death and what that means to sinners like you and me. The Lenten journey is not just a trip down memory lane, rather, it's meditation on the Passion of Christ.
Each week we will look at one of the group of Psalms known as the Penitential Psalms. This is a group of Psalms all expressing repentance. What is repentance? Repentance is turning away from your sins, forsaking them, denouncing them, and turning to Christ for forgiveness. Repentance is a gift from God, because only God can turn the sinners heart toward Him. In his Small Catechism Luther explains Baptism in this way:
What does such baptizing with water indicate?
It indicates that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.
Baptism is a life-long process of daily contrition and repentance, not just a one-time event. Law and Gospel. Sin and forgiveness. This is the cycle of the Christian life. That is why we continue to repent and receive absolution. That is why we go to the Lord's Supper week after week. It is about living the life of Christ, not simply knowing right answers.
This is what God teaches us in the penitential psalms. In Psalm 6 David begins by lamenting that it seems like God has abandoned him. That's Law. God is angry with David, and so David prays that God will have mercy on him because he is weak and troubled.
Where does this start for you? What does this tell you about God? Well, it first of all tells you that God hates sin, your sin! The Psalmist writes in Psalm 5, "You hate all evildoers" (5:5). Does that sound harsh? You bet! God's Law is very harsh. The Law doesn't wink at sin. We say, "Yes, I'm bad, but not that bad. Let's just ignore it." That is like saying, "My cancer isn't that bad; it's just on the top of my skin." You can't ignore sin. Sooner or later it will dig in and do its work of destruction.
Then we reflect on the passion of Christ. There we see God's hatred of sin. Christ's suffering is God's violent attack on us for our sin. Christ's suffering and cruel torture and painful death are the punishment of sin; God's anger, God's wrath played out right before our eyes. David felt abandoned by God; on the cross, the Son of God was abandoned by God on account of sin. The journey to the cross is a journey through God's hatred of sin. Your sin! My sin!
But sin is not mere acts and deeds. Sin is the condition of man by nature. We are sinful by nature. Sin is not a matter of individual deeds, but of our nature. It's our nature as sinful humans that we repent of and that must be changed. But how do you change your nature? You cannot.
That sinful nature must be crushed; destroyed; pulverized! As you meditate on the agony and pain of Jesus on the cross, remember that it was there that God was attacking your sin, crushing you, pulverizing you, putting you to death. It's ugly. It's painful to behold. It's terrifying. Jesus did it for your sins therefore you participated in his death. You killed him!
Christ's suffering and death is God's anger at you on account of your sin. In your baptism you were joined to Jesus, you were joined to his agony and death, and you were buried with him in the tomb. By your baptism you became a participant in Christ's suffering and death. You are no longer just observers of what happened to someone else, it is what has happened to you. It is what will happen to all apart from Christ. For that reason, while staring at that wrath and anger of God, David was terrified and wrote these words: O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath.
But let's go on to verse two of Psalm 6. David prays that the Lord will be gracious to him and heal him. David is not going to let God off the hook. You see, David knows God's true character. He hates for a time but loves for eternity.
Now think again about the effect that this sin has on David. He is faint, his bones are in agony, his soul is in anguish. He even cries out, "No one remembers You when he is dead. Who praises You from the grave? (cf. v. 5). David is afraid for his very life. Worn out from groaning, flooded with tears, eyes, weak with sorrow, fail because of all his foes. As we meditate on Christ's suffering and death, we too should be afraid for our life.
David's picture in Psalm 6 of the effect of sin is profound and even painful. It's a picture that makes you squirm. It makes me squirm. I don't like to talk about my sinfulness or think about it. I would much rather think of myself as a basically nice person. I'm a Christian, and that means all this sin talk is for someone else. But remember, David was also a Christian. He looked forward to the coming of the Messiah. Sin isn't just something that unbelievers have to deal with. Sometimes in the Church we can get the mistaken idea that sin and forgiveness is for the bad people, but that the Christians just praise God because He's so great. Well, that's simply not true. Because our nature is sinful, everything we Christians do is also sinful: all our deeds, even our good works are sinful. We are incapable of doing anything that is not sinful.
But, there is hope. That is the message of Psalm 6. This is the message of the passion and cross of Jesus. No matter how messed up your life has become. No matter how far down the path of sin you have trod. No matter what nightmares trouble you and pain you have caused to yourself and to others. God is merciful and forgiving. By his left hand, God hates the sinner for breaking the Law, BUT by his right hand, God loves the sinner even more... so he sent his Son, Jesus, to the cross to die for you. As you meditate on the passion of Christ this Lent, you will learn that God hates the sinner, but He took all of that wrath out on his Son in your place. By placing your sins on Jesus, God's wrath is poured out on you and your sin in the person of Jesus. By the cross you're sinful nature is crushed and pulverized, but God's unfailing love raise you back up out of the dust when nothing else can. Only God can scatter your enemies: sin, death, and the devil. Only God can crush the sinner that lives in your flesh. Only the mercy of God in Jesus Christ can turn your life around and remake you in the waters of Baptism. Only God has given His Son in a Holy Meal to feed you and forgive you.
This Lent we are taking a journey together to the cross of Jesus Christ. But we will not just be tourists taking pictures through the window of a bus. On this journey we are will become participants of the cross; in order to be crushed by God's anger and wrath against our sinful nature, and to be raised up by his mercy for lost sinners like you and like me. We are going to receive God's gift of forgiveness that He gives in confession and absolution. We are going to become one with the bodily suffering of Christ as we eat his body and drink his blood at the Altar in just a few minutes.
And at the end of our journey, we will join David and sing out: "The Lord has heard my cry for mercy; the Lord accepts my prayer" (cf. Psalm 6:9). In the name of Jesus. Amen.