The Aftermath of Forgiveness in Psalm 32

Sermon 386 St. Martin’s 141 (Riverway) 3/30/25

Blessed is the one

whose transgressions are forgiven,

whose sins are covered.

Blessed is the one

whose sin the Lord does not count against them

and in whose spirit is no deceit.

When I kept silent,

my bones wasted away

through my groaning all day long.

For day and night

your hand was heavy on 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.

I said, “I will confess

my transgressions to the Lord.”

And you forgave

the guilt of my sin.

Therefore let all the faithful pray to you

while you may be found;

surely the rising of the mighty waters

will not reach them.

You are my hiding place;

you will protect me from trouble

and surround me with songs of deliverance.

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;

I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.

Do not be like the horse or the mule,

which have no understanding

but must be controlled by bit and bridle

or they will not come to you.

Many are the woes of the wicked,

but the Lord’s unfailing love

surrounds the one who trusts in him.

Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous;

sing, all you who are upright in heart!

Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Laetare Sunday We have officially passed the halfway point in our Lenten journey together. How are you holding up? What have you discovered thus far about God and your relationship to him?

Our Catholic brothers and sisters (and some more Anglo-Catholic Episcopalians) are celebrating Laetare Sunday today. It’s a day to catch our breath during this long, penitential season. 

Laetare simply means rejoice, and it’s a reminder that all of this talk about sin and repentance is leading us to something beautiful and restorative— we are now just a few weeks away from Holy Week and Easter. 

A lot of churches will even wear rose vestments rather than the usual Lenten purple to mark the brightness of the day. Even in Lent, we can rejoice.

Blessed are the Honest That’s why Psalm 32 (composed by King David) is perfect for a day like today because it lays out the path from human repentance to divine forgiveness.  The themes of Lent are there, but the tone is noticeably different. 

It’s a mixture of rejoicing for the gracious action of God—how he protects and covers us with his loyal love. But the only way we get to experience this happiness—this blessedness that David talks about—is through the hard work of repentance.

And hopefully, that is something we’ve rediscovered during our Lenten journey. Repentance is a daily call to be honest with ourselves, honest with our neighbor, and most importantly, honest with God. 

Did you notice, the first line of the psalm goes, “Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven.” 

It doesn’t say, “Blessed is the one who has no sin. Blessed is the one who gets straight A’s, who never disappoints anyone, or who has their life all put together.” 

No. “Blessed is the one who looks in the mirror and sees a broken, but precious child of God, and turns to the Lord for their true identity, purpose, and fulfillment.” The deep and abiding happiness that God offers comes irrespective of our current circumstances, but from our willingness to cling to him for dear life, every hour of every day. 

Though honest vulnerability and radical dependence are highly valued in the economy of God, they won’t go for much in the marketplaces of this world. 

We are so good at pretending and playing the part to get where we need to go and to fool the right people at the right time…but do that long enough and we begin to fool ourselves too. As a wise sage once said, “It’s not a lie if you believe it.” We have gotten good at skirting the truth about ourselves. 

The Aftermath of Forgiveness So, this psalm begs us to put down the mask and stop running away. At some point, we need to face the music. And when we do, well, you can see the difference it makes in King David’s life. 

This is written right after he had been granted forgiveness. In the aftermath of God’s forgiveness, a weight has been lifted from his shoulders. He immediately grabbed a pen and began writing this psalm of repentant praise. 

In it, he talks about the physical and emotional toll that unconfessed sin can take on a person. While he kept silent, his bones wasted away and a heavy hand was over him as he held all this in. 

We have a choice, we can carry around the burden of unconfessed sin and secrets of our lives, and the longer we hold onto it, the heavier it becomes. OR we can acknowledge it before God and find redemption and release. That choice is solely ours to make. 

To illustrate this point—and in keeping with today’s theme of Lenten joy—we need to watch a clip from Seinfeld. 

Now, for those of you who were not around in the 90s or were too busy watching an inferior show called Friends, Seinfeld is the greatest sitcom of all time.

To set the scene for this clip you need to know that a police officer has been searching for one car that has evaded a parking ticket for 16 years and has racked up more fines than anyone else in New York City. 

Like the story of Moby Dick, this car has repeatedly slipped away. It’s become this cop’s White Whale, and his goal is to catch the elusive scofflaw and bring him to justice.  

Intolerable Burden As ridiculous as this is, there is a lot of truth to the heavy burden we carry around. “I know who you are,” Kramer says, and that fact alone makes Newman burst into tears. He couldn’t sleep because of the stress of this secret. 

Now, if the only thing you’re evading in your life is a parking ticket then good for you, but I know for most of us (including myself) we are carrying heavy burdens right now. Some of those things we can control, but many others seem to be out of our control, and we are helpless. The water seems to be up to our neck. 

In either scenario, the posture Psalm 32 is calling us to embrace is of one who falls before the Mercy Seat of God, knowing that he alone can save us from the broken nature of ourselves and the world we inhabit.  

That’s one of the reasons I appreciate the older language found in our Prayer Book. It doesn’t try to soften the reality we find ourselves in. 

One of the confessions goes like this: 

“We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, which we from time to time most grievously have committed, by thought, word, and deed, against thy divine Majesty, provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us . We do earnestly repent, and are heartily sorry for these our misdoings; the remembrance of them is grievous unto us, the burden of them is intolerable.”

People just don’t talk like that anymore, especially about sin. But we know, deep in our bones, that the burden of them is intolerable. 

Think about it, if we can say something that stark together in worship, well then, we’re not hiding anything from God, let alone the people we are sitting next to. This is not a private prayer—this is one we say together. And each time we do so, we get closer to the honesty that God wants us to live by every day of our lives. 

In the same spirit, David says in our Psalm:

“Therefore let all the faithful pray to you while you may be found; surely the rising of the waters will not reach them. You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.”

This song of deliverance that we experience together as the people of God sets us on solid ground, amid the chaotic waters of this life. And from that point, we can then walk with confidence toward the calling that God has for us—individually and collectively. 

To confess is the first step to receiving the divine gift of pardon and renewal. 

I love what John Stott says about this psalm. “God gives David a promise of personal guidance, for in his steadfast love he is concerned not only to forgive the past but also to direct the future.”

Just as Lent leads us toward the horror of Good Friday and the resounding victory of Easter Sunday, our lives are heading towards our glorious destiny where sin will not divide us from our Heavenly Father, nor will it be allowed to inflict division within ourselves and our relationships. 

In Jesus, God is restoring all things to himself…including our sin-sick soul. We are not scofflaws in the eyes of God, but children who have lost their way and in need of some direction on how to get home; home to a Father who anxiously awaits our return; where he welcomes us with open arms. 

 And so, with that image in our mind, let’s pray. 

Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid [and we are rejoice in that. We don’t have to hide, we don’t have to pretend. We come before you with it all, the good, the bad; all of our hopes, dreams, and disappointments, and we entrust them to your gracious care.] Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit [because we get distracted. Our hearts wander from you, but by the power of your grace, transform our brokenness into glory] that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash