Daily lesson for March 30, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Psalm 51 verses 1 through 3:

51 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and acleanse me from my sin!
3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.

I know lots of people who have spent lots and lots of hours with pastors and therapists trying to get rid of a sense of guilt and shame about something they've done. It's heart-wrenching for them because about the time they begin to feel like they're coming out of the wash clean and beautiful in spirit again, some trigger of a memory grabs hold of them and wrestles back down into the mud and the muck of their past. It's like they're condemned to live out the terrible truth of Faulkner's words, that, "The past is never dead.  It's not even past."

Well, here's some bad news which if heard and received in the right spirit may actually turn out to be good news: we are never going to shake our sense of guilt and shame.

We am spend our whole lives dwelling on things we've done and hoping and praying and hoping and praying again and hoping and praying some more that God will deliver us from  the haunting memories of what we've lied, betrayed, taken advantage of, and destroyed, but we're never going to shake loose.  Not here, not now, and I believe not even in heaven.

So here we see the pricetag of God's grace and mercy -- that it is given freely, but it must be received with the cost of never forgetting that it was necessary for our redemption. When we receive this grace and this mercy, we do not return again to the primordial state Adam and Eve were in when they knew no sin and so knew not that they were naked.  No; that's not the Gospel. The Gospel is that we are sinners -- stark butt naked, and ashamed of it all -- and yet God chooses to put a white robe on us anyway. This is the astonishing thing about grace.

And speaking of grace -- I am thinking of a quote from John Newton, the man who wrote the hymn "Amazing Grace". Before he found redemption in Christ and became an Anglican clergyman, he was a slaveship captain. The memories of that time haunted him throughout his life and in one memorable letter he reflected back on the time, his sin, and God's great, great mercy:

 "I was ashamed of myself then, I am ashamed of myself now and I expect to most ashamed of myself when he comes to receive me to himself.  But oh!  I rejoice in HIM that HE is not ashamed of me!"

We will never be relieved of all the darkness we know to be within ourselves. There is a curse to that yes; but there is also a gift. And the gift is always knowing just how amazing God's grace really is.