Daily Lesson for April 30, 2020

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 106 verses 6 through 12:

Both we and our ancestors have sinned;

    we have committed iniquity, have done wickedly.

7

Our ancestors, when they were in Egypt,

    did not consider your wonderful works;

they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love,

    but rebelled against the Most High at the Red Sea.

8

Yet he saved them for his name’s sake,

    so that he might make known his mighty power.

9

He rebuked the Red Sea, and it became dry;

    he led them through the deep as through a desert.

10

So he saved them from the hand of the foe,

    and delivered them from the hand of the enemy.

11

The waters covered their adversaries;

    not one of them was left.

12

Then they believed his words;

    they sang his praise.

The heading for Psalm 106 is "A Confession of Israel's Sins".  I think that says something.  It really says something to write a book of songs and prayers and include within in it a song which tells the failures of a nation and speaks the God-honest truth about its people and their forebears.

The great 20th century preacher and prophet William Sloane Coffin once said a true patriot is one who loves his or her country enough "to address her flaws".

Whoever the Psalmist was who wrote Psalm 106 was in that sense a great, great patriot. He loved his nation enough to confess its sins. I wonder how that was taken. I wonder what the debate was like in whether or not to include this Psalm in the Psalter.

In the end it was included.  And that says something about the editors.  They had the guts to let the truth about the nation be known, warts and all.  They didn't try to cover up the ugly parts.  They allowed the flaws to go on and be addressed.  For that, they too were patriots.

It's a mighty powerful thing to confess a nation's sins.  And it's a mighty scary thing also.  The only thing scarier, in fact, is the thought of leaving them unconfessed which no real patriot or real psalter could do without being less that honest to history and to God.

NOTE: We're reading the whole Bible through together this year.  Tomorrow's Lesson will come from 1 Chronicles chapters 13-16.