Reformation at Epiphany on
Grace, mercy and especially peace are yours through Jesus Christ, who forgives your
transgressions, covers your sins, and removes your guilt. Amen.
Psalm 32:1-5 Blessed
is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. 2 Blessed
is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is
no deceit. 3 When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning
all day long. 4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength
was sapped as in the heat of summer. 5
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.
Getting past the guilt of your past
John is now a pastor in
From that moment on everyone knew the number one rule in the house. Don't sit on
the mauve sofa. Don't touch the mauve sofa. Don't play around the mauve sofa. Don't
eat on, breathe on, look at, or think about the mauve sofa. It was like the forbidden
tree in the Garden of Eden. "On every other chair in the house you may freely sit,
but upon this sofa, the mauve sofa, you may not sit, for in the day you sit thereupon,
you shall surely die."
Then came the Fall. One day, there appeared on the mauve sofa a stain. A red stain.
A red jelly stain.
So John's wife, who had chosen the mauve sofa and adored it, lined up their three
children in front of it: Laura, age four, Mallory, two-and-a-half, and Johnny, six
months. "Do you see that, children?" she asked. "That's a stain. A red stain. A
red jelly stain. The man at the sofa store says it is not coming out. Not forever.
Do you know how long forever is children? That's how long we're going to stand here
until one of you tells me who put the stain on the mauve sofa."
The two-and-a-half year old Mallory was the first to break. With trembling lips
and tear-filled eyes she said, "Laura did it." Laura passionately denied it. Then
there was silence, for the longest time. No one said a word. John, the dad, knew
they wouldn't, for they had never seen their mother so upset. He knew they wouldn't
because they knew that if they did they would spend eternity in the time-out chair.
He knew they wouldn't because he, the dad, was the one who put the red jelly stain
on the sofa, and he wasn't saying anything!
John remained silent. And yet, every time he sat on the jelly-stained mauve sofa,
he felt guilty. He didn’t want to confess to his wife. Better that the kids take
the punishment. Yet his silence was not the answer. It was only another lie. The
more he sat on the sofa, the more he remained silent, the worse he felt.
Things haven’t changed much. Adam and Eve remained silent about their sin … and
hid from God. Cain remained silent … and hid his brother’s murdered body. Joseph’s
brothers sold him into slavery and insinuated to their father that Joseph had been
killed by a wild animal. They remained silent … for 20 years. King David committed
adultery and murder. He remained silent … for over a year without confession to
God or his people.
Joseph’s brothers believed that everything bad that happened to them was punishment
for their sin of selling Joseph into slavery. Their guilty conscience ate at them.
Judas betrayed Jesus to the enemies. He felt that was an unforgivable sin and in
his guilt he committed suicide. David was spiritually, emotionally, and physically
drained from keeping his sin a secret: “When I kept silent, my bones wasted away
through my groaning all day long. For day and night [Lord] your hand
was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.”
Things haven’t changed much. Martin Luther’s guilt drove him to become a monk, to
fast, to beat and whip himself, to pray on his knees on the cold, hard monastery
floor. Luther’s guilt was no different than the guilt felt by Christians in the
Middle Ages. And the church of that time was no help. The church offered paying
of indulgences or visiting relics to remove sin and guilt.
Things haven’t changed much. How many of you are silent liars like Pastor John,
Joseph’s brothers or King David? Your face turns red when an old friend reminds
you of how drunk you once got in high school. Your eyes close and you shake your
head when you think about how you lost your cool with your daughter and really yelled
at her. You pretend that everything is okay between you and your spouse even though
you have that anger or argument or adultery in your past. Or did you do something
years ago that you just can’t seem to forget about but just don’t want to talk about?
How do you get past your guilt from your past?
You know what they say; guilt is the gift that keeps on giving. Guilt is good when
it drives us into sorrow over sin and into the arms of a forgiving God. Unfortunately,
that is all guilt was meant to do. It was never meant to linger.
Lingering guilt not only traps you. It kills your spirit. Shallow religious “experts”
think that a luscious helping of lingering guilt is good. But God doesn’t agree.
Guilt doesn’t bring us closer to him; it drives us from him. It ushers in ulcers
and sleepless nights. We begin to wonder if that chronic cramp or that broken bone
is God’s way of letting us have it. Maybe he’s giving us what we deserve. Guilt
destroys people and families. It even kills. Have you had any lately? A lot of people
do…
People deal with their guilt in different ways. Maybe we try to purge our guilt
by making up for it, like the Christians in the Middle Ages. If only we throw a
few more bucks in the plate, maybe we won’t feel so bad about cheating on our taxes.
Maybe we try to keep our lives so busy that we don’t have time to contemplate our
guilt.
Some of us feel like our guilt is weighing us down, as it did with David. So we
end up dealing with others in an unhealthy way. Like the divorced parent who indulges
his/her children in order to compensate for the guilt that they feel for the breakup
of the marriage. Or we feel guilty about not spending enough time with our kids.
Our spouse leaves a mess on the table and we blow our top. The mess is no big deal,
but the guilt needs to come out somewhere.
Or maybe we try to punish ourselves for our past sins, as Luther did. We feel so
guilty that we make ourselves physically sick. Depression can be a form of self-inflicted
punishment. The ultimate form of self-punishment is suicide, like Judas. Suicide
is now the number one killer of college students and the number two killer of high
school students. Why? Because people do not know how to get past the guilt of their
past.
We keep reviewing in our minds the things we wish we could change, but are never
going to change. Guilt cannot change the past just like worry cannot change the
future. It just makes today miserable.
People often answer lingering guilt with greater guilt. Christians are good at this.
We know that Christ has taken away our sin. Our guilt has been removed. Yet we still
feel guilty. We know we are forgiven, but we don’t feel forgiven. So now we feel
guilty because we feel guilty.
We have to see that we can be our own worst enemy. We cannot bury our guilt through
activity, deny it through entertainment or get rid of it through destructive behavior.
Beating yourself up doesn’t fix your pain. It just reopens the wound. Through Christ,
we can find the relief we’re looking for. Jesus Christ was nailed to a cross so
you could stop nailing yourself to a cross. Jesus Christ was crucified so you could
stop crucifying yourself. Ask God to help you stop hurting yourself.
God knows what you have done. Every thought you’ve thought. Every word you’ve spoken.
He knows when you disobey your parents. He hears when you use dirty language. He
reads your mind when you think vengeful thoughts about your spouse or boss. Don’t
even try to hide it. Just say it. Admit that you are a filthy sinner.
David felt relieved after he had finally confessed and repented of his sin to God.
“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. Blessed
is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed
is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is
no deceit.”
God doesn’t stay silent about your guilt. “Therefore, there is now no condemnation
for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1) Any time you read the word “therefore”,
you should ask yourself, “What’s it there for?” The first seven chapters of Romans
lay it all out: holy God, sinful man, coming wrath, perfect Savior, Jesus Christ
crucified and risen, made right by grace, made holy through faith. Then Paul says,
in view of all that: "Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in
Christ Jesus." That’s the essence of who Jesus is and what He did. That’s the central,
foundational message of God’s love to the world. God condemned Christ, so the guilty
may go free.
When Luther finally learned and believed that his sin and guilt was removed by Jesus,
he announced: “I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through the open doors
into paradise.” Once the Holy Spirit had led Luther to believe and cherish the grace
that removed guilt, the Christian Church would not be the same. Into the dark, dismal,
terrifying times of the Middle Ages, sprung light, life, and joy eternal. Luther
and his fellow Reformers now not only preached sin but also mercy, judgment but
also forgiveness, guilt but also grace.
Jesus doesn’t accept you under protest. He doesn’t love you because he has to. He
doesn’t want you because you feel “sufficiently” guilty. Jesus loves you simply
because he loves you. He loves you in spite of your sordid past. He accepts you
despite your dumb choices. He forgives you for your foolish years.
How do you get past the guilt of your past? First, do not remain silent about your
sins. Kneel before the cross of Christ. Give him your sins. Every one of them. Name
your sins out loud to God. The Bible tells us that personal confession is a necessary
part of healing the open wound of guilt. “If we confess our sins, [God] is faithful
and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1
John 1:9) Confession is God’s way of getting the poisons out. It’s like draining
a wound. It cuts through all the pretending, denial, and defense.
Then listen to what God has to say about forgiveness and the removal of your guilt.
Scripture tells us that our Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and
abounding in love. He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according
to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His
love for those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he
removed our transgressions from us, through the perfect obedience and willing suffering
and death of Christ Jesus, our Savior and Lord. Out of his great love for mankind,
God has sent his only Son into this world to pay the price for our sins. He also
assures us that where there is confession of sins and true repentance in the heart,
there is also forgiveness through faith in Christ.
Do not remain silent about your guilt, for God does not remain silent about his
forgiveness. “I will forgive your wickedness and will remember your sins no more.”
God has already forgiven you. Now it’s time to get busy forgiving yourself. I know,
it’s difficult to look at yourself, thinking, “If I hadn’t been such an idiot to
begin with, this wouldn’t have happened. If I hadn’t been sleeping around, I wouldn’t
have gotten pregnant. If I hadn’t been drinking so much, I wouldn’t have ruined
my life. If I hadn’t been so self-centered, I wouldn’t have missed my daughter’s
childhood. Maybe God can live with me, but I can’t live with myself.”
Don’t be so arrogant. Are you greater than the Creator? If God doesn’t even remember
it, why is it still spooking around in your brain? Throw the demons in the basement
and pound the door shut with three bloody nails from the cross — for good. Jesus,
and only Jesus, is the way to move from lingering and lamenting to learning and
living.
Whenever the sins and guilt in your rearview mirror hold you back, look to see the
cross of