Sebastian Shaw as Anakin Skywalker, unmasked in Return of the Jedi (1983) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Will We Rejoice?

Psalm 32:1-11

May the grace, that mercy and peace of God our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ bring you such great joy, as you no longer hide your sin, but eagerly confess it and find yourself freed and cleansed!

Will We Know Joy…

I’ll tell you a secret.  Dad’s can cry.  An example, there are some death scenes in movies, that overwhelm us. Any dad here willing to admit that they cried at the end of Brian’s Song?  Or when Luke pulled off his Father’s mask in Star Wars, as Anakin Skywalker died?  Or when Spock utters, “I have always been and will always be, your friend…”

Looking at the Psalm for today, of all the movies I have seen, of all the deaths that have been portrayed, I could only think of one… and it almost seems sad, that it comes from a musical….. yeah – a musical.  Father’s day… and pastor uses a…. musical… in his sermon?

Yeah – because that story, Les Mis, is an illustration of our psalm.

For the tears there, as they start with death… turn to an incredible joy…as Jean Val Jean prays, and realize the answers to his confession, as he realizes the power of God’s redemption.  In this incredible story, of a man whose life at the beginning of the movie, is that of a slave who had run from his punishment. At death, he finds himself in the company of saints…and all his burdens taken away.

No longer one of “les miserable”, but rather, he has become one of the redeemed, one of “les joyeaux” – one of the joyous.

Because of that, it pictures perfectly the lesson of our incredible psalm…

The wasting away of those trapped in sin…

Character after character in the movie, so much like real life, finds themselves drowning in sin.  Some wander into it, blissfully unaware of the damage it will do.  Others turn to sin out of desperation, like Jean Valjean who steals to provide for his family, or like Fontine, who sells her hair and her body, in order to provide.  Others just embrace it, as one embraces hating others, and working for their destruction. In every case, sin sucks us in, deceiving us, promising false hopes, and leaving us broken…
It is so like the words of David, as he talks about the power of sin,

³  When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long. ⁴  Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat.

So often, we don’t realize the damage of our own sin, and the weight of the sin of the world that corrupts life, until it is too late.  Until life is wasted away, like that which happens in desert – as the heat sucks the water out of our bodies evaporating that which we so need to survive…

The Psalm is clear, the issue isn’t the sin itself, though that is, indeed sin, and we should strive to avoid it.  The problem is not dealing with sin, the idea that we can hide it, bury it, justify it, compare it to others, and somehow think God doesn’t notice…

When we bury that sin, when we hide it, protect it from view, we choose to let it rot from ourselves.   We would condemn others sins… and yet we are not able to face ours own sin, and therefore we can not face redemption. Some hide their own sin, and they hide from own grace even to go as far as to try an escape dealing with the life of redemption and mercy by ending life…

Truly such is the nature of those miserable, those suffering… unable to face their own sin…

 The Turning Point…

“Forgive me all my trespasses and take me to your glory….”

That is the cry of Jean Valjean at the end of the movie, a plea for grace, a grace that had he had struggled with, since a Bishop gave him the silver he stole.

“By the passion and the blood, God has raised you out of darkness!” were the words of the pastor/Bishop that day, much earlier in his life, not long into the movie.

It took most of his life to understand the power of that absolution, that loving forgiveness.  He gets it little then, but struggles with sin the rest of the movie, and the impact of it.  He will run from who he is…. He will run from his sin a number of times, he will eventually learn to deal with it… and when he does…

He finds joy and peace!
He has arrived at the point where David is at in the psalms,

Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, “I will confess my rebellion to the LORD.” And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone.

That is of course, what is realized in the end, as Jean Valjean is welcomed into God’s glorious presence, a presence that was there throughout his life, a presence he prayer too, cried to, yet somehow still struggled with – even as we constantly struggle with our sin, and are tempted to bury it, hide it, and attempt to dismiss it. He finally knows joy, He finally is at peace…

We aren’t the only ones who struggle with our sin like Jean Valjean does… Listen to Luther…

Be a sinner and sin boldly,but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly, for he is victorious over sin, death, and the world. As long as we are here  we have to sin. This life is not the dwelling place of righteousness,but… it is enough that by the riches of God’s glory we have come to know the Lamb that takes away the sin of the world. No sin will separate us from the Lamb, even though we commit fornication and murder a thousand times a day. Do you think that the purchase price that was paid for the redemption of our sins by so great a Lamb is too small?
This is not permission to go out and sin more, as many will take this statement.  It is a measure of the extent of God’s incredible grace – even more a measure of the depth of God’s love for us. The measure of God’s desire to have us take part of His glory, to revel and rejoice in His love.

There are so many passages in scripture that describe God’s love for His people, when they come to Him.  You see it’s not just our joy that is described when sins are forgiven, it is the Father in Heaven’s joy as well… when His children come to Him.  There is the story of the prodigal son, and of course revelation… but there is one that is always will be a favorite of mine,

¹⁷  The LORD says, “I am making a new earth and new heavens. The events of the past will be completely forgotten. ¹⁸  Be glad and rejoice forever in what I create. The new Jerusalem I make will be full of joy! Isaiah 65:17-18 (TEV)

We are joyous – not just because of the joy of being freed from our sin, but because free of those burdens, we find our Father in Heaven just as joyous, the word picture in Hebrew is that we are dancing in that joy…

We don’t have to wait to our closing scene..

For in our baptism we have been freed, we’ve been brought into His glory… even if we can’t see it clearly…yet.

The question maybe isn’t will we rejoice… but when will rejoice…

I would suggest now is the time and here is the place, for the victory feast awaits… AMEN?

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