First Presbyterian Church      Rev. Michael J. Imperiale

Salt Lake City, UtahMarch 19, 2006

“Watching and Waiting: Clinging to Hope”

Psalm 130

Introduction

It starts at a very young age. As parents raise children, issues and behaviors of right and wrong naturally emerge. Teaching children, disciplining them, shaping their lives in matters of what’s right and what’s wrong in life are important roles that parents, teachers, and other leaders fill. In this process of growing up, all of us are socialized by good doses of guilt. When confronted with our wrong behavior, feelings of guilt take hold.

Some psychologists argue that guilt is helpful in strengthening social bonds and attachments. Guilt can promote closeness and emotional harmony by making people pay attention to one another’s needs and “emotional soft spots.” On the other hand, too much guilt, guilt that is not processed in a healthy way can cause people to abandon relationships to avoid resentment or exploitation.

When you or I fail to meet authentic standards of right and wrong, we feel the weight of it. There is a sense that we have failed to live up to all that we were designed to be and become as human beings. The question for us today is how to deal with our guilt. One way is to deny it. Perhaps this is the most popular way to deal with it. Slough it off; ignore it; employ some psycho-babble to excuse it away.

Another way is by rationalizing it. I’m really good at this one. I can admit that I am guilty, but I immediately point out all the extenuating circumstances that have conspired against me. I can blame it on my parents, my older brothers or my teachers. Or I can blame it on the government or on my genetic makeup.

Or we can handle our guilt by comparing it to others – it’s all relative, isn’t it? Everyone else is thinking or doing exactly what I am – so I guess I’m not so bad. We can always find worse examples than ourselves. We can take the spotlight off ourselves and put it on someone else.

There is a better way, a way to get to its root. It is best to deal with guilt by admission, confession and forgiveness. This is God’s way of healing as Psalm 130 shows it to be. This is God’s way of wholeness (salvation, we call it) as the season of Lent and the cross of Christ proclaim it.

I. The Problem (vs. 1-2)

“Out of the depths, I have cried to you, O Lord,” laments the psalmist. “From the depths of my despair, God, I need help – the bottom has fallen out of my life. Listen to my cries for mercy.” When experiencing an overwhelming flood of guilt, we can seek to medicate the pain through drugs or alcohol. We can surrender to the pain and sink into the darkness of depression. Or we can cry out to God. This is what the psalmist does. God’s word shows us how the Lord wants us to come to him not only in praise and worship, but when we are in need of understanding, forgiveness, renewal, and strength.

When natural gas was first being used for low cost heating, it was and still is  a naturally odorless, colorless gas. In 1937, an explosion at a Texas school building forced a government regulation requiring companies to add an odorant to the natural gas. I am sure you are familiar with the distinctive odor of a gas leak.

There’s a tendency these days to classify all feelings of guilt as hazardous to our self-esteem. In reality, guilt can be valuable, an “odorant” that warns us of danger. Recognizing true moral guilt is what drives us to faith in Christ. It points out our desperate need for a Savior.

II. Confession and Forgiveness (vs. 3-4)

God’s heart is open to you and me with mercy and loving-kindness. There are two realities that come with our sin and guilt. God will note every sin we commit and hold us accountable. Yet, knowing our sin, our Savior will accept responsibility for it and forgive us. “If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?” The obvious answer: no one! “But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared.” Without Christ, there is much to be feared. With faith in Jesus, forgiveness washes over us, as symbolized in the sacrament of Baptism this morning.

One of the most decisive moments in our lives is when we admit our need and receive God’s forgiveness with the hope of a new life. Fifteen years earlier, a young man named Tracey Bailey went on a drunken rampage with friends, vandalizing a high school. Caught and found guilty, the judge stunned the courtroom with his sentence: five years in the Indiana youth center, a prison one step below the state penitentiary.

One day as he sat in solitary confinement in a cell with nothing more than a metal cot, a sink, and a toilet, Bailey began to weep. More importantly, he began to pray to God. “God, I need help. I am defeated without you.” That was the turning point for Tracey Bailey. He joined a prison Bible Study and began taking college correspondence courses. After release on probation and completing college, he became a science teacher in Florida. Now he was standing in the white House Rose Garden accepting the National Teacher of the Year Award. What a difference confession, forgiveness, new life and fifteen years can make.

III. Waiting for the Lord with Hope (vs. 5-8)

Here we have the psalmist. He is in the depths; he is crying out to God; he knows that the Lord is merciful. And now he waits. “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.”

We live in an instant society. Our lives are busy. Day planners and palm pilots fill up quickly with appointments, errands, and responsibilities. Our lives know very little of sustained meditation and prayer. Yet it is in prayer that you and I can discover how best to deal with guilt, how best to receive and offer forgiveness, how best to live a life of hope in Christ. Like the psalmist, we can wait for the Lord with expectant hope of experiencing his forgiveness, his mercy (covenant-love), and his redemptive power.

The season of Lent is an annual reminder to begin or recover a vital, regular, faithful prayer life. During the Second World War, Joseph Pilates developed a system to strengthen the bodies of immobilized patients. Using springs attached to beds, he experimented with ways to strengthen muscles especially in the patients’ midsection. A longtime staple of the dance community, Pilates are now popular in health clubs. By first building your “power center” – the abs, butt and lower back, it makes all body movement easier and in better control. One physical therapist and athletic trainer says, “Everything we do starts with our center of gravity.”

Makes sense not only with our body but with every area of life. As a believer in Jesus Christ, your power center, my power center is our spiritual life. Those who are spiritually strong in the Lord find strength flowing into all areas. The minutes, hours, and days of prayer are our Pilates. Waiting on the Lord with hope brings renewed strength.

Conclusion

Imagine you are with the people of Israel traveling uphill to Jerusalem for one of the high holy days. You would be singing this psalm of ascent as you prepared yourself for the blessing of the Lord in the temple. Imagine you are with the people of this congregation traveling uphill toward Good Friday and Easter Sunday 2006. Reflect on the times when the Lord fulfilled your hopes and how that experience strengthened your relationship with him. Or, as you sing this psalm of ascent, ask the questions: In what “depths” do I now find myself? What needs do I have for God’s mercy and love to free me from sin and guilt? What am I waiting for, what am I hoping for in my spiritual life?

Eight times the name of God is used in this song. As the Lord is addressed we understand and experience the Lord – the God who forgives, the God who comes to those who wait and hope in him, the God who will redeem his people. God makes all the difference in our lives. He acts positively toward those who trust in him.

“O Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption.”

Let us pray together.