Certainty

For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Psalm 51:3 NASB

I know – There are very few things we know for certain. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow. We don’t know if our relationships will last. We don’t know the weather. We don’t know even the apparently unalterable “laws” of nature. After all, miracles do happen. We don’t know the certainty of just about everything that really matters, not even if we will die (the “end” might just come before we get to the grave). But we do know one thing for sure. We know our transgressions. Pesa’a—those offenses, crimes, moments of disobedience, violations, breaches of relationship and promise, oh, yes, these we know! We might wish we could forget them. We might wish they had never happened. But the truth is much harsher. It is absolutely certain that we have offended God and others, and we know it only too well. David uses the verb yada’ for good reason. The full scope of our transgressions rarely makes itself manifest to us but when it does, oh, the humiliation of it all, the agony and despair. “I know my failures and they are many indeed.” Just recalling them causes me to grieve. Imagining a world (or a judgment) where all is revealed is more than I can take.

So there we have it. David exposes his sin to the world. In a song, no less, meant to be sung out loud. We might have chosen private poetry or a heart-wrenching entry in a journal. But this? Letting the world know that he is wretched, abusive, lecherous, uncaring, conspiratorial and vindictive? No, most of us could never do that! We would rather hide the truth and pretend that the real world is the world of our masked exterior.

But God will not have it—and in the end, neither will we. Why? Because our sin is “ever before” us. It refuses to be swept away. It haunts us with the specter that someone might discover our treachery. It continually reminds us that if people really knew the certainty that we know they could never, would never, love us. We don’t prefer the dark. We are forced into the cave of pretense because we fear the light. Humiliation is the greatest ally of the yetzer ha’ra.

So what can we do about this? Do we opt for David’s solution and sing our failures before our subjects and peers? Or do we take the Pauline approach and share our burden with another? One thing again is certain. “When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer” (Psalm 32:3-4). In the end there is no such thing as secret sin. And now we know why the Hebrew word tzaraat cannot be translated as “leprosy.” This condition described in Leviticus is the outward manifestation of inner corruption. It may attach itself to walls, to clothes and finally to skin, but it is always about something wrong on the inside, the inside of a house, a person or a body. Sin shows itself, and in the ancient world of Hebrew thought, it shows itself in a visible condition. We know our transgressions, and because we know, something about our external world reveals what we know, observable by those who have eyes to see. What can we do about this? The Levitical solution is confession and purification. Without a priest, life is considerably more difficult today. But tzaraat will not go away by itself, so we better find a way. “I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I did not hide; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord’; and You forgave the guilt of my sin” (Psalm 32:5).

Topical Index: know, yada’, pesa’a tzaraat, Psalm 51:3, Psalm 32:3-5