Do You Have Time for the Pain?

Do You Have Time for the Pain?

Psalm 51:1-15

            Recently I was listening to Carly Simon sing her hit song, “I Haven’t Got Time for the Pain.”  Like several other popular songs, this one has possible spiritual connotations.  Simon speaks of past pain and suffering—the joyless life she led before she met the one to whom she is singing.  Now she hasn’t got room or time for the pain which filled her life before her current love came along.

            We’re in the Christian season of Lent, a time when we are invited to remember our sins and seek a deeper relationship with God.  It’s a time of penitence leading to a time of renewal.  It culminates with Easter Sunday, when we remember the One who died and rose again that we might be reconciled to God.

            The problem is that we want to get to Easter without going through the trials that lead up to it.  We’d just as soon forget Lent and Holy Week if we could.  We want, as with so many areas of our lives, to skip right over the pain of penitence, and the awful agony of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday and get right to the rejoicing.  After all, why beat ourselves over the head with remorse when we know how it will end?  Isn’t that why our churches are filled at Christmas and Easter with people who don’t darken the sanctuary doors the rest of the year?  Let’s celebrate Jesus as a cute little baby and as the risen Savior and forget about the torture of his Passion.

            Psalm 51 tells us otherwise.  It reminds us that there’s no victory without battle, no triumph without tough times, no way round the dark valley if we want to get to the brightness of Paradise.

            We know the circumstances under which David wrote this most well-known of the penitential psalms.  He had sinned twice, once by having sexual relations with another man’s wife and then by having that man killed “accidentally” in battle.  Adultery and murder are two huge roadblocks to sharing in the joy of God’s presence.  Confronted with his sin, David confesses, asks forgiveness, and promises to fulfill his obligations as God’s shepherd-king.

            The first six verses of Psalm 51 are David’s confession.  “I know my transgressions,” he says, “and my sin is ever before me.”  He knows he has sinned against God (all sin is ultimately against God), but he has also sinned against Uriah and Bathsheba.  Ultimately he has sinned against all the people of Israel and Judah, for instead of being the righteous king they can look to as an example of how to live, he has set an example of unrighteousness.

            Verses seven through twelve are David’s plea for forgiveness.  “Create in me a clean heart, O God,” the penitent sinner cries, “and renew a right spirit within me.  Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.”  In this season of penitence we echo David’s plea.  Purge me.  Wash me.  Deliver me.

            This is the pain we must have time for.  This is the agony we have to make room for.  This is the dark valley through which we have to pass during these forty days if we are to share in the joy of the resurrection.  It is only then that we will be able to join David as he sings of God’s righteousness and declares the Lord’s praise.

            God calls us to repentance, to realize that we have no righteousness in and of ourselves.  The essence of God’s grace is forgiveness of sin and the redemption that allows us to share in the glory of the risen Christ.  Thanks be to God who gives us the victory over the pain of sin through the glory of the cross.