Well the Oscar hype has died down for another year, thank goodness. Last weekend movie stars and their fans gathered to honor the industry’s best. Awards were handed out and speeches given but at times the proceedings were painful to watch. Movie stars that normally are so cool and collected were overcome with emotion and ended up blubbering through their acceptance speeches. It was embarrassing to watch. Real men (and women), not to mention professionals, should have better control of themselves, shouldn’t they?
Had awards been handed out 3,000 years ago for the world’s most glamorous people King David would have been a regular recipient. He was good-looking, a rugged outdoorsman, a warrior, a rich king, and a musician. David was a man’s man yet he wrote in today’s text: “I am worn out from groaning; all night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears” (Psalm 6:6). Drenching your couch with tears? Isn’t that something only pre-teen adolescences do in made-for-TV movies? Apparently not. In fact we’re going to learn from David that real men (and women) cry. They cry over their sin, and they cry for God’s salvation.
We don’t know the circumstances that prompted David to write Psalm 6. It may have been when his son Absalom rebelled against him and for a time drove David from Jerusalem (2 Samuel 15, 16). As David fled the capital city he did so barefoot and his head covered in shame. What was going through David’s mind as he left behind the palace? Perhaps it was the words that became the opening lines of Psalm 6: “O LORD, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath. 2 Be merciful to me, LORD, for I am faint; O LORD, heal me, for my bones are in agony. 3 My soul is in anguish” (Psalm 6:1-3a).
David must have been mindful of the words that had been spoken to him by the prophet Nathan years earlier. After David’s sin of adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband Uriah, Nathan confronted the king with his sin. Thankfully David repented but then Nathan announced that there would be consequences for his sin. One consequence was that David’s own family would be torn up just as he had torn up Uriah’s family. Did those words come back to David as he trudged out of Jerusalem? Did he see Absalom’s rebellion as God’s discipline? It certainly seems that way.
But note how David isn’t complaining. He’s not angry that God is disciplining him. He simply asks that God not rebuke him in his anger (Psalm 6:1). Parents, think of how often we have disciplined our children in anger. Instead of working to correct and train we simply took out our frustrations on our children. David didn’t want God doing the same thing because he knew that there would be no end to his pain then, or as the prophet Jeremiah put it years later: “Correct me Lord, but only with justice – not in your anger, lest you reduce me to nothing” (Jeremiah 10:24).
David’s humble attitude is worth emulating. When we hit tough times are we reminded, as was David, of what sinful people we are and that we really deserve worse from God? Or do we lash out in anger and accuse God of being unloving and unfair? The thing is if God were to treat us fairly, that is according to his law, our lives should be 100 times more difficult than they are. Tell me, did you gladly wash the morning dishes before coming to church or didn’t the thought even cross your mind because, well, that’s what others do around the house, not you? Did you, in the last 30 minutes, entertain a condescending thought about someone here? Did you heave a sigh of impatience when you saw the length of the Scripture readings this morning? If you are guilty of any of these sins, what has God done to punish you for them? It doesn’t seem like he has done anything. No one’s chair is on fire. Nor has anyone keeled over with a heart attack. You see the truth is God is very patient with us. He doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve. David knew that. And so when life wasn’t going very well for him he didn’t grumble and complain as if God were treating him unfairly. Instead he took the hardship as God’s alarm clock waking him up to the seriousness of his sins.
Still, isn’t David’s sorrow over his sin overdone? He wept all night over his sins so that his ribs started to hurt from the sobbing. I admit I’ve never expressed sorrow like that over my sin. It isn’t because I don’t have any sins to repent of. It’s because in my arrogance I don’t think what I’ve done is really that offensive to God. But that’s the point of today’s sermon text. God wants us to know that real men and women do cry over their sin. No you don’t have to shed tears when you consider what you have done to offend God but you better not blow off your sins. Lying to your employer about how much time you spend on your lunch break may be an acceptable office practice but it’s not in line with how God says we should treat our employer. We’re to work for him as if we were working for the Lord. Snickering at your siblings may seem like part of the normal growing up experience but aren’t you really mocking God for his handiwork that are your brothers and sisters? Friends, God does not endure these slaps to his face and says: “Oh, that’s OK.” He threatens eternal punishment for all who break his commands. David was highly sensitive of this fact and perhaps we need to become more sensitive to it too and cry like David did over our sins.
David knew he deserved the humiliation of being run out of town by his son. But David also recognized that God had forgiven him for his sins. Therefore he was certain that God was allowing the latest difficulty not to punish but to refine, that is, to make David more reliant on his promises. Since David was a forgiven child of God he was confident that God would hear his prayers for help. And so it’s not surprising that the tone of the psalm abruptly changes towards the end when David writes: “Away from me, all you who do evil, for the LORD has heard my weeping. 9 The LORD has heard my cry for mercy; the LORD accepts my prayer. 10 All my enemies will be ashamed and dismayed; they will turn back in sudden disgrace” (Psalm 6:8-10).
David illustrates for us how the God of this universe is not a nebulous life force that doesn’t care about what goes on down here. David knew that God would listen to his prayers and be moved action. God answered David’s prayer first of all by giving him peace of mind. This peace of mind came through the animal sacrifices God demanded. As David watched the daily sacrifice he would have witnessed the priests lean on the head of the animals before their throats were slit. This was a visible reminder that those animals were now going to bear the people’s sin and because of that, they, and not the people, would bear the brunt of God’s wrath.
In the same way real men and women still cry out to God for salvation because they know that God the Father leaned heavily on his Son, Jesus, when he died on the cross. At the cross God heaped on his Son the sins of the whole world. Imagine your sins as a huge snowdrift, I’m talking Rocky-mountain-sized snowdrift, blocking your driveway. There’s no way you can dig your way through it or drive around it. The only hope you have of getting to the outside world is if someone with a machine much larger than the ones they use in the oil sands can dig you out. That’s God’s role in your life. He scooped up the mountain of your sins and dumped them on Jesus. As a result the way to heaven is now clear. We don’t know if David actually shed tears of joy when he thought of God’s forgiveness but he certainly raised his voice in a cry of joy, and so will we.
It’s easy for me to criticize Hollywood stars for blundering their way through acceptance speeches on Oscar night. After all, I don’t know what it’s like to receive such a prestigious award. But I do know what it feels like to cry in public. I did that in high school whenever I boarded the plane to go back to school. It was hard to leave Mom and Dad standing there in the departure lounge. At the time I was embarrassed by my tears but I see now through King David’s example that real men (and women) do cry. They cry over their sins and they cry in thankfulness for the salvation that God has given them. May God give us David’s heightened awareness of sin so that we never take for granted his gift of forgiveness. Amen.
