J. J.
May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts, be acceptable in Thy sight,
O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen. (Ps. 19:4).
“A New Chapter”
It’s 2015. The door on last year has closed. The New Year has opened. It’s a time to reflect back, and a time to look forward. To think of what is to come in this year. What we shall make of it, and what might it make of us. Our psalm today starts with that theme of reflection in the words, “Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.” Here the word “generations” does not mean only ancestors and descendants – father, son, grandson. Rather it refers to periods of times. One could say, “in all the ages,” or stages of life. The chapters of life, as it were.
With the New Year, we start a new chapter of our life. Our psalmist – not David but Moses – yes, Moses – knew about the chapters of life. His life started with the chapter as a boy growing up in Pharaoh’ s house. Then a chapter as prince of Egypt. There was the chapter as outlaw and exhile, and the chapter of the plagues and the Exodus. His time with God on Mt. Sinai was a chapter of its own. Wandering in the wilderness was a long chapter of forty years. And then that final chapter, where the children of Israel entered into the Promised Land without him.
As we start a new chapter, what does this psalm have to say for us?
First, the psalm tells us that God is God, and we are not.. It is God who brought the world, and us, you, me, into existence. It is God who brings life to end, saying, “Return to dust, O Son of Man.” For us, the New Year marks one of our human attributes: We are created beings, existing in time.
Time sets boundaries for us. We can move and travel. We can be in more than one place. But we cannot be in more than one place at a time. We cannot be both “here” and “there.” Most of the time, we think that we are limited by space, by geography: that we cannot be in two places. But it is time that limits us as much, if not more so. Consider this. You and I are the same person we were as a youngster. And while we may still live in the same place, we aren’t in the same place are we? We can’t be young and old at the same time. Time separates us from ourselves. And just as we cannot live in yesterday, we cannot live in tomorrow, either. We are not only limited to the here, we are limited to the now.
God, though, is God. A thousand years in His sight are but an evening gone. (Paraphrase of the first line, stanza four, of “O God, Our Help in Ages Past.”) From everlasting to everlasting, He is God, Moses writes. Before the world began, God was. He is now. And when the world passes away, God will still be. God is God, and we are not.
Time separates us from ourselves. But sin separates us from God. Moses knew this. He saw it and he lived it. Moses saw sin separating people from God when He came down Sinai with the Ten Commandments, and found the Israelites worshiping the golden calf. God, being God, did not stand idly by their idol-ness. The earth opened up and swallowed many of them. As Moses writes here in verse 11:
“Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you?”
We do. Or we ought. God is God and we are not. God is holy and we are not. Moses knew this, too. Moses did not enter into the Promised Land. Why? Because he did not trust the word of the Lord, and struck the rock for water, instead of speaking to it as God had commanded. (Numbers 20:12) His sin separated Him from the Promised Land, or where his home should have been. Earlier, his sin had separated him from where his home was.
Remember how in building the monuments of Pharaoh, the Egyptian slave driver had beaten an Israelite. And how Moses, first looking to see that no one was watching, had killed the Egyptian, and buried him in sand? But Moses crime of murder was not as secret as he thought. Though he covered the body in sand, his sin did not stay covered. Soon, the Israelites asked him if he were going to kill them as he did the Egyptian. Moses had to flee from Egypt.
So here, in his psalm, Moses writes, “You, [O God] have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.” (Ps. 90:8 ESV) Our secret sins, it says. Not Moses’s, but ours. Mine. Yours. Ours. What about our secret sins? What shall we do with them? Shall we bury them in the sand? But God is God, and He is everywhere. Shall we just wait from them to fade away? Time heals all wounds, the world tells us. But that is not so, and we know it. We know that we have wounds from long ago, wounds that still hurt. We also think about the wounds we have caused. How my actions long ago are still hurting others.
Our secret sins may not be murder like Moses, but they are just as deadly. And I would venture to say, that we all have them. I know that I do. What does your conscience tell you? What does the Holy Spirit tell you? Perhaps it is a grudge that is holding on to you, keeping you in a place of hurt. It doesn’t matter, does it, that is was long ago. Rather than time healing all wounds, it can even make it worse. And it doesn’t fade away from God, because He is not bound by time. Old sin is just as new as new sin for Him. He has set our iniquities before Him, and before us, so that we must confront them, in the presence of His light. Right here, in the candlelight of His altar, for all the world to see.
The world would tell us to make a resolution. “Let bygones be bygones.” “Turn over a new leaf.” “You can do it!” Yet we know that we can’t, don’t we? It does not work that way.
What then shall we do? Turn our secret sins over to God. In a few moments, Church, you will have the opportunity to do just that. Our Lord will come to us His body and blood, bringing you and me once again the forgiveness of our sins. It is here that our past is washed away. Here in the presence of His Christ, Who is the Light, whose light fills us, and overcomes all our darkness and sin. It is here that we start with a clean slate. Not by the turning a calendar page, but by His holy and precious blood. In His mercy, He makes us new again.
The psalm continues, “Have pity on your servants! Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.” (Ps. 90:13b-14 ESV). That is to say, have mercy on us. His steadfast love – His chesed – is His merciful loving-kindness. He satisfies our emptiness with His mercy, grace, and love, that even as every morning is new, we rise to a new day to rejoice in Him. Hear that again, we need not wait for a New Year, but every day we rise anew to live and rejoice in Him.
God is our God, and He is a forgiving God. God brought Israel out of Egypt, out of bondage, and into the Promised Land. He brought us –you and me – out of this world and its ways, and into His forever kingdom. He is not just a mystical God in the sky, but He is ours – Our dwelling place for all generations.
Church, let us leave our sin and our past in the past. Close the chapter on that hurt, that way of thinking, that grief and pain. Not by wishful thinking, but by His grace, His love, His forgiveness. Come to His altar. Receive His promise and gift for you. And start this New Year in the newness of life that only He can give.
We do not yet know what 2015 will bring. It’s a new chapter, and the first sentence is just being written. But this we know. Our sins are forgiven. God is God, and He is our God. Daily He gives us newness of life. We do not just live in a calendar but in Him. And when He calls, whether this year or the next or beyond: He is
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter while our troubles last,
and our eternal home. Amen. (Last three lines, stanza four, “O God, Our Help in Ages Past.”)
S. D. G.
