Think how simple life would be, if we could sin in peace! If there were no such things as shame and guilt and regret, life would be so much easier. If humans had no conscience (no God inside), life would be so much easier. If God would just let us alone and allow us our sin, life would be so much easier.

Or would it? Something inside tells us it wouldn’t. It is painfully uncomfortable to have our sin uncovered. We’ve all had the experience of getting caught in a lie or in some deceit, and standing virtually naked. But something deep inside tells us that if this wouldn’t happen, we’d end up just living one lie after another… never able really to start afresh, never hopeful of casting off the guilt of that deception which cannot be forgiven if it is not revealed. The uncovering of our sin is a bittersweet experience, one that we both hate and yet need.

The ancient psalmist (Ps. 139) was brutally candid as he recited the number of ways that he had tried to escape God. You can almost feel his pain as he flees and hides from God, only to be discovered time and again. But his candor is refreshing when he discovers that to his painful uncovering, God brings hope. The forgiveness that the psalmist himself could not achieve… the freedom-from-nagging-guilt that the psalmist himself could not accomplish… the hope of doing-things-differently that the psalmist could not allow himself, could now all be given to him. The uncovering of his sin, even unto nakedness, would always be painful. But the hope of God, would make it desirable.

And so, almost like a crazy man (in the eyes of those who did not know his God’s hope), he invited his Lord to: “Search me, O God, and Know my heart! Examine and test me, and Know my thoughts (as painful as that feels)! Find the evil that may be within me, so that you may lead me to your everlasting way.” And the Psalmist’s experience is Our experience: Lent… Holy Week… and then only, Easter.

Baptized, with you, for this,