Ex-con
O LORD, rebuke me not in Your wrath, and chasten me not in Your burning anger.” Psalm 38:1
Rebuke – “Rebuke me not”. Yakah. To convict. To judge. To reprove. Perhaps the translation does not give us the fullest appreciation of David’s plea. Literally, “Yahweh, not to me in your wrath convict.” Don’t bring the gavel down. Don’t declare the case closed. Don’t issue the sentence. David chooses a Hebrew word that vividly describes the failure of an intensely personal relationship. Yakah is a word that belongs in the courts of law. The judge sits behind the bench, hearing the evidence. This is no trial by jury. The judge will decide the fate of the accused and his verdict is final. David pleads, “Yahweh, the great Judge of the universe, do not issue your verdict based on my failure to perform the duty you expected of me.” Yakah is a frightening word for us. It is a word that allows no appeal. When we know our sin, when we know that we stand guilty before the high court of creation, yakah can mean only one thing. David sees his life unfolded before the Lord. He sees the smallest indiscretion and the largest rebellion. He sees it all, from the misspoken words to the adultery and murder. Yakah hangs over his head like the guillotine.
Jonathan Edwards once preached the sermon, “Sinners in the hands of a angry God”. This example of colonial ecclesiology used to be required reading in American history. Today it has passed into obscurity, along with a culture that has any fear of qeseph and yakah. When sin disappears over the moral horizon, so does the fear of God. Wrath and judgment sink with the setting sun. But they are not gone. They are only out of sight until the scorching light of the new day dawns. Unless we cry out with David during the dark night of the soul, that new day will come blazing with both wrath and judgment. Tonight, when we feel the hand of God pressing in the dark, our cries must reveal the desperation of the guilty begging for mercy. In the dark we must confront the hideous nightmares of our transgressions. There is no profit in pretending that forgiveness yesterday wipes away our need for God’s unmerited abstention today. Forgiveness is a moment-by-moment reprieve based on God’s unwavering character. Forgiveness is His decision, not mine, and I am very glad for that. Were forgiveness based on my adherence to the trust relationship presupposed by qeseph¸ my dark night would end in a moral nuclear holocaust. God tells me that He will not change His mind about His love for me, but that does not mean that I can stand before Him claiming my justification. The righteous are so because of God’s faithfulness. By (His) faith the righteous will live.
Have you shared David’s nightmare of guilt? Or did you let righteous terror slip away like a phantom? Did you confront that hideous strength deep within your own soul and confess before the Lord of all, “Don’t convict me.” I want to be an ex-con in the Greek sense, one who is excused and who has exited from judgment.
