Feb 10, 2008 - "The Tell-Tale Heart"

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
The First Sunday in Lent
February 10, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

THE TELL-TALE HEART
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Psalm 32; Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11

TEMPTATION

In the film Hollowman, a group of young scientists believe they have discovered a way to make a person invisible. Their leader volunteers for the experiment. And it works. After an evening of secret mischief and murder he says to his friend, “It’s amazing what you can do when you don’t have to look at yourself in the mirror anymore.”

Have you ever thought about what you would do if you were guaranteed no one would ever know? Would you act any differently if you never had to face yourself in the mirror?

If you were to ask these questions to the writer of the 32nd Psalm, I think this wise poet would remind us of a mirror that we cannot avoid. It is the mirror of our lives we call the soul or the conscience - that terrifying, yet ultimately saving gift of God. It will eventually remind us of what we have done, and if we refuse to acknowledge our deed, and receive the grace and confession of repentance, it will begin to eat away at us from the inside out.

The temptation to act in the hope that no one will ever know is perhaps the illusion that deceived Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. It seems that the temptation was no big deal. After all, it was just fruit.

But the issue had to do with ignoring limitations and crossing boundaries - good, healthy, God-given boundaries - meant to protect them from knowledge too great for them to handle. Crossing those boundaries would lead them to a place of no return.

The temptations Jesus faced in the wilderness also had to do with ignoring limitations and crossing boundaries - turning stone into bread, jumping from the temple testing God by foolishly risking his life, and to worship at the feet of abusive, coercive, evil power with all the kingdoms of the world at his disposal. Jesus endured temptation with the help of scripture, prayer and fasting, choosing to live within the limits of his humanity and God-given calling.

SIN & GUILT

Adam and Eve, on the other hand, took the plunge, then went into hiding and blaming. And their story is our story. At one time or another, we have all made choices to live beyond our limits, to cross the boundaries. Choices that sent us East of Eden, living outside the Garden, struggling and toiling, battling the demons within and without.

It appears this morning’s psalmist has likewise taken the plunge. It is a testimony, an offering of truth, a painful reminder and a powerful warning that even in the face of grace sin has consequences.

Whatever you call it - sin, transgression, iniquity, failure, mistake, trespass, or debt - we cannot escape the impact, the guilt, the damage to ourselves and others that accompany our sinful, self-centered deeds. To varying degrees our sin will find us out.

What about you? What are the sins that haunt you this day? Is guilt eating away at you? Perhaps it’s a desire for revenge that enrages you, or acts of vengeance already done. Is it some long ago deed buried deep in your conscience? What is your sin? Where is your guilt?

It must be named, you know. It will not go away. It will do its damage, even if silently. The psalmist gives testimony to the agony of a guilty conscience, and how it can both produce sickness and be worse than any physical malady. For when we choose to live with our guilt bottled up inside, remaining silent, there will come an inward groaning, a dis-ease within.

The psalmist says, “I kept silent and my body wasted away. My insides groaned all day long.
Day and night I felt as if the heavy hand of God was upon me. I was weak. All my strength was gone. My soul was like a parched desert, desperate for streams of living water.”

Do you hear the heavy darkness of guilt in the life of this silent psalmist? It is a darkness that cannot be lifted apart from the grace of confession.

ILLUSTRATION: THE TELL-TALE HEART

Do you know the story of “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe? Some of you may remember Poe, that giddy optimist who always looked on the sunny side, whose writings always bring a ray of sunshine to the human heart. Right?

Poe tells the dark story of a man who for no good reason decided to kill his neighbor. He does the deed certain he can escape the punishment of jail and the prison of a guilty conscience.

In the middle of the night when the deed was done another neighbor had heard a loud shriek coming from the dead man’s room. She reports it to the police. When they arrive, the killer leads them to the room of the deceased. They sit down and begin to talk.

The officers ask questions. The killer responds confidently and at ease. But as the officers linger, the killer’s head begins to ache. His ears begin to ring. He grows pale yet talks louder hoping to drown out the noise of his guilty conscience, noise that sounds to him like the beating of the dead man’s heart. He begins to pace the floor as the ringing steadily increases. This ringing reminder of his guilt drives him almost to the point of insanity.

Finally, he comes to believe that anything would be better than this agony. So in misery he screams out his confession: “I admit the deed!”

I have come to believe that deep down we all of us want to be fully known. We want to share our secrets. We want our sins confessed and forgiven with whatever reparations made.

Because we know that guilt will tear us up inside. Remaining silent will make us sick. Confession is the only healing medicine.

CONFESSION

This inward guilty groaning moves the psalmist out of silence and into speech: “I can be silent no longer. I will confess my sin to the Lord.”

Not an easy place to come to, is it, the place of confession? Our pride must fall and we must express our need for something, for someone beyond ourselves. We have to remove our rose-colored glasses and look at ourselves honestly in the mirror and admit what we have done. And then we must turn from the mirror of our own reflection into the mirror of God’s grace and tell the truth.

Confession is truth-telling. It is giving voice to our sin and guilt. And it is healing. We see this happening to the psalmist who moves from the silence of guilt to the speech of confession. There is a grace-filled healing when we give voice to our guilt and our sin.

Sometimes confession of sin must be made to a friend; sometimes to an enemy; sometimes, if a public sin, even to the congregation and community. But all sin must be given voice in the presence of our gracious God, who heals our dis-eases and forgives all our iniquity. God is fully willing to forgive, but to feel the healing flow of cleansing grace our secret silence must first be broken through contrite confession.

FORGIVENESS

It is through confession that forgiveness is fully known. It is in giving voice to our guilt that the parched soul finds living waters of grace. Confession is like opening the floodgate of a great dam. When there is no confession, the waters pile up behind the dam, the land on the other side grows dry, and immense pressure builds on the wall. But as soon as the floodgate of confession is opened in the presence of God, the waters subside, the pressures diminish, and the waters of forgiveness flow freely creating new life in the decadent heart.

It is, to use the psalmist’s words, like “the flood of mighty waters,” a torrential flood where sins are drowned and the sinner is saved.

It is in baptism where sins are washed away in the waters of God’s love, drowned in the ocean depths of God’s grace. Never, never to rise again.

But we rise. We rise from the waters of baptism clean, healed, and hidden in the arms of God. We rise forgiven. And to know forgiveness is to feel joy in your bones. It is to feel the blessing of God deep within your heart.

Can you see that the blessed one is not the perfect one, but the one who has courageously faced up to their sin and had their sin forgiven?

This psalm is about honesty with God. The simple testimony of the poet, who has tried every other way, is that there is no other way. Silence before God brings only torment and grief. But honesty with God, opening your heart in confession and repentance, devoid of deceit, is to open your life to the blessed healing of forgiveness and find your heart embraced by the faithful love of God.

The apostle Paul put it this way: As participants in Adam’s story, there is brokenness and sin and death for us all. But through Christ, there is life and grace for all.