1. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The message from God’s Word is taken from Psalm 32:1-5, it’s entitled, “He’s God Us Covered,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. Today is Maundy Thursday. Not Monday Thursday, but Maundy Thursday. Maundy comes from a Latin word meaning “command.” On this night Jesus gave his disciples a new command in his name, to love one another as he loved and served them. Our focus for this service is on the great way Jesus still loves and serves us as he nourishes our faith and our souls with the feast of the Lord’s Supper. In Holy Communion we receive the forgiveness of sins. For us, God’s dear children who must walk through this dark world, he has bound up his Word and even himself in the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper.
3. We come to the Lord’s Supper to receive the forgiveness of our sins. And when we leave the Lord’s Supper, the Lord wants us to have the comfort and assurance that our transgressions really are forgiven, that our sin is covered. To help us have that assurance, we will look at the words of David in Psalm 32:1–5. The psalmist David is here speaking from firsthand experience. He found out the very hard way what a blessed thing it was to have your transgressions forgiven and your sins covered. David likely wrote this psalm after the prophet Nathan came to him and called him to account for his moral failure. King David had become involved with a married woman named Bathsheba. She was the wife of one of his loyal soldiers, Uriah. While Uriah was away from home serving in the king’s army, King David committed adultery with Bathsheba, and she became pregnant. In order to cover up this evil act, he gave orders to his commander to position Uriah in the front line of the battle and then to retreat and leave Uriah to be killed. Uriah was killed in battle. Then Bathsheba became David’s wife. David had become both an adulterer and a murderer.
4. What David did angered God. And David’s conscience bothered him as guilt lay heavy upon him. He wrote in Psalm 32:3–4: “For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.” This psalm flows out of the great anguish of David’s heart as he groaned under the weight of his guilt. His guilt was making him feel physically ill as he tried to cover up his sin. God gave David no rest. You see, David was carrying around the burden of trying to cover up his own sin. He speaks first of those months when he kept silent before the Lord. This was the silence of someone withholding confession of sin to God.
5. There are a number of reasons why we might hold back confession of sin. Pride can be a factor. Sometimes we just don’t want to admit that we’re wrong. At other times we might withhold confession out of a sense of despair. We may be so overcome with guilt for what we’ve done wrong that we don’t believe God can possibly forgive us. But who are we to say what God can and cannot do? “For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything” (1 Jn 3:20). I don’t know which was David’s case. But either way, he was holding out on God. Sin separates us from our Lord and one another.
6. Notice how David calls this period of silence a time when “my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long” (Psalm 32:3). Unconfessed sin has a crippling effect on your life. It will waste away your energy physically and spiritually. Sometime after David committed those awful sins, the Lord sent his prophet Nathan to David and told him this story: “ ‘There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. And he brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children. It used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms, and it was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the guest who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.’ Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man, and he said to Nathan, ‘As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die’ ” (2 Sam 12:1–5).
7. David felt that death was the only punishment for what the rich man had done. As king, he was going to see to it that the man got what he deserved. Then “Nathan said to David, ‘You are the man!’ ” (2 Sam 12:7a). You are the rich man who stole the poor man’s pet lamb. You did something worse than that. You stole from Uriah his wife, and to cover it up you had Uriah murdered. David now saw how evil he was. He bowed his head in repentance and said, “I have sinned against the Lord” (2 Sam 12:13a).
8. After David confessed, showing he was repentant, Nathan said to him, “The Lord also has put away your sin” (2 Sam 12:13b). What a load this forgiveness lifted off of David. He deserved death for his sins, but he was forgiven. He knew what a blessing it was, as he wrote in our text, the psalm: “Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit” (Psalm 32:1–2).
9. That word for forgiven means “lifted up and carried away.” It’s as though God picks up all our sins and carries them far away from us. The word for covered means “concealed, hidden from sight.” And so, the first word, forgiven, has to do with our sins being taken far away from us, and the second word, covered, has to do with the record of our sins being blotted out, covered over, hidden from view. We might wonder, how can God simply take up our sins, carry them away, and blot them out completely? How can God cover our sins in this way?
10. David didn’t just use the word covered by chance. The New Testament shows us that God has covered our sins with the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. For example, Paul wrote to the Galatians, “As many of you who were baptized into Christ have put on [clothed yourselves with] Christ” (Gal 3:27). In the book of Revelation, we are told about the white robes of the believers: “Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, ‘Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?’ ” He was given the answer, “They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev 7:13–14). When we believe that Jesus suffered and died as our substitute, when our only claim for salvation is that Jesus is righteous and paid for our sins, Jesus covers our sins so that we look pure in God’s sight. David says in this psalm that our sins are actually covered.
11. God sent his Son to die on the cross for our sins. Jesus took up our sins for us, and he carried them far away. “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Pet 2:24). “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace” (Eph 1:7). The blood of Christ covers our sin. And through faith in Christ, we may know the blessing of a clean record in God’s eyes.
12. Those who appreciate most the gift of God’s forgiveness are those who have felt most deeply the guilt of their sins. David knew what a blessing it was for his sins to be forgiven and covered. He felt relieved because God would no longer hold his terrible wickedness against him. “I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and you forgave the iniquity of my sin” (Psalm 32:5). David also knew that what was true for him was true for all sinners. When we realize that we are the sinners who deserve to die, it is a great blessing when we have the assurance that our sins are forgiven. We have peace of mind and the assurance of eternal life only because God has forgiven us.
13. If we look honestly at our lives and into our hearts, we will have to confess just as David did, “I have sinned against the Lord.” We may not have committed the same sins David did, but we are just as bad in the sight of God and deserve punishment just as much. We have to confess, as the Bible says, that “we have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away” (Is 64:6). But God wants us to know that he loved us so much that he sent his only-begotten Son to forgive our transgressions and cover our sins. He wants you and me to know that he is willing to cover the filthy rags of our sinfulness with the robe of Christ’s righteousness.
14. God gives us this assurance in the Lord’s Supper. Jesus himself invites us, “Take, eat; this is my body. . . . This is my blood . . . which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Mt 26:26, 28). The Lord himself invites us to come to his Supper. Our sins don’t disqualify us. It was because of our sins that this Supper was instituted and why Jesus invites us to come. This Supper was not instituted for perfect people but for sinners. And why did Jesus institute this Supper for sinners? To give us the assurance that our sins are forgiven. We come to the Lord’s Supper as sinners seeking forgiveness. And here Christ gives us his own body and blood, the same body that he sacrificed on the cross and the same blood that paid for the sins of the world. He wants us to know that he gave his body and shed his blood for us and for our salvation.
15. Jesus gives his own body and blood to each one of us, individually and personally, in the Lord’s Supper—to assure us that our transgressions are forgiven and our sins are covered. There is no greater blessing than that of having your transgressions forgiven, your sins covered, and your iniquities not counted against you by the Lord. That blessing is available to you right now. When you receive the Lord’s Supper with believing hearts, you will know the blessedness that David talks about. You will know for yourself, “Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit” (Psalm 32:1–2).
16. May you come this evening to the Lord’s Supper recognizing your sins, not covering them up, and confessing that Christ your Savior is truly present to give you forgiveness. He’s got us covered! Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, until life everlasting. Amen.
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