At the time of the sacrifice, I stood up from where I had sat in mourning with my clothes torn. I fell to my knees and lifted my hands to the LORD my God.
I prayed,
“O my God, I am utterly ashamed; I blush to lift up my face to you. For our sins are piled higher than our heads, and our guilt has reached the heavens. From the days of our ancestors until now, we have been steeped in sin. That is why we and our kings and our priests have been at the mercy of the pagan kings of the land. We have been killed, captured, robbed, and disgraced, just as we are today.”
Ezra 9:5-7
Last time we witnessed Ezra mourning from the shock of God’s people’s continued rebellion. Now he stands, only to fall back to his knees to take care of things right where he should: prayer.
How about you? When you look around and realize you are still rebelling, still deliberately choosing to move against God’s ways, what do you do? Keep on? Justify yourself?
Or do you kara – bow down and bring yourself low? Stop doing wrong and learn to do right?
Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. You reap what you sow. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.
I’m so glad God isn’t some sucker we can work over. Any time we are ashamed – boosh – we should fall right to our knees. Bringing ourselves low is the only way to deal with our sin. Until we can humbly admit we blush to lift our face to Him, we are still living in denial.
Oh, but once we do? He can be the Lifter of our Heads. Just picture Him tipping your chin up – so you’re face to face with Him. When we have confessed our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive and purify us.
Don’t you love the use of just in that verse? When we confess, the just thing for the God of the galaxies to do is forgive. If it were based on our merit, that would be the furthest thing from the truth. Our sins have reached – been magnified, arrogantly nourished – to the heavens. What we on our own deserve is what Ezra recounts to God about the exiles’ experience: to be delivered, or given over, to the peoples around.
That is still, by the way, the worst thing we could want Him to do for us: give us over to our own sinful desires. In continued rebellion, to let us have what we want over what He says is best for us. His will for our lives.
It should make us shiver.
But back to what happens when we genuinely confess and turn a different way: it is just that Covenant Yahweh would forgive because it is based on Jesus’ flawless merit on our behalf. Because of what He did in our place, forgiving His children is justice for a just God.
And in this beautiful scenario? We don’t have to live ashamed. And when the condemnation comes – in our minds or from others’ words – we can open our arms wide, proclaim we, too, are the worst of sinners, and bow once again to the mercy and beauty and power of the cross.
Bowed low so He can lift our faces high.