Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Telltale Heart” is a classic story of paranoia, guilt, and a murder most foul.  The story is told from the narrator’s point of view, who defends his sanity all the while obsessing over the details of a murder.  Though the narrator claims to love the old man, he cannot tolerate the man’s “vulture eye” another day—and so he commits murder to rid himself of this menace.  He stashes the evidence beneath the floorboards, where he believes the matter has been put to rest.  So confident is he that when the police arrive to investigate, the narrator offers them chairs directly above the floorboards that conceal the old man’s body.

And that’s when he hears it.  The sound faint at first—like “a watch enveloped in cotton.”  But the sound persists, louder in his ears—surely the police hear it to? he wonders.   Finally he cries out:  “Villains! I admit the deed!—tear up the planks! here, here!—It is the beating of his hideous heart!”

MORAL EMOTIONS

Guilt belongs to a set of what psychologists call “moral emotions.”  Though Poe’s unnamed narrator is mad, we readily identify with his inner conflict and psychic pain.  Why?  Well, there’s no real consensus as to what purpose guilt serves—if any.  Sigmund Freud, the famous psychologist, believed that all human beings are trapped between a sense of love and loathing.  The human endeavor, then, is to learn to manage and mask this guilt—or, in some cases, to eliminate guilt entirely.  Though the specifics of Freud’s ideas haven’t stood the test of time, it’s hard to ignore his legacy.  There’s just one problem: we can never escape our guilt.  Guilt is far too universal.

In the latter half of the twentieth century, a psychologist named Richard Schweder suggested that humans experience “moral emotions” when we violate our standards of ethics.  If I violate the “ethics of community”—say, by cursing in a wedding toast—I feel a sense of embarrassment.  If I fail to achieve my personal goals—perhaps I miss a job promotion, or fail a test—then I feel disappointment at violating my own “ethic of autonomy.”  But if I feel a sense of guilt over some secret act, a sense of shame over my own thoughts and behavior, then I have violated what Schweder called the “ethics of divinity.”  Modern psychology only affirms what God’s word already tells us: that the “human heart is deceitful  above all things and desperately sick” (Jeremiah 17:9).

If you don’t have a church background, I can understand how you might feel a bit defensive.  Freud actually had a point when he observed that religion is the cause of our guilt as much as it is a solution.  “What I do in my bedroom is my business,” some might insist.  “What does it matter as long as I’m not hurting anyone?”  But if that’s true, if you really believe that, why is guilt so persistent and so pervasive?  It can’t be the negative effects of religion, or some lingering “Catholic guilt”—otherwise guilt would be a uniquely Western phenomenon.  No; guilt is a human phenomenon, and God’s Word tells us it is the symptom of a far greater disease.

It is the beating of our hideous heart.

DAVID’S REPENTANCE

This is why the so-called “penitential psalms” carry so much weight.  For centuries, confession of sin was considered a vital part of the worship experience.   Why?  Because repentance means more than reflecting on my guilt—it means turning toward the Source of my forgiveness.  So in Psalm 32 we read David speaking of what it means to be “blessed”—to be truly and joyously fulfilled:

1 Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

2  Blessed is the man against whom the Lordcounts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

3  For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.

4  For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.

Selah

Notice the Psalm is punctuated by the undefinable musical term Selah.  Each “stanza” of David’s blues song describes what repentance looks like.  David experiences guilt as a sense of inner anguish—he says that his “bones wasted away.”  But notice as well that in verse 4, David identifies God as the source of his guilt.  Why is this important?  Because it means that guilt doesn’t merely come from violating our own conscience or the shifting standards of our culture.  It comes from the very character of God.  Conform your life to God’s character, and you will experience blessing.  Violate God’s character, and you will experience guilt.

5  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.

Selah

David’s solution is confession.  Contemporary psychology has emphasized a division between guilt and shame.  Guilt says: “I did a bad thing.”  Shame says: “I am a bad thing.”  Seeking to bolster self-esteem, psychology sought to focus on removing shame.  But this proved to be toxic.  Why?  Because if I am motivated by guilt, I can change my behavior.  If I am motivated by shame, instead of changing my behavior I seek to improve my mood.  Rather than look to God for forgiveness, I turn my focus to lesser comforts—career, relationships, pornography—to improve my self-worth.  The tragedy is that this only deepens the spiral.  Our modern remedies only further the illness.  We need God’s true forgiveness.

6  Therefore let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found; surely in the rush of great waters, they shall not reach him.

7  You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance.

Selah

Guilt can only be taken care of by God.  David, of course, didn’t have the benefit of our knowledge.  David’s righteousness was given on credit—but the bill would come due at Calvary.  When Jesus died on the cross, the forgiveness and blessing wasn’t just applied to the church that would come after Him—it was also granted to all God’s people who came before.

God therefore becomes the truest and best hiding place for those experiencing deep and profound guilt.  Our hearts are truly dirty, deceptive, hideous.  But the gospel promises that in time, we shall be granted a new heart, a clean heart—one that replaces the one we have now (Ezekiel 36:26).

What does life look like in the meantime?  It means living on mission, and sharing this same message of forgiveness:

8  I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.

9  Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle,or it will not stay near you.

10  Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.

11  Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!

(Psalm 32:1-11)

Our lives are meant to gradually yet faithfully reflect the character of God.  When they do, we experience unspeakable joy.  When they don’t, we experience unspeakable grief.  God’s judgment weighs heavily on our minds—but justly so.  The good news of the gospel is that this judgment fell on Jesus, so that Jesus’ perfect record could be given to me.

In 2011, an elderly couple died an hour apart from each other.  The husband passed first—but family and medical staff were baffled that his heart monitor still registered a pulse.  It was because his wife lay beside him.  The rhythm of her heart was enough to be felt through her husband, as though love itself radiates like pure energy.  The same is true for you and for me.  My heart isn’t just hideous; it’s dead.  But when I stay close to Christ, the heartbeat of God flows through me, trading my guilt for his acceptance, death for life, and tears for joy.