NOTES for Psa 68:10

How can one relate to a person who is weeping? Much, of course, depends on who has seen another's grief. Yet even in the fallen world, another's grief more often evokes compassion than gloating. The exception is when an enemy whom we hate is weeping. And although the Bible advises against gloating even in this case, and the Gospel directly forbids such gloating, getting rid of it turns out to be far from simple. But there is something even worse. The issue is situations when a person weeps because he sincerely repents of his sins, and those around him are deeply and sincerely religious people. Of course, as a rule there is no question of gloating in such cases, especially if the matter takes place in a Christian environment: after all, theoretically all Christians, or those who consider themselves such, acknowledge that there are no sinless people, and repentance for a sin committed is considered the norm here. As for pre-Christian times, then, in particular in the Yahwist environment, a sinner, even an involuntary one, was regarded as a failure, and the one who sinned consciously as a ruined person with whom there was nothing to discuss. Here, of course, weeping over sins could not evoke compassion. But is the situation in a Christian environment really so different in this respect? Of course, no one will openly mock the penitent or despise him. But a peculiar condescending "Christian" sympathy is usually more than enough. Perhaps partly because of such an attitude, though of course not only because of it, confession already in the Middle Ages became, in fact, an intimate matter: Christians began to be embarrassed by their sinfulness. Not ashamed of sin, but precisely embarrassed by sinfulness. In the same way they were often embarrassed by it in pre-Christian times. Sin began to be treated with embarrassment as a bad disease is treated in puritan society. And by doing so they seriously complicated their spiritual life, which includes, among other things, purposeful work to heal a person from his sins. After all, a person comes to church, among other reasons, for this too. And the less false shame there is here, the faster healing will proceed.