Aug. 23 – Psalm 51

Aug. 23 – Psalm 51

To the leader. A Psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.

1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
4 Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.
5 Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.

6 You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.

10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.

13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.
14 Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance.

15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased.
17 The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

David had done wrong – lust, sexual assault, murder, lying (see 2 Samuel chapters 11 and 12), and when confronted by Nathan the prophet who exposed the sins of the king, broken by his wrongdoing, confronted by who he really was rather than the person he sought to project, David confessed his sin.

His confession is to God – for all sin is first and foremost against God. In no way does this minimize the wrong, the harm done to the people David hurt – but the violation of God’s desired pattern for the way human beings should live harms God. Any breaking of community with our fellow human beings, is to break community with God.

David understood that he could not undo the harm he had done. Human beings cannot fix the harm we do to each other. David cried out to God for God to act to transform the situation. Such a transformation involves the remaking of David’s whole internal being – (inner being, secret heart, willing spirit). The transformed life is rooted in a changed interior life. The transformed life does not come easily – cleansed, purged, broken, contrite – these are all strong words that speak of the cost of being changed. To live the transformed is to live a life shaped by God as our personal trainer, that we might live the patterns God desires for human beings.

The hope lies in the assurance that God does not expect us to be perfect, rather God desires that we be humble enough to know that we cannot, in our own strength, be what he desires us to be. Instead, we need to lean on his gracious, unmerited love for those whose hearts are broken by what they have done – things done in word and deed, by action and by inaction. God does not look down on the broken-hearted, God loves the broken-hearted.

PRAYER:

Lord God, we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone. With broken, contrite hearts we come to you. Look upon us with mercy, we pray. Lord, have mercy. Jesus, have mercy, Lord, have mercy. Amen.