Ash Wednesday 2020

Psalm 51

February 26, 2020

Zion Lutheran Church + Nampa, ID

The circumstances of Psalm 51 are well known. David was idle while his men’s lives were in danger. He spied Bathsheba the wife of Uriah bathing while Uriah was off at war. David seduced her and after he had impregnated her, in order to cover his tracks, he arranged to have Uriah murdered. Then he took Bathsheba as his wife as though he were concerned for the widows of his soldiers. The object of his lust and murder became an opportunity for political posturing. 

The prophet Nathan was sent to confront him and confront him he did.  In no uncertain terms, he calls his friend and his king a thief and murderer who deserves death for his horrible crimes.  David could have thrown Nathan out, he could have pretended he was within his rights, but instead David repented. He repented and found unexpected mercy from God through the Messiah to come.

That mercy was unjust. It did not bring back Uriah. It did not save the child of Bathsheba. It did not undo what he had done. Yet we celebrate this injustice because Christ is merciful to sinners. And we thank God that even the greatest saints, saints like David who was a man after God’s own heart, have sometimes fallen into terrible crimes and that their faults and repentance have been recorded for us in Holy Scripture. In this way, we poor sinners might learn to be careful of the dangers that surround us and also to rejoice that God is indeed merciful to sinners and bestows life where death is deserved.

It is in response to, and in praise of, that incredible mercy that David wrote Psalm 51. This is not a Psalm for good people. It is a Psalm for sinners – even terrible, intentional sinners who in no way deserve our pity, whose lives are messy and full of regret. It is for sinners, by a sinner, because Christ died only for sinners.

There are thirteen imperatives/commands in Psalm 51. Taken by themselves in the order of the Psalm the imperatives make a powerful impression of what David is after. “Have mercy upon me,” He says, “blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, cleanse me from my sin, hide Your face from my sins, blot out all my iniquities, create in me a clean heart, renew a right spirit within me, restore to me the joy of Your salvation; uphold me with a willing spirit, deliver me from bloodguiltiness, do good to Zion in Your good pleasure, build up the walls of Jerusalem.”

David is asking, demanding really, that God do something to him in regard to his sins, iniquities, transgressions, and bloodguiltiness. All of them phrases are directed to God. Eleven of them are personal requests. The other two imperatives are both in the last verse. They request that God do something to His people, that is, to us sinners and transgressors whom he had mentioned earlier.

David is after forgiveness. He is not a man without regrets or shame. He doesn’t stand upon his confirmation or the great education that he got in a Lutheran grade school or how often his parents read from the Bible. He doesn’t appeal to how often he went to church or how much he gave in the offering plate. He is not proud. He is ashamed. He has done real harm to the world, to people. He is not innocent. He is guilty, and he knows it.  And so he comes for mercy.

So do we. We come for mercy. That is why the heart of this Psalm is prayed by Lutherans as the offertory every week. Week after week, year after year, before receiving the risen Lord’s Body and Blood we Lutherans sing with David: “Create in me a clean heart, O God; And renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Thy presence; And take not Thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation; And uphold me with Thy free spirit.”

As serious as this Psalm is, as horrible as the circumstances were that surrounded it and the terrible consequences that followed through the death of his son, David still praises God in the midst of it. We take up that praise in our prayer offices, in Matins and Vespers. We begin those services with David’s words from verse 15: “O Lord, open my lips and my mouth shall declare Your praise.”

Don’t be ashamed to identify with David. You too were shaped in iniquity and have sinned against the Lord and have come for mercy. A broken and a contrite heart, He will not despise. He has already paid for those sins you have committed, and the ones you will commit. Jesus died for them all, no matter how evil or cruel they might be. 

David, his loved ones, and his country had to live with some consequences because of his sins. They were many victims. But David was not forsaken. The Holy Spirit was not taken from him. You have sinned against God and our neighbors, in thought, word, and deed, by what you have done and by what you have left undone. And yet you are not forsaken. No matter how many times you have been divorced and abused, no matter how much your children hate you, no matter how filled you are with regret and shame, you are not worse than David. Your family is not more dysfunctional, more embarrassing, or less worthy of Christ’s love. You have sinned against God and your neighbor, in small and in great ways, sometimes with petty and malicious motives, and other times cruelly unaware of how you are hurting others, and yet you have not been forsaken. The Holy Spirit given in Baptism has not be been taken from you.

Modified from a sermon. https://cyberstones.org/sermon/good-friday-2-2015/