Last week we began our Lenten journey, towards the cross and the empty tomb, and I introduced Psalm 51 as the text that will guide us along the way. As a reminder, Lent is the season of preparation for our greatest celebration as Christians, that of remembering the death and celebrating the resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
I left you with 3 “assignments” for the week; 1. choose something to do/not do for Lent as a way to personally prepare for Easter; 2. read the background texts of David’s sin with Bathsheba in 2 Samuel; and 3. memorize Ps 51. And I apologize. The last assignment, at the very least, is really hard! I’m only part way through, despite working on it at least once a day! But I’m going to keep at it, because I believe it is worth the effort, worth the work, to internalize the Word of God; to have it always available, to have it “written on my heart” to borrow a phrase. And I believe that if memorized, our study of and action out of the Psalm will be much deeper and richer.
We are going to live with this Psalm over the next 4 weeks, tackling verses 1-2 today, but I’m committed to reading the entire Psalm together each week.
Ps 51 (NIV)
For the director of music. A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.
1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are right in your verdict
and justified when you judge.
5 Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
6 Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;
you taught me wisdom in that secret place.
7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
so that sinners will turn back to you.
14 Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,
you who are God my Savior,
and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
15 Open my lips, Lord,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
17 My sacrifice, O God, is[b] a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart
you, God, will not despise.
18 May it please you to prosper Zion,
to build up the walls of Jerusalem.
19 Then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous,
in burnt offerings offered whole;
then bulls will be offered on your altar.
The Space Between:
In last week’s introduction, we quickly rehearsed the story of David’s sin of adultery and murder – and the subsequent confrontation from Nathan the prophet and conviction of sin from the Holy Spirit – as the background for the Psalm. And, as a little aside for those of you who like rabbit trails ; I believe that what broke David’s heart was not the sexual sin but rather the injustice sin - a man with everything exploiting a man with almost nothing – David’s conviction was a justice issue not a sexual issue. Interesting point to ponder…
Regardless, the fact remains that David experienced deep conviction of sin, and out of that deep conviction writes the words to this Psalm.
I want to pause in that space between, and explore that idea of conviction of sin. I don’t see a lot of that today – I don’t see people broken and deeply remorseful and grieving over sin, and I’m really curious about why you think that might be? I don’t even see it often in myself. And I know it is not because there isn’t much sin in me! I see a lot of pain as a result of sin, a lot of enslavement to sin, a lot of examples where people I care about are deeply hurt by sin (either their own or the sin of others), but not much true conviction. Why do you think that might be?
We would probably all agree that only God can truly convict of sin. But that doesn’t mean we have no role to play. It doesn’t mean that we just merrily go on with life, thinking “well if God wants to convict me of sin, I guess He will…”. It doesn’t mean we just go on sinning until God does something to stop it. I think we do have a role, which includes:
• choosing to immerse ourselves in the love of God. This comes out of last week, where I was at great pains to get across the message that God’s hatred of sin is a direct manifestation of His love for us. Tangibly, this means spending more time in Scripture and prayer and worship than in our own idle pursuits of petty entertainments.
• asking, seeking, knocking. Directly, and openly, saying “Lord, show me my sin and what it is actually doing to me and to those I love”
• slowing down and listening. I think we are easily distracted, and since it is unpleasant I think that the moment we start to feel any sort of conviction we tend to look for something else to fill our thoughts and actions so we don’t have to face sin
• stop rationalizing and stop comparing to others. This is an instant short-circuit to the conviction process – we rationalize our sin (“it’s not really wrong…”) and then we compare ourselves to others (“at least I’m not as bad as so-and-so…”). Both stop the work of the Holy Spirit within us.
• those are all personal and internal; I do think we also have roles to play in our relationships when we see sin in others. Now be very careful here, this is dangerous ground, but David needed a “Nathan” and God used another person to convict David of sin, we can’t ignore the Holy Spirit’s nudging us to love one another enough to be honest about places in each others’ lives that entangle us in sin. Just do it completely out of love, and make sure none of your own issues are involved, and make sure you have earned the right in the relationship to share at this level, and be humble enough to expect and accept the same from the other person.
The Plea: vs. 1a
Once we experience conviction of sin, David’s words give expression to that which is inside of our spirit.
1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
Let’s have a closer look. David begins in an interesting place – the plea for mercy rooted in the existing relationship of love. “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love”. This is a fascinating place to start – it is the opposite of the prodigal son who was convicted of his sin and came home and said “I am no longer worthy to be called your son, would you take me on as one of the hired help?” David doesn’t begin his plea for forgiveness, out of the depth of his brokenness and conviction of sin, from the perspective of an outsider – of one who has lost the relationship and has to earn it back – of one who no longer has the privilege to speak. David asks for mercy “according to your unfailing love”.
The words “unfailing love” translate a great big concept, which I want to spend some time on. It is encapsulated in a single Hebrew word, hesed.
It is used 248 times in the Old Testament – that is a lot – and the majority of them are in the book of Psalms, and it is the word our translation translates as “unfailing love”. One of the evidences that it is not an easy word to translate is in how many different English words are used to translate it. Most often, the old King James uses the English word “mercy” for hesed, other times inventing a word “lovingkindness”. Most modern translations use multiple words, such as “unfailing love”. But it is more than even that. A Jewish Rabbi argues that the best translation might be “loyalty”. He dives in, providing this explanation: Rabbi Kamsler's words: “These translations use HESED as a single, one-way rather than reciprocal relationship. HESED, however, describes a mutual relationship between man and between God. Translating it as `mercy,' `compassion,' or `love' destroys the concept of mutuality.” Note that carefully – the concept of mutual relationship. The word has ideas of zeal/enthusiasm, and strong overtones of kindness. When I think of this word, I add the idea of God’s covenants with us as the context – I like to think of it as “covenant love”, with a really high and mature view of the word “love”.
Maybe this definition is helpful: “the consistent, ever-faithful, relentless, constantly-pursuing, lavish, extravagant, unrestrained, furious love of our Father God” (from http://www.hesed.com/heseddef.htm in 2007; site no longer exists).
So David begins in that mutual, relational love, and he appeals to it. It is not from a position of strength, or of some obligation on God’s part to live up to some promise to always forgive (as if we deserve it and can demand it); but the plea begins in the mutuality of relationship and the part that destroys David so much is how David has betrayed that relationship. That is more apparent later on, but it is here already.
And there is a very, very important point in all this for us. Conviction of our sin is in NO WAY a rejection of us by God. Our adoption is secure; our role as God’s children does not change in light of our sin or of God’s discipline in our lives; our sin does not place us outside of the covenant of God. And that needs to give us courage to face our sin and to accept the conviction of the Holy Spirit. To work with God as He sanctifies us – makes us holy – so that we can truly experience all God desires for us.
On that basis, David asks for mercy. That’s what we seek, when the reality of our sin is upon us. It is not justice, it is not defensiveness, it is not blaming God and others and making excuses; true conviction leaves us pleading with God for His mercy.
“Blot out” vs 1b
David doesn’t stop there. The next line says, “according to your great compassion”. I did some digging into this word, which we have translated as “compassion” also, and it is packed with emotion. Literally, it would translate as “womb” or “bowels” and in Hebrew usage it is not about the physical parts of the body but about the deepest seat of emotion within us – that place in our core that hurts for others – do you know that experience? – when someone you care about is hurting deeply and everything within you aches for them, your guts hurt and get tied in knots and you feel deeply and passionately and want to end that pain – do you know that? David recognizes that God feels that for him. He is saying, “Lord, you feel it with me, you feel it for me, my sin has made such a mess of my relationship with you, according to your great compassion on me…”. It is like David knows, anticipates, how deeply the sin hurts God because of the depth of God’s love for David. It’s like David knows God’s gut is all churned up over this sin and what it has done to their relationship. And that is the basis for David’s request.
“Blot, wash, cleanse; transgressions, iniquity, sin”:
The next three lines contain 6 key words: “blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.”. And these are what are making it so hard to memorize! I keep reciting it and getting confused – “blot out sins? or wash the sins and blot out the iniquities?? Or was it cleanse the transgressions and wash the iniquities???”
There is a beautiful progression in the verbs, which is well captured in our translation. “Blot out”, or “wipe away” is where it starts, but then it goes deeper to “wash away”, and finally to the declaration of complete cleansing. Think of it like a shirt that got splattered with tomato sauce while making dinner – the wise person blots it off, then adds some soap to the stain and runs it under water and washes the spot, and then puts the whole shirt in the washing machine so that the whole thing is clean. That’s the imagery here, applied to the soul. David doesn’t just want a surface removal of the sin, and it isn’t even enough to wash the one area though that is more – it is a complete “cleansing” of the whole person that David is asking for.
Likewise, there is a progression in the three similar words “transgressions, iniquity, sin”. They get worse as it gets deeper, and they start pretty bad. “transgressions” is the concept of active deliberate rebellion. “iniquity” is the idea of perversity or depravity, going beyond the action to the state of being behind it. and “sin” is the worst, as it speaks clearly and owns completely the violation of the covenant-love relationship with God.
“blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.”
From Understanding to Owning it Ourselves:
1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
So now that we’ve explored these two verses in some depth, it comes back to each of us. Can you pray those words with integrity? Is there sin in your life; is there conviction of sin? That is the starting place. And once we recognize our sin, own it (rather than rationalize or minimize), and allow the reality of what sin does to us and to our relationship with God to sink in, then (and maybe only then?) we can begin to ask for the blotting, the washing, and the cleansing that we need from sin.
Conclusion:
To close this morning, I’m just going to leave some space for quiet prayer, and then pray these first two verses of Ps 51. I’ll invite you then to speak the words out loud with me if you so choose.
