Clean and Renewed – Psalm 51:1-10

A text – Psalm 51:1-10

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.

A reflection:

This is the psalm attributed to David after he was accused by the prophet Nathan of stealing Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba, and having Uriah sent to the front lines where he would surely be killed. It was certainly a terrible thing to have done. Kings in those days were allowed to take whatever they wanted and send whomever they wanted to into battle. But David knew better than to live that way, and yet he did it anyway. David really, really needed to make his relationship with God clean again. He needed to repent.

He admits his most grievous faults, but that is not the center of his prayer. He relies solely on the goodness, the forgiving character of God. He relies on knowing that God will receive him back into the fold and embrace him when he repents for having sinned. That makes this psalm a good one for a week where we have heard Moses plead for God’s mercy to the Israelites after their faithless behavior, and we have heard Jesus describe how there is great joy in heaven when one who is lost returns to the fold.

When I come to God in prayer and I confess the wrong that I have done, I will be thinking of God’s reaction to my confession. I need to remember that my coming to confess isn’t about how sincere and good I am as much as it’s about how sincere and good God is – how steadfast God’s love for me is. And that will make me desire, as David did, that God create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me.

A prayer:

Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for being so good and so steadfast in your love that you willingly forgive us. Help us to remember that it is your goodness more than our sincerity or worthiness that counts, and that in your mercy you bring us back again and again into your arms. Amen.