Daily Devotional • September 12
Psalm 51
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 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.
Meditation
We all move through life carrying some burden of guilt. For some, it’s a light load, not necessarily because they are extraordinarily virtuous, but because they have only a vague awareness of their own sinfulness. Our Psalmist is not in this category. “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.” In the interpretive tradition, Psalm 51 is seen as David’s response to his confrontation with the prophet Nathan, wherein the King is reminded that he is both an adulterer and a murderer. “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight;”
Well, not literally “only,” we might need to observe. There is Bathsheba, whom he had artlessly seduced, and Uriah, her husband whose death David had arranged. But God, as the author of the moral order of the universe, is the ultimate object—the ultimate victim, we might say—of all our sins.
These transgressions may not be the absolute worst of the evil actions we could call to mind, but they’re not very far from the top of the list. David’s abuse of power, his adultery, including the impregnation of another man’s wife, and then his attempt to cover up those crimes by placing her faithful soldier of a husband in harm’s way, such that he is killed in battle—these are grievous sins of a high order. Nathan has helped David come to terms with this reality, and this Psalm is his lament as it all sinks in.
David implores God for forgiveness. “Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities.” But he also seeks divine grace to be truly changed in his inner being. “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” And this same David became the proto-Messiah, God’s Anointed One, and the progenitor of God incarnate—namely, Jesus. This offers hope to us whose sins may be of a much more prosaic variety.
The Rt. Rev. Daniel Martins is retired Bishop of the Diocese of Springfield in the Episcopal Church.
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Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:
Cathedral Church of St. Luke, Orlando
The Diocese of Olo – Province of the Episcopal Church of South Sudan
The Rt. Rev. Daniel Martins is retired Bishop of the Diocese of Springfield in the Episcopal Church.
