Psalm 51:1-19 – Confession Is Good for the Soul

There are all kinds of different ways to pray. And as we go through the Bible, we’re seeing different kinds of prayer. This prayer is a type of prayer that makes us feel uncomfortable. But it’s an incredibly important one. And the example of this kind of prayer that we find in Psalm 51 is perhaps the quintessential version of this kind of prayer.

The kind of prayer is confession: acknowledging our sin to God and seeking his mercy and forgiveness. To put it simply, this is the kind of prayer in which you tell God that you were wrong, and you want him to make things right. It’s easy to see why we don’t like this kind of prayer: who wants to admit that they were wrong? Especially when you’re telling it to someone who could really make you suffer for it! We’d rather hide our faults, explain them away, pretend they’re not there, or even change the subject by pointing out someone else’s sin: “Instead of looking at what I did, why not look at what she did: it’s so much worse!”

Ignoring or concealing sin doesn’t make it go away. Sure, we don’t want to deal with it because it makes us uncomfortable and it reminds us that we’re not the people that we want to be, that God wants us to be. But ignoring something doesn’t make it go away. If you have a massive toothache and know that your mouth is full of cavities, it won’t do you any good to ignore it. Going to the dentist is gong to be painful, expensive, and maybe even embarrassing (depending on what kind of comments your dental hygienist makes about the fact that you don’t floss or brush). But your tooth rot isn’t going to go away on its own. Eventually you’re going to have to come to terms with it, or you’ll keep suffering, and it’s only going to get worse.

Soul decay, which is caused by sin, is the same thing. It’s uncomfortable to deal with, but ignoring it won’t make it go away. The sooner you address it, the quicker you can get on with the kind of life that you and God want for you. That’s why, at the beginning of each of our worship services, we share a prayer of confession, to tell God about what’s wrong in our lives. We don’t do this in order to put everyone into a guilt trip and make us feel miserable. We do it so that we can get ourselves right with God in order to clear the way for us to hear his word and offer our grateful response.

Psalm 51 is one of the most powerful prayers of confession in the Bible, and it relates to one of the most shocking sins that we find in Scripture. David, whom God had raised up from being a simple shepherd boy to the greatest king of Israel, was one of the most faithful and powerful people in the Old Testament. But, at the height of his power and glory, he did something horrible and shocking. Instead of being satisfied with the multiple wives he already had, he wanted another man’s wife who caught his eye. And because he was king, he was able to get her (we have no idea what Bathsheba, the woman, thought about all this). That was bad enough. But when David found out that she had become pregnant because of what he had done, he tried to cover up the crime. When the cover-up didn’t work, he arranged for her husband to be killed so that he could marry her. David went from being a shining example of what it means to be a faithful follower of God to becoming an adulterer and a murderer. And he thought he could get away with it. Even though his sin was rotting out his soul, he tried to pretend that all was well. It was only after the prophet Nathan confronted David with his sin (and risked his own neck in the process) that David was able to come to terms with the depths of his sin. Psalm 51 is the prayer that he lifted up as a result.

David’s prayer breaks down into five parts:

1. Verses 1-2: The introduction or “topic statement” of the prayer. David acknowledges that he needs God’s mercy because of what he’s done, and he asks God to wipe away his guilt. This frames what will happen in the rest of the prayer.

2. Verses 3-6: David confesses his sin to God. He doesn’t talk about the specific acts of misconduct that he did. For us, this is a good thing, because if he had, we’d only be able to find ourselves in David’s prayer if we are adulterers and murderers ourselves. Instead of talking about what he did, David told God about the effects of what he did. He acknowledged the depths of his sin to God, and how deeply it has affected his life. In fact, he went far beyond what he had done to Bathsheba and her husband Uriah. He recognized that these specific actions were a reflection or a result of his overall sinful condition that had been part of his life since the time he was born. By telling God this, David wasn’t pretending like he was telling God something that he didn’t already know. He was letting God know that he knew it, too. The magnitude of his crimes opened his eyes to the depths of sin in his life.

3. Verses 7-12: David pleads with God to remove his sin and the damaging effects that it has on his life, and on his relationship with God. He expresses his trust that God will bring him healing and joy, even though he knows that he doesn’t deserve any of it. He acknowledges that the only source of joy and purpose he’ll ever be able to find comes from the presence of God in his life. The happiness or satisfaction that he had hoped to find by what he had done had only disappointed him and caused damage; sin has a way of doing that. It never comes through with the goodies that it promises. David told God that he knew his life would only make sense if the Lord was a part of it. And that would never happen unless God himself was willing to make it happen.

4. Verses 13-15: David made a promise to God that he would offer praise and service when he was healed of his sin. We need to be careful in how we understand this promise, however. This isn’t a case of David making a deal with God: “If you do this for me, here’s what I’ll do for you.” Anytime we think we can make a deal with God, we’re fooling ourselves. The only time we can make a deal with anyone is if we have something to offer that they want, and we can use it to get something from them that we want. Here’s two quick examples. If we’re in the cafeteria at elementary school and I want to trade my lunch with yours, I’ll need to have something in my lunch sack that you want. I’m not going to get your chocolate chip cookie if all I have to offer you is a baloney sandwich (unless, of course, you prefer baloney sandwiches to chocolate chip cookies. If you find an elementary school kid who does, let me know). Here’s a second example: international diplomacy. One country tries to get another country to do what it wants by offering them something that they want. The back-room deal that ended the Cuban missile crisis was when the US told the Soviets that we’d take down a missile site in Turkey. It’s been hard for us to negotiate with Iran because they don’t think we have anything to offer them that they want more than a nuclear weapons program. The same thing is true when we think we can make a bargain with God. When we do, we forget that he’s God, and we’re not.

David’s promise to God wasn’t an attempt to convince God or put him over a barrel. It was simply that: a promise. David told God what his life would look like after he had been healed. He would tell other people about what God had done for him, and he would lift up his praise and thanks. Not to make a bargain, but as a natural result of what God had done for him.

5. Verses 16-19: David recognized God’s character. He acknowledged what kind of God the Lord really is. He’s not a god who wants sacrifices or empty ritual: he wants lives that are open up for him to do his amazing work in them. He wants to bless people and share a relationship with them that leads to praise for the Lord and peace and joy for the people.

If we set aside the introduction, we can find four basic moves in this prayer:

1. David confessed his sinful condition.

2. He asked for God to heal and forgive him.

3. He described what his life would like after God healed him.

4. He recognized who God is in a new and deeper way.

Each of these moves is significant. If David had stopped at any point, his process of confession would have been cheapened.

· If he didn’t acknowledge his sinful condition, he’d never be able to experience God’s healing grace.

· If he confessed his sin without asking for mercy and restoration, he’d be stuck in the depths of guilt that can lead to hopelessness and despair.

· If he asked for God’s help without recognizing how it would change his life, he’d be using God as a simple tool to get what he wanted. He wouldn’t really be any different than he had been at the beginning. The process of being forgiven would change what life looked like for him.

· If he went through all this and didn’t come away from it with a deeper understanding and appreciation for who God is, his relationship with him wouldn’t have changed at all.

Fortunately for David, this wasn’t the case. Instead:

· Because he acknowledged his sin, he experienced healing.

· Because he had been healed, he became a different person and knew God in a deeper and more intimate way.

Psalm 38 – When God Is Gone

Last week at Old Union Church we celebrated two baptisms. It was my favorite kind of baptism ceremony, because it included both an adult and an infant. The infant’s baptism reminds us that God claims us to be members of his family and recipients of his grace long before we even have an inkling of what any of it means. God takes the first step in forming a relationship with us. And the adult’s baptism reminds us that God’s claim on our lives demands a response from us: to accept his gift of love, redemption, and new life with gratitude, and to commit ourselves to walk the path of discipleship and fellowship.

(You may be wondering what all this has to do with Psalm 38, but don’t worry: we’ll get there!)

At the beginning of our baptism ceremony, I always read three Scripture passages to remind us why we share this sacrament and what it means in our lives. The first is Matthew’s version of the Great Commission: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” That’s pretty powerful stuff, but for now I’d like to focus primarily on the end of the commission: Jesus promises that he will be with us until the end of time. Baptism is a reminder and a sign for us that God is always with us. It’s a confirmation that Jesus’ promise of John 14 has been fulfilled. Matthew 28, John 14, and Psalm 139 are three of the most powerful reminders in Scripture that we are never alone: God is always with us.

But the truth is, we don’t always recognize or feel God’s presence. Sometimes we flippantly talk about a “God-forsaken” place: usually someplace desolate that doesn’t appear to have any redeeming value. We know better, of course, because there’s no place that is God-forsaken. Isn’t that the promise of baptism, and of the gift of the Holy Spirit? God never abandons nor forsakes us.

Well, there was this one time….

Before Jesus offered the promise to his disciples that he would always be with us, he endured the experience of being abandoned by God. As he hung on the cross in agony, he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” A lot of theological ink has been spilled over this outcry: how could Jesus, who is God incarnate, be forsaken by God? It would be like someone forsaking themselves. How is that possible? This isn’t the time to jump into Trinitarian explanations, but follow me just this far. As Jesus hung on the cross, he took on all the sinfulness of the human race. Not just the nasty stuff that we do, but the very condition of being sinful. And that’s not a pretty picture: all of the horrible, cruel, mean, vicious, selfish, prideful crimes and misconduct of all of humanity. God, being utterly holy and perfect, cannot endure the presence of evil and sin. He abandons it or destroys it. So God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, the other two Persons of the Trinity, broke their intrinsic bond with God the Son which had been in existence before time began. For the only time in all of eternity, Jesus the Son of God had been abandoned by God.

And that is the experience which the author of Psalm 38 went through as well. (See, I told you we’d get back to it!) He felt the anguish of God’s response to his sin, and this psalm is his prayer to God for mercy.

Verses 3-8 are a powerful description of the effects that sin can have upon us. In this case, it’s the physical consequences of sin. I’m not talking about something like “if you practice unsafe sex you’ll get nasty diseases,” although that can be true also, of course. Psalm 38 describes a different kind of physical consequence. Sometimes we think of ourselves as having these different distinct parts: our physical, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual selves. We act like they are compartmentalized and separate, each in their own plastic packaging to protect them from each other. The reality, however, is that we are a unity. What happens to us emotionally affects us physically, and what happens to us physically affects us spiritually, and so on. We know it’s true on some level: people tend to get sick when they’re stressed out, for example. In this case, the unity of the human being comes out in a different way. When we are sick spiritually, it affects all parts of us. That’s why the psalmist offered such graphic descriptions of his physical anguish: his damaged spiritual state was affecting all parts of his life. In fact, verses 11 and 12 point out the fact that his sin also damaged his social interactions. The bottom line is that when we are messed up spiritually (which usually happens because of sin), our entire lives are out of whack.

Some insightful people have questioned a commonly assumed aspect of typical Christian belief, and it’s an assumption which the opening lines of this prayer seem to confirm. It’s the assumption that God punishes sin: the old image of God up in heaven heaving thunderbolts at the bad people. And it’s the concept of God preparing a horrible eternal doom of torment for people who have not set themselves right with him. Some people ask, “How could a God who is the embodiment of love do this? Doesn’t this go against his very nature?” Maybe it does, and maybe it doesn’t. I’m not prepared to say that God never punishes sin, because there a lot of Bible passages we’d have to contend with before we can accept that conclusion. But here’s what I do believe: much of what we believe to be God’s punishment is actually what we do to ourselves. The worst things that we experience are things that we do to ourselves. As Psalm 7:15 puts it, “He who digs a hole and scoops it out falls into the pit he has made.” Of course, there are times that someone else has to face the consequences of our sin, like the people who get cancer because they live downriver from the company that dumps toxic goo into their drinking water.

One of the most excruciating things that we do to ourselves, however, is destroying our relationship with God. Just as God couldn’t look at his own Son as he hung on the cross, he cannot endure our company when sin is dripping off of our souls. It feels to us as though he abandons us, and that we have become “God-forsaken.” The sad reality, however, is that we’ve made ourselves so distasteful to God that he turns aside from us. But it’s not God’s doing: it’s what we do to ourselves.

The psalm ends with a pitiful plea: “O LORD, do not forsake me; be not far from me, O my God. Come quickly to help me, O Lord my Savior.” This is the prayer of a soul that recognizes the sources of its agony. What appeared to be God’s wrath and discipline in verses 1-2 was actually the damage that he had done to himself by removing himself from God’s loving care and support. This recognition is the first step toward receiving the healing which God offers and wants us to receive. In other words, until we recognize our need for God’s presence in our lives, we’ll never be able to enjoy it. Until we realize that the source of our troubles, frustrations, and sorrows is the fact that we have moved ourselves out of God’s sustaining presence, we’re doomed to feel that pain forever.

But the really good news, in fact the news that’s so good that we give it its own name (the “gospel”) is that God hears prayers like Psalm 38, and especially the ending lines. God wants nothing more than to heal the damage that we’ve done to our relationship with him. And he has gone to incredibly great lengths to do it: the incarnation and sacrificial death of his Son, whose resurrection proves that it worked. The power of God’s redeeming work is greater than the power of our sin. That which separates us from God has been undone by God’s work to return us into his loving presence.