Have mercy on me, o God

Memorial moment/Rev. Dr Scott Murray
Ash Wednesday February 13, 2013

Psalm 51

What is repentance? This is a day when that question must be asked and answered. We are especially called to repentance on Ash Wednesday when we begin the forty-day pilgrimage with Jesus to His regal enthronement on the cross of Calvary. Christian repentance consists of two parts. First, repentance is true sorrow over sin, which the Bible calls contrition. David in Psalm 51 tells us that: "a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise" (Ps. 51:17).



Here we are talking about sin considered from the perspective of its deeply offensive nature. It is not just an external blemish, which we might brush off, like a pesky bit of dandruff. This is the attitude of smug persons. They think that sin is a few boo-boos.

King David does not think this. He understands that sin is a deep power within us that has been knitted into our fiber infecting us wholly (Ps. 51:5). "Oh, I sinned. Oh, too bad. Can't we just move on? Let's just forget about it, can't we?" Well, no. Let's be clear about the cost to God to deal with this sin. He has delivered His Son, His dearest treasure into the hands of sinful men that he should be mistreated, blasphemed, cruelly tortured, bloodied, and loaded by the weight of sin, put to death. No, it is not a light thing. Such an enormous cost would not have had to be borne by Christ had it been a light thing. Christ's death testifies to the enormity of my sin. A little thing would not have required the eternal Son of the Father to take care of it. Those who know of it, feel its weight, a grinding, crushing millstone dragging down and driving us to agonized recognition of our horrifying depravity. "O God, what am I, that such a price needed to be paid for my sin? Have mercy on me, O God!"

This admission of our deep depravity would result in our absolute despair, save the wondrous news that the Lord has "laid on Him the iniquity of us all" (Is. 53:6). We would be left a mere huddled mass of terrified flesh crushed by our own sin, except that Christ has, by the pouring out of His innocent blood, rescued us from bloodguiltiness (Ps. 51:14). The second part of repentance, then, includes the confidence that the God who condemns our sin also gives His mercy. He has promised us that we would not be lost forever, that we would be purged with hyssop, and cleansed. He will wash us, and we shall be whiter than snow. Our hearts, weighed down by sin, will again hear joy and gladness. Even the bones that He has broken to fracture our self-righteousness will rejoice. No threat can overwhelm me where the promise of God to rescue sinners still stands.

Sometimes we read the Old Testament like it was written by Unitarians, which is impossible, because Unitarianism was invented less than five hundred years ago, long after the Old Testament canon was complete. The patriarchs were not Unitarians. They ever and always saw the promises of God including the promise of the Messiah, the coming Christ. They knew that they needed to take God at His Word and they depended solely and completely on these promises. In faith, they did not attempt to go around His divine self-revelation, piercing the divine veil, so to speak, but they trusted themselves to Him and His Word. There is no other God. We should believe in no other. We have a real God, who disapproves of our sin and calls us to repentance. We have a real God who gives His Son for us. In Him alone are we to know God. He calls us to repentance so that we can cry to Him and say, "Have mercy on me, O God!"

Rev. Dr Scott Murray
http://lutheracademy.com/about-us/officers2/rev-dr-scott-murray.html





Martin Luther

"No one should understand David to be speaking with the absolute God. He is speaking with God as He is dressed and clothed with the Word and His promises, lest we exclude from the name 'God' Christ, whom God promised to Adam and the other patriarchs. It is necessary for us to apprehend not a bare God, but the God clothed and revealed in His Word; otherwise certain despair will crush us.

"This distinction must always be made between the prophets who speak with God, and the Gentiles. The Gentiles speak with God outside His Word and promises, according to the thoughts of their own hearts; but the prophets speak with God clothed and revealed in His promises and Word. This God, clothed in so compassionate an appearance and, as you might say, in such a pleasant mask, namely, clothed in His promises, this God we are able to apprehend and look upon by us with joy and trust. On the other hand, the absolute God is like a bronze wall, against which we cannot run without our destruction. Therefore Satan is busy day and night, that he might place us on a collision course with the naked God so that we forget the promises and blessings He has shown in Christ and think about God and the judgment of God. When that happens, we perish right on the spot and fall into despair.

"David is not speaking this way with the absolute God. He is speaking with the God of his fathers, that is with the God whose promises he knows and whose mercy and grace he has felt. Therefore when a Turk, a hypocrite, or a monk says, 'Have mercy on me, O God,' this is as though he had said nothing. He does not take hold of the God he names as He is veiled in the kind of mask or face that is accommodated to us; but he takes hold of God and invades Him in His absolute power. There despair necessarily follows, along with Lucifer's fall from heaven into hell (Is.14:12). This is the reason why the Prophets depended so upon God's promises in their prayers, because the promises include Christ and make God not our judge or enemy, but a kind and favoring God, who wants to restore to life and save the condemned." 

Prayer:

Almighty and everlasting God, You despise nothing You have made and forgive the sins of all who are repentant. Create in us new and contrite hearts that lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness we may receive from You full pardon and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.



Psalm 51:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2051&version=ESV




Foto: KL