Read: Psalm
51:1-17 http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=291273411
2
Samuel 11:1-12:25 http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=291273473
Create
in me a clean heart…
2
Samuel 11 begins, “In the spring of the year…” and shares the story of King David,
his affair with young and beautiful, yet very married, Bathsheba, and his
eventual hand in the killing of Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah. Many have noted that
David breaks most of, if not all, the Ten Commandments in this one story. Yet,
David, God’s chosen and anointed king, doesn’t even seem to notice that he has
done anything wrong. He doesn’t notice, that is, until his good friend Nathan
shows up and confronts him.
Psalm 51 is David’s prayer of confession after Nathan's confrontation. I invite you to read Psalm 51:1-17 several times today and to keep it close at hand throughout Lent. It is the best example I know of a confessional prayer: “Have mercy on me, O God…Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin…Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.”
Today
we begin the Season of Lent. Since the fourth century, the Church has observed this
season of confession, penitence, fasting and prayer in preparation for Easter. Lent
invites us to look deep within and to invite God to show us those places that
need God’s healing, wholeness, and reconciliation.
Reflecting
on Psalm 51, Eugene Peterson, shares: “Confessing our sin isn’t resolving not
to sin anymore; it’s discovering what God has resolved to do with us as
sinners. And what God has resolved to do is tune us in to the foot-tapping
songs of forgiveness and set our once-broken bones to dancing.”
May
the coming forty days and forty nights teach us to dance anew in the fullness
of God’s love!
Rich
Greenway
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