“Bible prayers: David prays”
Psalm 51:1-2
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
Born in January of 1809, Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer and literary critic, known especially for his tales of mystery and the macabre. It was of him that fellow author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote, “Each of his detective stories is a root from which a whole of literature has developed. Where was the detective story until Poe breathed the breath of life into it?” Even Alfred Hitchcock said, “It’s because I liked Edgar Allan Poe’s stories so much that I began to make suspense films.”
And among the many stories for which Poe is so well known, like The Black Cat, The Cask of Amontillado, The Purloined Letter, and The Pit and the Pendulum, there’s one more called The Tell-Tale Heart.
It tells the story of a murder of a man who, said Poe, had a clouded, pale-blue, “vulture-like” eye. And even though the man had done nothing wrong, the murderer, (the one who’s telling the story), kills him, then buries his body beneath the wooden planks of the floor.
And he did such a good job burying him that, when the police came to investigate, he invited them in and even helped them to search for clues. The only problem was the murderer couldn’t escape the haunting guilt of his awful deed. That’s when he begins to hear the heartbeat of his dead victim.
Slowly, a cold sweat poured over him as the heartbeat went on and on, relentlessly, growing louder and louder. Poe even repeated the word for effect. He wrote, “Louder! Louder! Louder!” And he wondered why the police couldn’t hear the sound of the beating heart.
Finally, desperately trying to make the sound go away, he admitted his crime. The story ends as he shrieks, “Villains! Dissemble no more! I admit the deed! Tear up the planks! Here, here!”
And that’s when the reader realizes that the pounding which drove the man mad wasn’t in the body below the floorboards. It was in his own chest. That was the Tell-Tale Heart.
And that’s exactly what we find in the words of Psalm 51. As it says in verse 1: “To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba. Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your steadfast love; according to Your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You may be justified in Your words and blameless in Your judgment” (Psalm 51:1-4).
As you probably already know, there are many different kinds of psalms in the Bible. There are psalms of praise, like Psalm 145: “I will exalt You, my God the King; I will praise Your name forever and ever” (Psalm 145:1). There are psalms of thanksgiving, like Psalm 106: “O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever” (Psalm 106:1). And there are psalms of lament, like Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1).
And among those many kinds of psalms, there are also “Penitential psalms”--seven of them to be exact--like Psalm 6: “Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing; heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled,” (Psalm 6:2), and Psalm 32: “I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and you forgave the iniquity of my sin” (Psalm 32:5).
But this psalm, Psalm 51, is different from all the rest, because we know exactly who wrote it and why it was written.
It was of this psalm that a Lutheran theologian named Victorinus Strigel wrote: “This psalm is the brightest gem in the whole book, and contains instruction so large, and doctrine so precious, that the tongue of angels could not do justice to the full development.” And it was of this psalm that Luther wrote: “A knowledge of this psalm is necessary and useful in many ways. It contains instruction about repentance, sin, grace, and justification, as well as the worship we ought to render to God.” And he wrote: “These are divine and heavenly doctrines. Unless they are taught by the Holy Spirit, they cannot enter the heart of man.”
Let’s look again at the text: “To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.”
If you know the story, and you probably do, you know that it all began so innocently! As the Bible says in the book of II Samuel: “In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel. And they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem” (II Samuel 11:1).
Now those words, as simple as they might seem, tell us quite a lot. They tell us that, by this time, David was, most likely a little older. Years before, he had been a slingshotting, swashbuckling, songwriting young man, fighting Goliath, and dodging the wrath of King Saul.
But not anymore. Now he’s a king with a kingdom to run, and a family to care for. And as his soldiers marched dutifully off to war, he stayed safe in the comfort and luxury of his home.
Then what? The Bible says: “It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful” (II Samuel 11:2).
Apparently, David, the old warrior, the “man after God’s own heart,” the writer and singer of psalms, got a little tired of channel surfing one night, of watching soap operas and talk shows, that he went out for a little stroll on the veranda.
And lo and behold, what did he see? You guessed it! Not just any woman, but, as the Bible said, “a very beautiful woman.”
And what did he do? He could have looked the other way. After all, he already had more wives and concubines than anyone could count.
But that’s not what he did. Instead, as the Bible says, he not only asked about her, he sent for her. And why not? I mean, he was the king, after all. And whatever the king wants, the king gets. That’s why they call him the king!
But this wasn’t just any girl. This was Bathsheba, the daughter of a man named Eliam.
So who’s Eliam? He was one of David’s fiercest and most trusted fighting men!
Even more, she was the wife of Uriah, not the Israelite, a man of his own nation, but Uriah the Hittite.
Now we’re not exactly sure what happened next, but we can take a pretty good guess. Just as soon as he sent for her, she came. And after a couple of gin and tonics and some friendly conversation, one thing led to another. And the rest, as they say, is history.
One month passed, then another, then one more. That’s when she knew she couldn’t hide it anymore. So not knowing what else to do, she sent word to the palace, to the king himself. It was just a short note with two simple words. In Hebrew, it read, “anoki harah,” words that meant, “I’m pregnant,” signed, “B.”
Uh oh. Trouble. But no big deal. We’re talking David here. He’s handled all kinds of trouble before. What’s a little unplanned pregnancy?
And after a moment’s thought, he knew exactly what to do! Call Uriah home from battle to spend a little time with the wife, you know, a little “R and R” would do any soldier good. Besides, it’s the least a king could do for one of his most trusted fighting men!
But things didn’t go quite as well as David planned. Instead, the plot thickened and the story sickened. And faster than you can, “How could you?” Uriah was dead, and David, magnanimous king that he was, took Bathsheba home as his wife.
Now he would have gotten away with it. No one would have been any the wiser. But while he knew he could hide so many things from others, he couldn’t hide anything from God!
And that’s Nathan the prophet came to pay him a visit. And with a sad and solemn look in his eyes, he said, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘I anointed you king over Israel, I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives and would have given you so much more. But now because you struck down Uriah the Hittite and took his wife to be your wife, the sword will never depart from your house, and the child who is born to you will die” (II Samuel 12:7-9, 14).
It was the deepest, darkest, and most dreadful moment in his entire life.
So what did he do? He prayed a prayer, probably the deepest and most powerful prayer he ever prayed. This is what he said: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your steadfast love; according to Your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You may be justified in Your words and blameless in Your judgment” (Psalm 51:1-4).
Notice what David does here, or rather what he doesn’t do. He doesn’t make excuses. He doesn’t play the “blame game.”
Instead, he said in verse 3: “I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.” Verse 10: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” Verse 11: “Cast me not away from Your presence, and take not Your Holy Spirit from me.” And verse 15: “O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare Your praise.”
And one more. Verse 4: “Against You, You only, have I sinned.”
“Against You, You only”?! Really?! What about his wives? He wasn’t just a king, he was also a married man, you know. By this time, he had at least two--Michal and Abigail. Surely he sinned against them too!
Or how about his children? Imagine treating their mothers, their sisters, and their brothers with such carelessness and disrespect?
Or how about Uriah? Not only did he steal his wife, he betrayed him, deceived him, and had him put to death!
Or how about Bathsheba? Was she nothing more to him than a late-night fling, a one-night stand?
Or how about his people, the people of Israel? Didn’t they deserve a king that they could love, honor, and obey?
So why did David say, “Against You, You only, have I sinned”?
Because every sin, no matter how big or how small, is a sin against God Himself. And every sin, no matter how big or how small, is ultimately and finally dealt with by God Himself. That’s why he said: “Against You, You only, have I sinned” (Psalm 51:4).
There’s quite a lot this prayer can teach us. I’ll leave you with this--while you sit so quietly in your pew, all might seem perfectly fine on the outside. You’ve got it together and life is okay. But there are sins and secrets of all kinds hiding inside, things you regret, things you’re ashamed of, and things you don’t ever want to talk about. And while none of us knows what they are, God does.
Just like David, you’re a sinner who needs a Savior.
So where’s the good news in all of this? You can find it in the words of David’s prayer. As he said: “Cleanse me with hyssop and I will be clean; wash me and I will be whiter than snow” (Psalm 51:7).
Not “may be.” Not “might be.” “Will be.” And that’s the best news any sinners like us could ever hope to hear.
Once upon a time, or so the story goes, a pig and a sheep escaped from a nearby farm. Together they found a weak rail in the fence and pressed on it until it broke under their weight. And seeing their opportunity, they quickly bolted from the field to explore their new and unfamiliar surroundings.
It didn’t take long for the farmer to notice that two of his animals were missing, so he set out to find them. But the animals had wandered far and didn’t leave much of a trail behind them. Then when day turned to night, he went back home and slept fitfully to resume his search in the morning. The animals had been gone for more than twenty-four hours now, and he began to wonder if he would ever find them again.
Finally in the afternoon of the second day, he heard a distant bleating, the sound of his sheep crying out. And after following the sound, he found that they had fallen into a deep ditch, but both had been coated in muck and couldn’t scramble out. But where the pig had been content to wallow in the mud, the sheep knew enough to call out for help, for the farmer to rescue it, to lift it out, and to wash it clean.
And that’s exactly what you need to do today. Pray, just as David prayed, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your steadfast love; according to Your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin” (Psalm 51:1-2).
Then what? Paul wrote to the Ephesians: “You who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:13).
We thank You, Father, for the mercy and the grace that You show us day after day. Help us, just like David, to not only confess our sin, but find forgiveness in You, for Jesus’ sake. Amen