Have Mercy, O God
“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.
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.
Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; build up the walls of (God’s people) Jerusalem; then will you delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar” (Psalm 51).
What in the world are we doing this morning with such words, from Psalm 51, on our lips? And what in the world was King David, the one who wrote this Psalm, doing with such words on his lips? And how about the millions of other men and women, whom throughout the history of time, upon hearing the words of this Psalm, have lifted their voices and joined the chorus?
Could onlookers from a distance look upon this great sea of sinners approaching the throne of heaven — that, I believe, is the question they’d ask — what in the world are they doing?
We are doing exactly what God desired we would do when he first created the world. Easter event does not come out of happenstance. It is no back-up plan. Easter Sunday — the morning the savior of sinners rose form the grave, comes out of the very essence and character of who God is — for, he is a God who does not despise a broken and contrite heart.
If God despises a broken and contrite heart then we do not approach this God — lest we die. If God despises a broken and contrite heart we don’t speak to this God lest we welcome the condemnation of our souls. If God despises a broken and contrite heart then he does not send his son into this world to die for all of us who stand in line and sing the chorus,
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.
Our God is a God who welcomes a broken and contrite heart — that is why we are here. Our God is a God who welcomes a broken and contrite heart — that is why we sing! Our God is a God who welcomes a broken and contrite heart and that is why we come to him, expressing to him our sins, the ways we’ve failed to honor him in this world, we come to him now in this time of silent confession.