Contemplation

 April 21, 2021

“Create in me a clean heart, O God,

And renew a right spirit within me.”

—Psalm 51:10

David had sinned grievously, raping Bathsheba, then arranging for the murder of her husband. He thought he had everything figured out, that he had covered everything up, attended to all the details. Time went by, and it looked like he had gotten away with it. The baby Bathsheba had carried for nine months was born. Nobody knew. But God saw, and informed the prophet Nathan, who confronted David. The guilt must have been building for those nine months, because David didn’t deny it, offer excuses, or justify his actions. He repented and confessed. And he wrote this psalm, a wrenching heart cry of guilt and grief. 

I wonder how long it took him to write this. These are not words dashed off in a fit of inspiration. They are words wrenched from the depths, shaped and chiseled and polished laboriously till they glow with a dark light and wail with anguish. I once listened to this kind of wailing of guilt and despair, and hope I never have to hear it again. Nine months it built up within him till Nathan hit the pressure valve and the guilt and shame came bursting forth. But these words...these words relive the agony that still haunted him.

I’ve listened to Christians who speak as if they are beyond sinning. Oh, they may commit some minor piccalilli, some inadvertent misstep, but real gut-wrenching sin? Oh no; that is long behind them. I imagine David thought so, too, until Nathan stood before him, stretched forth his hand, pointed his finger and whispered, “YOU are the man!” 

I’ve mentioned this before, but one thing I appreciated about the Orthodox tradition is their awareness of sin. It is never something only in the past, but always present before them. This sounds somewhat morose until we give it a bit of reflection. This awareness only comes through spending much time in prayer and worship. One cannot cultivate such spiritual sensitivity with short, casual encounters with the Holy One. Such truncated devotional times may feel good, but don’t allow the mirror of the Word to reflect the light of Christ into the dark places our hearts where we keep our secret sins hidden away from the gaze of others. 

Just as a bleached white shirt stands in stark contrast to an un bleached white shirt, so it is with us. We wear our white shirts into God’s presence and expect him to be impressed. We offer our prayers, read our Scriptures, and go on our way before God has the chance to reveal to us Christ in all his blazing glory. If we only waited a little longer in prayer, we might have seen the contrast and repented of our shabby self-righteousness. 

The glory of the Cross is that when we humble ourselves before the Thrice Holy One, confessing our sins, as minute or heinous as they might seem to us, when we give the Holy Spirit time to percolate deep into the recesses of our hearts. Jesus comes to us, removes our faded clothes of man-made righteousness, and drapes the glory of his purity over us.