Commentary on Psalm 51:1-10

Christians attending mainline congregations are unlikely to come to worship thinking about their “sin” (verses 2, 3), “iniquity” (verse 2), or “transgressions” (verses 1, 3). It’s not that they lack experience in these matters; they are human beings! However, they likely dwell on that experience using different terms (for example, failure, not enough-ness). Additionally, the human attempt to justify ourselves by denying or diminishing our sin is strong. Thus, your people may need help sensing the resonance between the psalmist’s lack of trust in God and their own (lack of trust in God being understood as the root of all sin, regardless of how the symptoms of that distrust manifest in particular sins).

This is a good Sunday to take additional care with the prayer of Confession and Forgiveness, or to consider incorporating those elements into the service.

Words like “mercy” (verse 1) and “love” (verse 1) are likely more familiar to mainline Christians. Due to that very familiarity, however, the potent shock of these things being sought in faith by one we may feel is undeserving (those whom mainstream culture would wish to “cancel,” those who have harmed us personally, the person we are on our worst days) might be lost. The preacher can show the hearers what mercy and love look, sound, and feel like for this psalm to more easily speak good news to the hearers’ lives as sinners also in need of God’s promised abundant mercy and steadfast love, which is for them in Christ through the Holy Spirit.

Psalm 51 is attributed to King David as a repentant response to God after being confronted by the prophet Nathan about his adultery with Bathsheba and murder of Uriah in 2 Samuel 11 and 12. This narrative contains a series of events that easily speak across the centuries and may serve to deepen the resonance of this psalm for those in the pew by providing tangible examples of what the noted terms above can look like. In doing so, however, the preacher will want to keep a few things in mind.

Don’t minimize David’s sin.

David does not deny what he has done, nor does he seek to justify what he has done as “not so bad” or “not as bad as those other people’s sins.” He writes this psalm because he recognizes that his need for blotting out (verses 1, 9), washing (verses 2, 7), cleansing (verses 2, 7), and purging (verse 7) is greater than what any human being could provide. He acknowledges that he has done evil. He asks God to create him a brand-new heart, because his own is so thoroughly corrupt. Minimizing sin masks humanity’s need to be created anew; it obscures our death-and-life need for the gospel.

David’s sin is in the pews.

The likelihood is high that there are people in the room who have committed adultery, pursued a relationship with someone who is married, committed sexual assault or rape, put another in harm’s way to protect themselves, or in some other way abused their power to get what they want without regard for others. The likelihood is also high that there are people in the room who have had one or more of these sins committed against them. Preachers sometimes talk about sin in a way that keeps it safely “out there,” as though we are the righteous ones who don’t struggle with these things. The church, however, is made up entirely of human sinners.

Psalm 51 is for human sinners. The gospel is for human sinners. The preacher needs to sensitively and unconditionally proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ both for those who have done these things and for those who have suffered because of these things.

David’s sin and our sin are against God.

In 2 Samuel 12:13, David says in response to Nathan’s condemnation, “I have sinned against the LORD.” In the psalm, David writes, “Against you, you alone, have I sinned” (verse 4). While most people will understand how David sinned against Bathsheba and Uriah, some might not sense that David’s sin is also against God. The preacher might take a brief detour to the first commandment: “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3; Deuteronomy 5:7).

In his Large Catechism, Martin Luther interprets this commandment as clinging to God with our whole heart and entrusting our entire lives to God as the one from whom we expect all good things. He names this commandment as the most important, to the point that all the rest of the commandments return to it and depend on it, “so that end and beginning are completely linked and bound together.”¹ David sinned against God by clinging and entrusting his life not to God but to his own desires and by expecting good things not from God but from himself. The same is true for each of us daily, as “no one is able to keep even one of the Ten Commandments as it ought to be kept.”²

David trusts in God’s mercy.

The existence of this psalm reveals David’s trust that what he seeks will be granted. Consider the intimacy of being cleansed by another, the vulnerability of entrusting your physical body to someone else. This is the imagery David returns to again and again, all the way down to his heart, revealing his trust in the steadfast love of the God to whom he prays.

In Christ, whose arms we see stretched out on the cross to embrace the world that is murdering him, reconciling all things to Godself, we can trust God this wholly. The preacher might even invite their people to close their eyes and place their hands on their hearts, prayerfully entrusting their own hearts, bodies, and lives to the One whose steadfast love and abundant mercy are theirs in Christ through the Spirit.

Notes

1. Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, ed., The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, trans. Charles P. Arand et al. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 430.
2. Kolb, 428.