Font, water and descending Spirit.

When I wake up weary and groggy after tossing and turning all night, I ask for a good cup of coffee or some strong English Breakfast tea so that I can jolt my mind and accomplish the day’s activities. When my kids wrangle with the pavement and need some relief from the loss of skin, they ask for a band aid to cover the issue. When a husband willingly or mistakenly pushes a painful thought at his wife and seals it with hands raised in disgust, he will ask for forgiveness and a second chance to vie for his wife’s heart. What measures do you take when an issue arises in your life?

Do you remember David and Bathsheba? After David committed that historically embarrassing and painful sin (painful for Bathsheba, for Uriah her husband, for Bathsheba’s son, for the nation of Israel) he could have asked God to just clear his record and renew an opportunity to not “mess up” again. But David uttered this linguistic phrase that has now found its place in some of our liturgy:

“Create in me a clean heart, O God,

and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10).

Why did David ask for a clean heart rather than request a second chance? Why didn’t he push for setting back the clock and trying this again with a fresh perspective? Why, after all the intrigue, did he ask God to make his heart clean? Short answer: it’s dirty. David’s heart [and mine] is filthy and needs God’s cleaning. It actually needs God’s creative power (“Create in me”) to become clean.

Let’s dive into the longer answer. When we don’t have a productive enough week at work, it seems logical to just sit down and re-evaluate how we spent our time. Surely time management was the issue but was it really the underlying root cause? David is telling us  “yes” and “no.” It's the heart. “Yes;” the symptom is poor time management; but the “No” is that the heart is the real issue.

When a child throws a tantrum and we corral them into a quiet time, they might be willing to change some of their actions so as to avoid sitting in the corner when they could be playing. But what is at play in that instance? The child is learning the lessons of life based on their personal heart’s desire: more time playing than sitting in a quiet spot. It becomes a wrestling match of desires. The tantrum, at that moment in time, is a heart issue. The child (or the adult) is not obtaining what his heart wishes. The heart musters attention and decides to go with primal actions: to scream and kick and wriggle on the floor.

But then the time out gets in the way of the heart’s desire. Now, eventually, that child or that teen or that husband, wife, CEO will have to adjust outward actions in order to achieve that event which the heart so firmly wants.

Take this into David’s context. Let’s surmise that his logical, non-toddler mind alerts him to all the palace disruptions and political turmoil that will result if he follows his heart and seduces Bathsheba. He might weigh this out and determine that this is not the best option. The cons outweigh the benefits or pleasures. But the heart is lusting. The heart is still filthy dirty - sinful from conception (Psalm 51:5). So now the heart must scheme and plot and connive. The heart won’t stop pushing for that very strong desire.

David doesn’t just need a second chance to move into a better attitude or lifestyle. David has slumped into solid realization that the issue is deep set and resides in his heart. If his heart remains as is, this sin and many others will continue to pop up. They will overwhelm his leadership of the nation. They will push and pull until there is a trail of brokenness all around David. 

The heart is like a restless tiger that remains dormant for a time but hunger causes it to pounce. The heart is powerful and devouring. David has seen this; he knows it so well that now God has revealed to him [and us] that the solution is a clean heart.

That is why we often sing, “Create in me a clean heart, Oh God.” Deep in our Lutheran liturgy, we have planted this biblical truth that the heart is the issue. 

So join with me this week as we study Psalm 51. Join with me in humble acknowledgment that our whole being is broken and our heart is the issue. Let us, together, plead for God’s mercy and for the regenerating power of Jesus’ love to create in us a clean heart.

Blessings!