CLEAN!! Psalms 51-53

 Psalms 51:7-12 (ESV)

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.

It might be after a big work out.  It might be after doing extreme work in the garden, or cutting the grass.  It might be after you have cleaned all day and the dust and dirt has clung to your body.   It might be you fell into the mud and the mire and you are simply completely covered with filth and fumes.   Whatever the case, there is nothing like a great shower or bath to wash off the stench you might have from life’s walk through a dirty world.    There is nothing like being clean and refreshed after being covered in dirt and grime.    The soap and detergent business is a multi-billion dollar industry.   And that is just the outside of our body.   

Imagine that the feeling of cleanliness you feel for the body can be had in the heart and the soul.  Imagine the dirt, filth and wickedness of the heart and can be washed clean.  Think about how it would feel to have the shamefulness and guilt washed completely away.  That is what David is writing about in the above passage.  He has not only just committed adultery with Bathsheba and lost the child as a result of that sin, but he has also just arranged and conspired the death of Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, and then taken Bathsheba as his wife in an attempt to cover up the adultery.   David is filthy and covered in shame.  His guilt is overwhelming.   In the above passage he is crying out for a hot, soapy bath from God.   What happens?  God restores him.  God comes to him to clean him up and give him the desires of his heart.   How?  The New Testament book of Hebrews probably answers that question the best.  Even though a thousand years earlier David prayed this prayer, he did so in faith that somehow his heart, soul and body would be clean before God, he did so by faith in the following hope:

Hebrews 10:19-22 (ESV)

The Full Assurance of Faith

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

David, like us, prayed in faith to have our sins forgiven and our conscious made clear.  How? By the blood and body of Christ in His death, burial and resurrection to new life.  We are CLEAN!   What an amazing thought.  We are CLEAN before God, in His sight because He only sees us through the blood of His Son.