Psalm 51:1-10 (NRSV)
Read Psalm 51:1-10 on biblegateway.com
Verse 1Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.
Verse 2Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
Verse 3For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
Verse 4Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.
Verse 5Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.
Verse 6You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
Verse 7Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Verse 8Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.
Verse 9Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.
Verse 10Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.
Devotion
This is the first Tuesday, Sept. 11, since 2001. I was mowing my lawn in suburban Boston when a stranger driving by shouted the first news about the World Trade Center. I later learned that a congregation member nearly suffocated near ground zero, while town residents and others related to congregation members perished. Later that day, not knowing what was going on in the cloudy skies over Boston, I heard fighter jets scream by overhead and muttered, "Go get 'em," not knowing that there was no one to "go get" up there.
In intervening years, sorrow and hope, rage and reason have played their parts in how we have come to see ourselves in a new era. The skies of this Sept. 11 may be equally clouded by uncertainty about who needs to "go get" whom.
Can we do better than simply to seek and live in God's mercy?
Prayer
Lord God, help us to seek you and let you remind us how near you are with your abundant mercy, not only for us but for all the world. For the sake of our crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.