“Create In Me”
A Sermon For Ash Wednesday on Psalm 51
Ash Wednesday
Psalm 51; St. Matthew 6.1-6, 16-21
Given on 05 March 2025
Given at Chapel of Our Savior, Lutheran Community Home, Seymour, Indiana
+ In the Name of Jesus +
That portion of God’s Word which we consider today, the Holy Spirit caused the holy prophet St. David to write for our comfort and learning, placing a special emphasis on these words…
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
11 Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.
13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you. (Ps. 51.10-13; ESV)
Let us pray:
Almighty and everlasting God, You despise nothing You have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent. Create in us new and contrite hearts that lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness we may receive from You full pardon and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
The fifty-first psalm is entitled in the Hebrew Old Testament, “A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.”
This is the story of David’s great fall into temptation, found in the second book of Samuel, the 11th and 12th chapters. David’s army was at war, yet the King, a bit too sure of himself, did not go out to fight with his army, as was the custom of those times for the king to do.
David comes upon the scene in Scriptures as the young and righteous shepherd boy, who was humbly anointed to be king over his older brothers by Samuel, who then full of the Holy Spirit did many mighty deeds, including sleighing the mighty Goliath with his sling while preaching the name of the true and living God. He then went on to win victory after victory over Israel’s enemies, receiving the praises of the people. Which made King Saul jealous and angry and drove David and his men into hiding, as Saul sought to murder David. Nevertheless, David spared the life of Saul when he was given chances to take Saul’s life because David piously refused – knowing that he himself would be Israel’s next king – nevertheless David claimed it was not his God-given duty to take the life of his king and Israel’s king which God had given them, the time was all up to God. David would not take for himself what God had not given him. Later on, Saul would be killed by the Philistines in battle, and David would then become king.
But some years later in his reign, this one spring day, David sat idle when his army went out to defend the kingdom God had given them. And as we ought to know, idle hands are the devil’s workshop. David saw the forbidden fruit of Bathsheba, wife of Uriah the Hittite, bathing. It all never should have happened. David lusted. David committed adultery. David tried to cover up that he fathered a child with Uriah’s wife. Finally, David had Uriah murdered on the battlefield so he could take Bathsheba as his wife and maintain propriety and righteousness in the sight of men. He was “practicing [his] righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them…”
But God noticed. His Father in heaven knew better.
Jesus says so in today’s Gospel reading [Matthew 6.1-2]:
Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others.
No doubt David sounded the trumpet – look at me, I’ve married this poor Bathsheba woman, in order to save her from being a war widow. But he is being a hypocrite, Jesus says. Someone who puts on a mask and acts as if he was something that he was not.
God sent the prophet Nathan to root out David’s hypocrisy and to retrieve the lost sinner. God grant that if and when we fall into sin, God graciously deals with us by sending someone to call us back to repentance and faith!
Nathan began by telling David a parable. A rich man with many flocks in his possession had a poor neighbor who possessed only one little lamb. The rich man received a house guest, and refused to slaughter one of his own lambs for dinner, so proceeded to take the only little lamb away from his poor neighbor and slaughtered it instead to use for their feast. When Nathan finished, “Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die, and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.”
Nathan said to David, “You are the man.” (2 Samuel 12.5-7) You are a hypocrite. You act as a pious king, David, and you act like you are angry over sin, and yet, you are hiding away your own sins of lusting, coveting, adultery, lying, cheating, stealing, and murder which you yourself have engaged in. Here must end this hypocrisy, and end it now, or there will be no reward from your father who is in heaven.
David did repent. “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die.”
David paid for the lamb he took. There were temporal consequences to his sin. The child he fathered with Bathsheba died. His son Absalom from another wife would stir up trouble from his own family and would do abominable things against David and his wives, rebelling and nearly overthrowing David from being king. Absalom would be killed as well. David’s rule would be painful and difficult until the end of his days.
After this story takes place, however David turns to his notepad and pen, and under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, no doubt full of grief and shame for what he had done, yet he writes this most memorable passage of Scripture, which we sing in every Divine Service:
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
11 Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.
13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you.
Each of us have fallen into sin and hypocrisy, like David of old. “You are the man!” Nathan points at all of us too. We need a clean heart. We need a right spirit – the Holy Spirit – the presence of God and the absence of the wicked and evil foe who tempts and deceives us.
To restore to us the joy of God’s salvation, Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Son of David, the true and only pure man who lived without any sin or hypocrisy in Him, who nevertheless went innocently unto death on Calvary’s cross and took the punishment for our sins that we deserved. Having traded on the cross our guilt for His innocence, our enmity for His peace, our slavery to sin for His sonship, our death for His life – God has made us no longer profane and worthy of damnation, but instead we are re-created holy, pure, heart and soul for Christ’s sake and are reckoned worthy of eternal life. The only thing we can do is receive this great gift by believing it and trusting it to be ours in Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Then basking in the joy of God’s salvation, you who once were impure and beholden to an unclean spirit, but now in Christ having a purified heart and the Holy Spirit – now you can teach other transgressors God’s way, so that many sinners return to the Lord their God.
God grant us to prepare for the great Easter to come this year in Lent by acknowledging our wretchedness, renouncing our sin and hypocrisy, and instead receiving from our gracious God a clean heart and right Spirit, full pardon and forgiveness and learning to live and find our joy in His salvation alone.
God grant our prayer, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.