Daily Lesson for January 31, 2014

Today's Lesson from Psalm 51:

1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!

It is the psalm David prayed after it was found out that he had slept with Bathsheba and then arranged to have her husband killed. It is the prayer of a person who is truly sorrowful and repentant.

A little story about Psalm 51:

In 17th and early 18th century England crime was severely punished. Even theft of a very minor sum was a capital offence warranting execution.

But a person on trial could "plea clergy" - meaning that because there was a separation of church and civil authority, he could plea that as a clergyman he was immune from civil justice. And apparently the way one proved one was clergy was by proving one's ability to read. The charged would be asked to read - you guessed it - Psalm 51. It was known as the "Neck Psalm" because it saved one's neck.

What is most interesting is that historians researching the records have discovered just how inordinately frequent people plead clergy - far more than would be expected. The historians suspect what was happening was that even the unlearned and illiterate knew from memory this Psalm 51 and were able to recite it well enough to save their neck! Even more, these historians surmise that juries in these cases were loathe to meet out death and so willing to suffer through some pretty dismal readings of Psalm 51. Apparently, you could stumble your way through and still be found clergy because even in harsh 17th and 18th century England the people were merciful.

Which brings me to my point: just how loathe to meet out death and how full of mercy our God is. He is a God willing to blought out our transgressions and wash us clean of our sins if we humbly come before him in true repentance.

And that makes this a psalm worth reading so often and interiorizing so deeply that we know it by heart. And when we stand condemned by our own guilty consciences, we bring it forth from memory into prayer to remind ourselves that our God is a God of mercy and steadfast love - willing to forgive even the darkest of our transgressions and to wash clean even the vilest of us sinners.

Psalm 51. Read it. Memorize it. It might just save your neck.