Psalm 32/2 Corinthians 6:1-10
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
“Lord, teach us to pray!” (Lk 11:1) So spoke the disciples of Jesus. In doing so they were acknowledging that they were not able to pray on their own; they had to learn. Learning to pray sounds contradictory to us. After all, Christians are commanded by our Lord to pray; and, it is assumed, if one cannot sufficiently, on his own, pray from the heart, then he must not be a true Christian.
But it is not natural for the heart to pray. We confuse wishing, hoping, sighing, lamenting, and rejoicing - all of which the heart can certainly do on its own - with praying. “But in so doing,” writes Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “we confuse earth and heaven, human beings and God. Praying certainly does not mean simply pouring out one’s heart. It means, rather, finding a way to and speaking with God, whether the heart is full or empty. No one can do that on one’s own. For that one needs Jesus Christ” (Prayerbook of the Bible, 155).
The disciples want to pray. We want to pray. Not only has our Lord commanded us to do so, but He has graciously promised to hear us! But since prayer is not natural for the heart, we must learn; we must be taught. Even as a little child learns to speak by mimicking the words of her parents, so the child of God learns to pray and confess by saying back to Him the Word He has spoken to us. And it is Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, who teaches us to pray. He is the Word come from the Father, and it is His Word that serves as the steps on which we find our way to God in prayer.
In Holy Scripture there is one book unlike all others in that it contains only prayers. It is the Psalms. This, at first, sounds astonishing. For Holy Scripture is entirely God’s inerrant Word to us. But prayers are human words. But the Psalms are prayers to God that are also God’s own Word.
This is difficult to understand. We grasp it only when we consider that we can learn true prayer only from Jesus Christ. For He, our Great High Priest, has brought before the Father every need, every joy, every thanksgiving, every hope of man. In Jesus’ mouth man’s word becomes God’s Word. He the Word come down, dwells with us and speaks to the Father who dwells in eternity. Thus when you pray along with the prayers of Christ, God’s Word becomes again a human word. Indeed, only in and with Jesus Christ, can we truly pray.
“If we want to read and to pray the prayers of the Bible, and especially the Psalms, we must not first ask what they have to do with us, but what they have to do with Jesus Christ” (ibid, 157). It does not truly matter whether the Psalms express exactly what we feel in our heart at the moment we pray. For often times we must pray against our own heart in order to pray rightly. Indeed it is not the poverty of our heart, but the richness of God’s Word that ought to determine our prayer. Rejoice, therefore, for our Lord who has commanded us to pray and has promised graciously to hear us, has also given us the most exceptional of prayers in His Word.
The Psalm for tonight, Psalm 32, is the second of the seven penitential psalms prayed by King David; this psalm was prayed after his sin with Bathsheba was confessed to the Prophet Nathan and forgiven by the Lord through the mouth of His servant. The Psalm takes us into the Most Holy Place where the mercy seat covers the Law that would condemn us, but where the blood of the Lamb atones for us before the Father.
And there stands Christ, for He is the blessed Man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity. And yet He who knew no sin, became Sin for us. Thus Jesus prays this and all the penitential Psalms for us, even as He teaches us to pray, Forgive us our trespasses, while He Himself prays not only for us, but with us. Jesus prays not for His own forgiveness of sins, but for ours; the sin which He has completely taken upon Himself. It is not imputed to you, but to Him.
For you He becomes fully Man, His bones wasting away in His groaning, His strength fleeting as He was splayed out upon the Cross, bearing the heavy hand of the Father upon Him. And it is precisely in this, at His most human, being the innocent Lamb bearing your sin, being your Sin, that Christ Jesus shows Himself to be the true Son of God. This is why St Paul commends himself as a servant of God not in his strength, but in his weakness; by great endurance, in affliction, hardship, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, and hunger. This is the cruciform image of Christ to which he and all Christians are conformed.
This is how King David speaks concerning the rush of great waters, as though he were drowning in his iniquity; a deadly flood, rising from hell, seeking to drag the Christian down to the depths. His guilty conscience accuses him before the Father, terrifying and plaguing him. St Paul is at peace in this storm for his conscience is at rest in the forgiveness of sins by faith in Christ Jesus. Until he acknowledged His sin to the Lord and did not cover his iniquity, he was tormented in both body and soul.
So too for you, beloved. Do not hold on to your sin, for it does not belong to you, but to Christ your Sin-bearer, who put it to death in His Cross and buried it in His tomb.
Behold His wounds, in which your guilty conscience finds peace, at which you are at peace and rest within Him. You are a hiding place for me, David prays. Such is your Lord Jesus! Climb inside His riven side, drenched in His blood, covered over in His righteousness, and recline upon His merciful heart. For He preserves you from trouble. He surrounds you with His steadfast love.
For it is not coincidence, beloved, that in the Divine Service, after you speak, I said, “I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord,” and You forgave the iniquity of my sin - the very words of this Psalm - you speak back to God what He has said to you concerning your sin: that you are poor and miserable, that you deserve His temporal and eternal punishment.
Therefore, do not keep silent! Now is the favorable time; now is the day of salvation. Acknowledge your iniquity, for our Lord desires greatly to cover over your deceit with the righteous blood of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. On Him was your sin imputed. On Him was the Father’s wrath meted. And blessed are you whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
Therefore, dear Christian, you may walk this Lenten road in repentant joy, confident that He who did not spare His own Son for you, will not fail to graciously give you all things. And as His good to His Son came by way of the Cross, who for joy endured the shame, so it shall come to you, even as St Paul rejoiced: through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise, treated as impostors, and yet true, as unknown yet well known, as dying and behold, we live, as having nothing yet possessing everything.
Beloved, by faith in Christ Jesus the Blessed One, you possess everything: mercy and love, forgiveness and life, salvation, peace, joy, patience, kindness, eternal life, the entire Christ, yea heaven itself, all yours, all gift. Steadfast love surrounds you. Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy all you upright in heart!
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
“Lord, teach us to pray!” (Lk 11:1) So spoke the disciples of Jesus. In doing so they were acknowledging that they were not able to pray on their own; they had to learn. Learning to pray sounds contradictory to us. After all, Christians are commanded by our Lord to pray; and, it is assumed, if one cannot sufficiently, on his own, pray from the heart, then he must not be a true Christian.
But it is not natural for the heart to pray. We confuse wishing, hoping, sighing, lamenting, and rejoicing - all of which the heart can certainly do on its own - with praying. “But in so doing,” writes Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “we confuse earth and heaven, human beings and God. Praying certainly does not mean simply pouring out one’s heart. It means, rather, finding a way to and speaking with God, whether the heart is full or empty. No one can do that on one’s own. For that one needs Jesus Christ” (Prayerbook of the Bible, 155).
The disciples want to pray. We want to pray. Not only has our Lord commanded us to do so, but He has graciously promised to hear us! But since prayer is not natural for the heart, we must learn; we must be taught. Even as a little child learns to speak by mimicking the words of her parents, so the child of God learns to pray and confess by saying back to Him the Word He has spoken to us. And it is Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, who teaches us to pray. He is the Word come from the Father, and it is His Word that serves as the steps on which we find our way to God in prayer.
In Holy Scripture there is one book unlike all others in that it contains only prayers. It is the Psalms. This, at first, sounds astonishing. For Holy Scripture is entirely God’s inerrant Word to us. But prayers are human words. But the Psalms are prayers to God that are also God’s own Word.
This is difficult to understand. We grasp it only when we consider that we can learn true prayer only from Jesus Christ. For He, our Great High Priest, has brought before the Father every need, every joy, every thanksgiving, every hope of man. In Jesus’ mouth man’s word becomes God’s Word. He the Word come down, dwells with us and speaks to the Father who dwells in eternity. Thus when you pray along with the prayers of Christ, God’s Word becomes again a human word. Indeed, only in and with Jesus Christ, can we truly pray.
“If we want to read and to pray the prayers of the Bible, and especially the Psalms, we must not first ask what they have to do with us, but what they have to do with Jesus Christ” (ibid, 157). It does not truly matter whether the Psalms express exactly what we feel in our heart at the moment we pray. For often times we must pray against our own heart in order to pray rightly. Indeed it is not the poverty of our heart, but the richness of God’s Word that ought to determine our prayer. Rejoice, therefore, for our Lord who has commanded us to pray and has promised graciously to hear us, has also given us the most exceptional of prayers in His Word.
The Psalm for tonight, Psalm 32, is the second of the seven penitential psalms prayed by King David; this psalm was prayed after his sin with Bathsheba was confessed to the Prophet Nathan and forgiven by the Lord through the mouth of His servant. The Psalm takes us into the Most Holy Place where the mercy seat covers the Law that would condemn us, but where the blood of the Lamb atones for us before the Father.
And there stands Christ, for He is the blessed Man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity. And yet He who knew no sin, became Sin for us. Thus Jesus prays this and all the penitential Psalms for us, even as He teaches us to pray, Forgive us our trespasses, while He Himself prays not only for us, but with us. Jesus prays not for His own forgiveness of sins, but for ours; the sin which He has completely taken upon Himself. It is not imputed to you, but to Him.
For you He becomes fully Man, His bones wasting away in His groaning, His strength fleeting as He was splayed out upon the Cross, bearing the heavy hand of the Father upon Him. And it is precisely in this, at His most human, being the innocent Lamb bearing your sin, being your Sin, that Christ Jesus shows Himself to be the true Son of God. This is why St Paul commends himself as a servant of God not in his strength, but in his weakness; by great endurance, in affliction, hardship, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, and hunger. This is the cruciform image of Christ to which he and all Christians are conformed.
This is how King David speaks concerning the rush of great waters, as though he were drowning in his iniquity; a deadly flood, rising from hell, seeking to drag the Christian down to the depths. His guilty conscience accuses him before the Father, terrifying and plaguing him. St Paul is at peace in this storm for his conscience is at rest in the forgiveness of sins by faith in Christ Jesus. Until he acknowledged His sin to the Lord and did not cover his iniquity, he was tormented in both body and soul.
So too for you, beloved. Do not hold on to your sin, for it does not belong to you, but to Christ your Sin-bearer, who put it to death in His Cross and buried it in His tomb.
Behold His wounds, in which your guilty conscience finds peace, at which you are at peace and rest within Him. You are a hiding place for me, David prays. Such is your Lord Jesus! Climb inside His riven side, drenched in His blood, covered over in His righteousness, and recline upon His merciful heart. For He preserves you from trouble. He surrounds you with His steadfast love.
For it is not coincidence, beloved, that in the Divine Service, after you speak, I said, “I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord,” and You forgave the iniquity of my sin - the very words of this Psalm - you speak back to God what He has said to you concerning your sin: that you are poor and miserable, that you deserve His temporal and eternal punishment.
Therefore, do not keep silent! Now is the favorable time; now is the day of salvation. Acknowledge your iniquity, for our Lord desires greatly to cover over your deceit with the righteous blood of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. On Him was your sin imputed. On Him was the Father’s wrath meted. And blessed are you whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
Therefore, dear Christian, you may walk this Lenten road in repentant joy, confident that He who did not spare His own Son for you, will not fail to graciously give you all things. And as His good to His Son came by way of the Cross, who for joy endured the shame, so it shall come to you, even as St Paul rejoiced: through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise, treated as impostors, and yet true, as unknown yet well known, as dying and behold, we live, as having nothing yet possessing everything.
Beloved, by faith in Christ Jesus the Blessed One, you possess everything: mercy and love, forgiveness and life, salvation, peace, joy, patience, kindness, eternal life, the entire Christ, yea heaven itself, all yours, all gift. Steadfast love surrounds you. Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy all you upright in heart!
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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