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Psalm 38
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O LORD, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath! For your arrows have sunk into me, and your hand has come down on me. There is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation; there is no health in my bones because of my sin. For my iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me. My wounds stink and fester because of my foolishness, I am utterly bowed down and prostrate; all the day I go about mourning. For my sides are filled with burning, and there is no soundness in my flesh. I am feeble and crushed; I groan because of the tumult of my heart. O Lord, all my longing is before you; my sighing is not hidden from you. My heart throbs; my strength fails me, and the light of my eyes - it also has gone from me. My friends and companions stand aloof from my plague, and my nearest kin stand far off. Those who seek my life lay their snares; those who seek my hurt speak of ruin and meditate treachery all day long. But I am like a deaf man; I do not hear, like a mute man who does not open his mouth. I have become like a man who does not hear, and in whose mouth are no rebukes. But for you, O LORD, do I wait; it is you, O Lord my God, who will answer. For I said, "Only let them not rejoice over me, who boast against me when my foot slips!" For I am ready to fall, and my pain is ever before me. I confess my iniquity; I am sorry for my sin. But my foes are vigorous, they are mighty, and many are those who hate me wrongfully. Those who render me evil for good accuse me because I follow after good. Do not forsake me, O LORD! O my God, be not far from me! Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation!
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The Immense Heaven of His Grace
Tuesday of Easter 7
22 May 2012
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Negative examples can have a powerful impact on how we think and act. When I was a college student, I was deeply affected by the preaching in my college chapel; however not for the better. I heard there vast amounts of law and very little gospel. For example, sometimes preachers took the opportunity to berate students about their lack of academic success with the pious command that we needed to work harder at our studies. This was true, I am sure. Slothfulness is after all one of the seven deadly sins. According to this kind of preaching slothfulness could be remedied if students merely buckled down and got to work. In the kingdom of the left with its laws and requirements, this is absolutely true. However, such talk ought never have been permitted in the college chapel. For God's remedy to sin is not our efforts, but Christ's work by which poor sinners like me are granted forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation through the preaching of the gospel. The church has in her hands the preaching of the merits of Christ, not our works. I was deeply impressed by this legalistic preaching with the divine urgency to preach the holy gospel and to preach it in such a way that it was the majority of the preaching.
A truthful preaching of the law attacks not just external sins, which might be remedied by our own works. It attacks the weakness of our internal life, infected as it is by perverse ideas in a crooked heart. David laments: "I am feeble and crushed; I groan because of the tumult of my heart. O Lord, all my longing is before you; my sighing is not hidden from you. My heart throbs; my strength fails me, and the light of my eyes - it also has gone from me" (Ps 38:8-10). The uncleanness of our hearts is a negative testimony to our desperate need for the gospel. The filth there is a constant witness to our need for the gospel message that delivers to us a righteousness that is not our own, that does not arise from within us. It cannot arise from within us any more than sweet odors arise from a cesspool.
Our own hearts drive us outside of ourselves fleeing the darkness that resides there to seek the light of Christ alone. The tumult of our heart demands that peace come from someone else, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid" (Jn 14:27). Peace does not come from our hearts. It comes to our hearts when we focus on Christ and His act of propitiation for us poor sinners. There is nowhere else to turn when our heart condemns us (1Jn 3:20). He invites us out of ourselves and puts us in Himself (1Jn 5:20). Ah, to be hidden there in the wounds of Jesus; there to be at peace; there to receive the divine mercy; there to be overshadowed by the cross and its blood; there to have the "immense heaven of His grace spread over us"! How different this is from what is in our hearts.
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Martin Luther
"It is useful for believers to feel the uncleanness of their flesh, lest they get all puffed up by the inane and impious opinion about the righteousness of works, as though on account of such righteousness they would be accepted in the presence of God. In this way the puffed up monks thought themselves to be so holy because of the choice of their monastic life, that they were able to sell even to others their own righteousnesses and holinesses, despite the fact that in their heart of hearts they knew themselves to be unclean. So pernicious a plague it is to trust one's own righteousness.
"Therefore, because believers feel the uncleanness of the heart they will not trust their own righteousness. This feeling humbles them, so that they are crestfallen and they are not able to trust their own good works, and it compels them to run to Christ the true propitiator, who has a flesh that is uncorrupted and unimpaired, but most pure and holy, which He gave for the life of the world (Jn 6:51). In Him they have found a solid and perfect righteousness. So they abide in a humility, which is neither fictional nor merely monastic and inheres in their flesh, on account of which they are subject to eternal death, if God were to judge them with the utmost severity. But truly because they harbor no pride over against God but humbly and contritely acknowledge their sinful heart, they are forgiven. They go forth confidently in the sight of God with the benefit of the mediator, Christ. They pray that their sins would be overlooked on account of Him. He spreads over them the immense heaven of His grace, and He no longer imputes their sins to them on account of Christ."
Martin Luther, Lectures on Galatians, 5.19
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Prayer
Dear Lord Jesus Christ, my heart is so full of filth that it is a heart of darkness. Send Your law that I would despair of finding good there so that I would find all my good in You alone. Hide me in Your wounds so I would be at peace. Overshadow me by Your cross and blood. Spread the immense heaven of Your grace over me. Amen.
For Dorothy Chaisson, who has cancer, that the Lord would provide healing
For Dorothy Hector, that the Lord would grant health and strength as she receives therapy for cancer
For Vicar-elect Christopher Nuttelman, that the Lord would be with him as he continues his studies in Cambridge, England
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Art: DUBOIS, Thomas Lamb of God
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 © Scott R. Murray, 2012
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