David wrote, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to you steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from me sin.” (Ps. 51:1-2) What struck me as I read these words this morning was the strange juxtaposition David formed by pairing the writer’s practice of blotting with his own soul being “washed” and “cleansed”. Blotting (white out, anyone?), after all, doesn’t remove the writer’s mistake; it merely covers it up. But simply hiding David’s sin is clearly not what David is so desperate for, as his cry for God to “wash me” and “cleanse me” indicate. More is going on here than a divine cover up.
The move from “cover up” to “cleansing” is the difference between white out and recycling. No, this is not reduction of the forgiveness of sins or the justification of sinners to “justification by recycling”. It is, however, a helpful metaphor in getting at what it’s like to be “washed” and “cleansed” of one’s sin. If I make a mistake on a clean sheet of white paper, I can either erase it (primitive white out) or blot it out (using the real thing). But everyone knows that the mistake is still there – it’s just not as obvious, and it allows me to go back and try again. If, however, that piece of paper is recycled (let us suppose one could recycle just one piece of paper at a time), then what I get back is, in fact, the original but completely remade! There would be no evidence (theoretically) of the original mistake and I would be free to make my marks correctly and have no blemish to show for it. But wait.
Doesn’t this all sound a bit sterile? What’s the big deal about clean souls? Is that what souls do best, be clean? The song-writer got it right in “Yahweh”: “Take this shirt / polyester white trash made in no where / take this shirt and make it clean / take this soul / stranded in some skin and bones / take this soul and make it sing.” Shirts are made for clean, and souls are made to sing. This is why the Psalm may begin with clean but the natural end is joy and rejoicing and song:
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation;
and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
There’s something natural about people spontaneously exclaiming a sigh of contentment after a shower, having not bathed in a week, or in the admiration people have for a bride who is adorned in her dress on her wedding day – not merely because we like clean for it’s own sake, but at least because it’s clean; no one admires the dress or their own body when their respective glories are hidden by stains, tears, or dirt. Similarly, the human soul craves to be “clean”; there’s a reason such language comes naturally to us, even if the natural end is an emotional exclamation like “Thank God!” or “Yes!”, and not merely a stoic assent that “Yes, I am now clean. What’s next?”
And let us not forget that to be cleansed from our sin, to be remade into the image of Christ (that image we ruined, that paper on which we scribbled in Adam), is accomplished by the mercy of God that is extended to us because of the steadfast love of God toward us for Christ’s sake. Were it not for “abundant mercy” and “steadfast love”, this joy-filled end of delight and happiness in becoming who we were made to be (those who praise God forever and ever) would not be ours. It is a gift.
Paper is mean to be written on, not merely admired for its whiteness. Let your soul speak like the paper that is written on, but without mistakes, without blemishes, and “sing for joy” that you’ve been recycled and remade into a most delightful, joyful being whose God is merciful and who doesn’t just crumple up and throw away every soul with mistakes on it.
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