SHOWER THE PEOPLE
"Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a right
spirit within me." [Psalm 51:10]
Whatever translation or version you might use, Psalm 51 is all about cleansing. Purification was a significant spiritual objective in ancient Judaism and remains so for our Jewish neighbours to this day. I'm not too big on having guilt laid on very thickly; but I am okay with working out one's flaws and imperfections, with learning from mistakes, with accepting failure and seeking to improve or be transformed into a better me. Sometimes, that might mean some serious scrubbing. Otherwise, it's more like a shower to remove sweat and grime and loose epithelials. At other times it's about emptying, yielding, and letting go. It's all part of being made new. That's how a time like Lent can serve us as blessing and gift, being open to being bathed and re-born by God's transformative and caring love.
In a United Church devotional book for Lent published in 2004, I came across some helpful reflections by Rev. Dr. Ross Bartlett of Halifax. He notes that in the middle of Psalm 51, there is a shift in tone as the author prays for a renewal of spirit. In Hebrew, the word for "spirit" also serves as the word for "breath" and "wind". We need God's life sustaining breath and wind just to live as well as to empower us in faith.
With such fresh breath, we "can rise to new life", said Bartlett. "We can find our way back to the light and recognize what needs to be done. When we dare draw close to God in the dark and the desert, we find ourselves. We can look to the needs of others, and the cycle of new life begins again. We have seen the secret part of ourselves that is unique, holy, fragile, and vulnerable. That secret heart of ours is much the same as the secret heart of the person next to us. We all worry about being exposed for who we are while at the same time praying that someone will really know us and like us anyway. We all seek for purpose in life and wait in the night and look for someone with whom we can rejoice". (Lamentations for Lent, page 10)
Lent is a good time to take to turn inward while also turning to God. Let us bathe in God's love and light. Seeking to walk in God's ways is about discerning "how to live and die in a world where the only wind that matters is God's wind." (Bartlett, page 11)