Psalm 51 (Day 27): The Father Looked Away

Holy Spirit of the living God, 

please speak to my heart 

on this twenty-seventh morning 

of my 50 days of waiting for Pentecost Sunday. 

Though You live in my heart, 

come to my contrite and broken self 

over and over again 

until each second of my life feels brand new 

as You teach, inspire, convict, transform, 

convince, strengthen, and encourage me 

to rely solely on the finished work of Christ on the Cross. 

Thank You for using Psalm 51 

to teach me more and more about You 

and Your plan for me. 

I pray it all in the name of Jesus, 

the Hound of Heaven. 

Amen!

Good morning!

Today, we get to a brand new verse:

"Hide Your face from my sins

and blot out all my iniquity."

Psalm 51:9, NIV

The first part of the above plea is an interesting concept because God is everywhere -- how, then, can He hide His face from our sins?

It matters not where we are, He sees us.

He not only sees us but He also sees our impulses, our thoughts, our tendencies, our inclinations, our desires, our plans, and our actions. As such, He really sees our sins in their totality.

Yet, David's prayer implores the Father to look away. Moreover, to emphasize his point, the second part of David's plea is somewhat a repetition of verses 1 and 2, with the addition of the qualifier "all" to the word "iniquity."

Why?

Perhaps, the prayer of Moses recorded in Psalm 90:7-8 & 11 might have been on David's mind,

"We are consumed by Your anger

and terrified by Your indignation.

You have set our iniquities before You,

our secret sins in the light of Your presence . . .

Who knows the power of Your anger?

For Your wrath is as great as the fear that is due You."

Psalm 51:9 might be on to something here.

There is a tendency in you and me to try to keep sins hidden from others. Sometimes, we stuff our transgressions down so far that they are effectively hidden from even ourselves. Yet deep down we know that the Father knows everything -- nothing at all is hidden from Him.

Such a though terrifies us because we have learned that God and sin do not commune. In fact, when Jesus became sin in our stead, the Father did look away.  As He looked away, His holy and righteous wrath was poured out on Calvary with ultimate efficacy and effectiveness. As a result, Christ screamed, "Eloi! Eloi! lama sabachtani? -- My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?"

Well, Jesus knew the reason behind the Father's decision to look away. Yet His cry was a direct quotation from Psalm 22 to express His human emotion.

And with that emotion, you and I can relate.

We have had our whys.

We have voiced our concerns.

We have screamed our frustrations.

Gratefully, we now know why Jesus was forsaken on the Cross. He was despised, rejected, and mistreated because God wanted to blot out all our iniquity.

And He did.

Oh, did He ever!

Hence, today, as you and I repeat this prayer of David, as we ask the Father to "hide His face from our sins and blot out all our iniquity," let us be mindful that the Lord has already done so in Christ Jesus. When He hid His face from the sacrificial Lamb of God who took away the sins of the world, you and I were and are and always will be included in that decision -- as long as Christ is our surety. When He forsook the Son of Man on the Cross, He efficaciously blotted out all our transgressions, erased all our sins, done away with all our blunders and blemishes in Christ Jesus.

Praise His glorious name!