According to God's Abundant Mercy

Hebrews 4:12-16; Psalm 51:1-14

Of the many musical styles I love listening to, my heart and soul most connects with blues-rock vocals and guitar.    When I write, sing and play my own songs, I think most folks can hear something of this influence.   It’s the style that led me away from my earliest influence of Hank Williams and on toward the likes of Jim Croce.  Basically, I didn’t play the 45 record of “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” as often as I did “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.” 

I’m not sure I can fully explain why I’m so deeply drawn to this manner of musical expression, but there is one musician and one particular song that sums it up pretty well.     The artist’s name is Phil Keaggy and he happens to be one of the most quietly revered all around guitarists of the past few decades.   He was raised in a small farm house in Hubbard, OH with nine brothers and sisters.   This fact alone seems a likely enough setting to have birthed some fresh blues and rock n’ roll!    Along with that crowded, humble beginning, several family tragedies followed that fueled and further developed Keaggy’s musicianship and songwriting.    The emotional weight of all this also fed into his full-on, hazy 1960’s rock star lifestyle.     

The particular song coming to my mind was written long after he repented from one way of life and become a Christian in both his lifestyle and his music.   This was around 1970, after being inspired to the faith by way of one of his sisters.   Simply enough, the song is titled “Have Mercy, Lord.”   Welling up from his life story and against a backdrop of his edgy and powerfully emotive electric guitar work, Keaggy sings about worldly temptations and then belts out the following chorus of words, “You don’t know how good it feels when my heart breaks down and screams, have mercy, Lord!”  

Heart breaking down.  Voice screaming out.   This is not just a song … it’s a soul-stripped-down-begging-for-new-beginnings prayer.  I find most all the songs I’m drawn to from the blues-rock genre seem to me to be souls crying out for mercy.  Keaggy particularly epitomizes this.

I’m mentioning this musician and this song because I can’t seem to read or speak Psalm 51 without hearing him belt that chorus.    Yet his voice is only a mere whisper when compared  to the repentant soul shout of King David that comes through this ancient prayer song’s powerful plea for mercy.    I don’t know what kind of music went along with it – since the Psalms were Israel’s songbook -- but I’m fine letting my imagination envision King David playing a stringed Lyre to a blues-rock rhythm.

At the very start of this Psalm song, David describes and appeals to God using a few different Hebrew words for “mercy.”   This repetition gives his honest intention and confession much fuller expression.   One mercy word translates directly to mean “gracious.”  Another means “steadfast love.”   Yet another conveys “motherly compassion.”    He is praying for God to grant him undeserved grace according to God’s unfailing, self-giving, life-giving love.   This is a deeply introspective appeal and the only audience he cares to be singing to is the Almighty.

Having started by calling on God’s merciful character with abundant praise, David then moved to the awkward task of describing the utter corrosion of his interior life.   When feeling like a sinful wretch, where to begin?   He began by holding himself accountable, by confessing that his spiritual condition has been corrupt since the very moment of his conception.   He states that he fully knows the sin and evil he has done, that’s it’s all been in the sight of and against God.   He feels the weight of God’s justifiable judgment against it all, a weight that feels as if it’s crushing his very bones.

           

There’s no need for us to wonder about what one of the offenses was that triggered this particular cry for mercy.   He either wrote – or someone later added -- a note about it in the superscription of this “Have Mercy, Lord” psalm.    It points to the time he had coveted Bathsheba, the beautiful wife of a man directly under his kingly power and authority.    He had then boldly abused his divinely appointed kingship by ordering messengers to go and fetch Bathsheba, whom he then impregnated before making sure she became a widow and eventually his wife.   2 Samuel 11 spills all the details of this rather wretched story.   How terribly sad that the heroic Goliath-killing shepherd boy had grown into his own kind of enemy monster.

           

The inspiring, familiar words we find in this Psalm, the ones that say, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me” cannot be properly appreciated unless you know well what King David was deeply repenting from.   If you hear a song, as I do, associate with these words, know that it is not just a campfire Christian folk tune.  It is a soul-stripped-down-begging-for-new-beginnings blues-rock classic.    The songwriter was clearly sick and ashamed of his life-long succumbing to sin.  His song is raw repentance and heart-sick admission of his utter dependence on God’s mercy to not cast him out, to still have holy purpose for him, to steadfastly restore his heart and soul to a state of holy wisdom, purity, and joy.    In return for this merciful deliverance, this spiritual rebirth of a broken and contrite heart, King David pledged to keep right, keep declaring praise, keep singing aloud to God’s glory alone.  

When we today listen to this ancient prayer-song, with its bold ‘n bluesy backbeat and soaring cry for mercy, when we realize David’s plea was granted and that divine blessings were not revoked, it can help us build more trust in our belief that God’s abundant grace covers all sin.   We all need this liberating, regenerating good news.   We all need to sing our own particular penitent praise songs to the audience of the Almighty.    We all need to pray, “Have mercy, Lord” as we confess our own failures of faith – be they in thought, word or deed --  and as we return to God in trust that God wants to and will create in each of us a clean heart.

  

We specifically pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, the King of Kings.   By His merciful example and soul-saving grace we can sing confession and praise with bold confidence.   The fourth chapter of the New Testament book of Hebrews reminds of this.   It reminds us that Jesus was without sin, yet experienced all of our terribly human trials and temptations.   He encountered every thought and intention of the heart that we wrestle with as we strive to honor and obey God with our lives.   And he sympathized with it all.   He knew how good it felt for a human heart to break down and scream for mercy, to let it out and turn in trust to God for deliverance.     So whenever we come to admit, as King David did, that our souls have fallen seriously out of tune, that we are in need of a new beginning, our Lord and Savior never fails to listen.   Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we receive His mercy and we freely, joyfully find grace to restore us in every time of need.  

           

This week, as we all celebrate 236 years of our national identity and freedoms, I also encourage you to also spend some time acknowledging the religious freedom you have to keep turning away from sin and keep turning toward God in Jesus Christ.    Maybe you have a little blues or blues-rock to record and release.   Sing it out in the hope and strength of salvation and so you can live all the more independently dependent upon God’s mercy.   Sing it too so you can honor our common history, and especially all men and women who, inspired by and to the glory of Jesus Christ, have fought for and sacrificed for liberty, justice, and equal rights for all humanity.   Amen.