Broken

Psalm 51:17
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

I find that sometimes reading scripture is a game. It’s not a game like Jeopardy (though some may argue otherwise) but more like a game of hide and seek. I’ve found over the past year or so that God likes to hide little secrets in little phrases and in little words throughout Bible. Sometimes it’s not even so much that they are hidden, but that we (I) tend to just gloss over them.

Look at the following brain teaser and count the number of Fs in the sentence. Only read the sentence once; do not return to count again. Note your answer.

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS

If you answered 3, you’re wrong! There are 6 Fs in that sentence. There are three hidden in the repeating word “of”. The point is that our brains are so used to tuning out and overlooking little words like “of” when we read that it’s almost as if they don’t exist. This brings me right back to the passage above, sometimes we overlook the little words like “of”. When we do that there’s a chance we’ll miss the point of the scripture.

This Psalm tells us, “The sacrifices of God are...”, it does not say “to” God. I think sometimes we skim over words as we read the Bible and tend to misread it as the latter. There’s an implied idea that God desires your broken heart and your crushed spirit when you assume “to” and don’t read “of”. The fact is that the verse states it is God’s sacrifice that is a broken, crushed spirit. It is His contrite (Hebrew word “dakah” for crushed) heart (Hebrew word “Leb” for midst or center) that He won’t despise.

Literally what this verse is saying is this: the sacrifices of God are His broken spirit: His crushed center He will not despise. The Bible clearly tells us that our works are like dirty rags in God’s eyes (Isaiah 64:6). I can only assume that even our sacrifices to Him, however well-intentioned, would be viewed the same way. But His own sacrifice to Himself? He can’t argue with that!

On the night before He was crucified, Christ went to the garden and prayed, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death...” (Mark 14:34). His spirit was broken; He was ready to die. Christ’s body was under so much pressure because of what He was about to do that He literally sweat blood (Luke 22:44). He was crushed, both in physically and spiritually. Finally, after they had nailed Him to a cross the next day, He exclaimed “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me!” (Matthew 27:46).

Christ became the broken spirit and contrite heart that God will not despise. He, being the center of all that God has done (John 1:2), the very heart of God Himself, became a crushed spirit on our behalf. He became the sacrifice of God to God so that those of us who are in Him can know God. We are in Christ, and as God cannot despise His sacrifice, neither can He despise those who are in the sacrifice.

Rejoice in the broken heart of the risen Savior, for He is the Sacrifice of God!