Musings and Contemplations

Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)
How dear is the name of Jesus Christ! Common, but precious in its power to heal! If it were not common it would not have been poured out upon a sinner such as I; and if it had no power of healing, it would have profited me nothing. I am a sharer in that name – a sharer, too, in its heavenly inheritance. I am a Christian.[1]

Suffering to Bring Us Life

Psalm 40:6-12 NRSV
Sacrifice and offering you do not desire, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.
Then I said, “Here I am; in the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.” I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation; see, I have not restrained my lips, as you know, O Lord. I have not hidden your saving help within my heart, I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation; I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from the great congregation.
Do not, O Lord, withhold your mercy from me; let your steadfast love and your faithfulness keep me safe forever. For evils have encompassed me without number; my iniquities have overtaken me, until I cannot see; they are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart fails me.

Psalm 40:6-12 (T. M. Moore)[2]
Hymn tune:For the Beauty of the Earth

Offerings You do not require –
Open now my ears, O LORD!
What from me do You desire?
Firm delight to do Your Word.
Take my life in every part;
Write Your Law upon my heart.

LORD, Your truth will I proclaim
To Your people gathered ‘round.
Nor will I my lips restrain –
Let Your precious ways resound!
Of Your saving grace and Word
I would speak, most loving LORD.

Keep Your mercy not from me;
Let Your love and truth prevail.
Evil and iniquity
Make my trembling heart to fail.
LORD, be pleased to rescue me!
Let my shelter with You be.

Matthew Henry
The psalmist, being struck with amazement at the wonderful works that God had done for his people, is strangely carried out here to foretell that work of wonder which excels all the rest and is the foundation and fountain of all, that of our redemption by our Lord Jesus Christ. God’s thoughts, which were to us-ward concerning that work, were the most curious, the most copious, the most gracious, and therefore to be most admired^[3]

Isaiah 53:4-6 NRSV
Surely, he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

William Wilberforce
Dear God, I cast myself at the foot of the cross, bewailing my exceeding sinfulness. I plead your precious promises and earnestly pray to you to shed abroad in my heart more love, more humility, more faith, more hope, more peace and joy. In short, to fill me with all the fullness of God and make me worthy to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light.[4]

The Westminster Shorter Catechism
Question 18
Wherein consists the sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell?
The sinfulness of that state whereinto man fell consists in the guilt of Adam’s first sin, the want of original righteousness, and the corruption of his whole nature, which is common called Original Sin, together with all actual transgressions which proceed from it.

Merciful Lord,the comforter and teacher of your faithful people, increase in your church the desires which you have given, and confirm the hearts of those who hope in you by enabling them to understand the depth of your promises, that all your adopted children may even now behold, with the eyes of faith, and patiently wait for the light which as yet you do not openly manifest; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.[5]

Lord, Have Mercy (For What We Have Done)

[1] Affirmation of Faith from The Sing! Hymnal, 2025, #193.
[2] Psalm 40, The Ailbe Psalter 2023, p. 68.
^[3] Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible: Complete and Unabridged in One Volume (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1994), 800.
[4] Prayer of Confession, The Sing! Hymnal, #102.
[5] A prayer of Ambrose, Ancient Christian Devotional Year A, p. 51.