The Contrite

David wrote this out of the wreckage of his greatest sin, after he had taken another man’s wife and murdered the man to hide it, and after the prophet Nathan had come and laid the whole thing bare, thou art the man. And in his repentance he came to understand what God truly wants from a sinner. Thou desirest not sacrifice, he says, else would I give it; thou delightest not in burnt offering. And then he names what God does desire. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

David had learned that no offering could cover his sin, that the whole apparatus of sacrifice, the bulls and the goats and the fat, could not buy back what he had done. And in that helplessness he discovered the one thing God would receive, not a thing he could give but a state he could come in, a broken spirit, a heart crushed and humbled by the sight of its own sin. The sacrifice God wanted was not on the altar but in the man, the broken and contrite heart, and this, David learned, God would not despise.

THE SACRIFICE GOD WILL NOT DESPISE

Consider the wonder of that phrase, thou wilt not despise. God may refuse the grandest sacrifices when they come from a hard and unrepentant heart, as he refused the empty offerings of Israel through the prophets, saying he was full of them and they were an abomination. There are offerings God despises. But there is one offering he never despises, one thing that is always accepted, the broken and contrite heart. However great the sin that broke it, however low the sinner who brings it, the crushed and humbled heart is never turned away. To this man will I look, God says, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word. The contrite heart is the one thing that always finds the regard of God.

This is unspeakably good news for the sinner, for it means that when we have nothing else to bring, nothing but our sin and our sorrow over it, we still have the one offering God will receive. The soul that has ruined everything, that has no righteousness to plead and no sacrifice that can cover its guilt, may yet come with a broken heart, and be received. The very brokenness that seems to disqualify us is the thing God will not despise. We come not with our wholeness, which we do not have, but with our brokenness, which we do, and God does not turn it away.

WHAT IT IS TO BE BROKEN

We must understand what this brokenness is, for it is easily confused with other things. It is not the being broken by circumstance into despair, the crushing of a soul under trouble until it can no longer hope; that is not contrition but its counterfeit. The brokenness God desires is the breaking of the proud and hard and self-sufficient heart before him, the cracking of the shell of self so that the mercy can enter. The whole, unbroken heart is closed to God, sealed in its own sufficiency, and cannot be reached. The broken heart is opened, its hard shell cracked, and through the crack the grace of God comes in. The breaking is not a crushing that destroys but a breaking open that admits the mercy.

This is why God so often must break us before he can bless us, why the road into grace runs through the breaking of the proud heart. As long as we are whole in our own eyes, strong and sufficient and unbroken, we have no need of him and no room for him. It is when we are broken, when the self-reliance has been shattered and the pride crushed and we lie humbled and contrite before God, that we are at last open to receive what he has all along been waiting to give. The breaking is the opening, and the God who breaks the hard heart does it not to destroy but to be able, at last, to enter and to heal.

GOD NEAR THE BROKEN

For God draws near to the broken, not to the whole. The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart, the psalmist says, and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit. He does not keep his distance from the crushed and humbled soul, but comes close to it, nearer in its brokenness than it ever felt him in its wholeness. Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, the prophet declares, I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit. The God of the high and holy place makes his home with the contrite, dwelling with the broken as truly as in heaven. The broken heart is not far from God but the very place he comes to dwell.

And he draws near to heal, for the breaking is not the end. He healeth the broken in heart, the psalmist says, and bindeth up their wounds. Come, and let us return unto the LORD, the prophet cries, for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. The God who breaks the hard heart is the God who binds up the broken one, and the contrition that crushes is on its way to a healing that restores. The broken heart brought to God is not left broken, but healed, bound up, made whole with a wholeness deeper than the false wholeness that had to be broken first.

TREMBLETH AT MY WORD

There is a mark of the contrite heart that the prophet adds, and it is a searching one. To this man will I look, God says, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word. The contrite heart trembles at God’s word. It is moved by it, pierced by it, takes it with trembling seriousness, feels the weight of what God says. This trembling is not the terror of a slave but the tender reverence of a heart soft enough to be reached, a heart that has not grown so hard that the word of God bounces off it unfelt. The contrite tremble; the hard hear the same word and are unmoved.

For this is the great difference between the broken heart and the hard one, that the one can still be pierced by the word and the other cannot. The same word of God falls on both, but the hard heart is like a stone the arrow cannot enter, and the contrite heart is like flesh that the word reaches and moves. A soul may sit under the plainest preaching of God’s word, may read it daily, and feel nothing, tremble at nothing, because the heart has grown hard and can no longer be reached. And the mercy of contrition is that it restores the heart’s capacity to be pierced, makes it tender again, so that the word finds its way in and moves it.

The Scripture gives us a king whose tender heart God commended. When young Josiah heard the words of the book of the law, long neglected and newly found, he rent his clothes and wept, and God sent him this word, because thine heart was tender, and thou hast humbled thyself before the LORD, I have heard thee. His heart was tender. He trembled at the word, was moved and humbled by it, and God looked on that tender, trembling heart with favor. The hardened who hear and are unmoved God passes by; the tender who tremble at his word he regards.

So we must guard the tenderness of the heart, and pray to keep a heart that can still be pierced. It is a fearful thing to grow so hard that the word of God no longer moves us, to sit unmoved under truths that once made us tremble, to read of the cross and feel nothing, to hear the plainest warnings and be untouched. This hardening is the death of contrition, and it comes by long resisting of the word, by hearing and not heeding until the heart is calloused over. Keep the heart tender. Tremble at his word. Let it pierce you still, for the trembling heart is the contrite heart that God will not despise.

So do not offer God the empty sacrifice while withholding the one thing he desires. Do not come to him whole in your own eyes, strong and sufficient and unbroken, for the whole heart is closed to him. Let your hard heart be broken; bring him the contrition and not the pretense, the crushed and humbled spirit and not the performance of penitence. He will not despise it. He will draw near to it, dwell with it, and heal it. For the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, and a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.