LENT: Mar 9 - Psalm 51:7

Purify me with hyssop,

and I shall be clean:

Wash me, and I shall be

whiter than snow.

Psalm 51:7

I like writing on randomly chosen verses. Why? Because occasionally, it forces me to learn things I don’t know! For example, what is hyssop?! A few details …

Basically, hyssop is an herb. More commonly, it’s a weed that grows in the crevices of rocks (which there are a lot of in the Middle East). A variation of marjoram, hyssop is in the mint family. Let’s call it a sweet and fragrant weed.

One of its most important uses came when God instituted the Passover. When the Jews were told to sprinkle their doorposts and lintels with lambs blood, they were told to dip the fragrant weed into the blood and shake it at the door.

More common, and still common, is to dip the fragrant weed into water and sprinkle it. Water, of course, is physically and spiritually cleansing (think of bathtubs and baptisms). Physically, water washes. Spiritually, as this Psalm tells us, God desires to wash us whiter than snow. Indeed, Psalm 51 is David desperately confessing his sin and begging God to shake his grace in his direction.

When I put those two uses of hyssop together, I notice three things …

•      Hyssop is a plentiful weed. Meaning, God wants his grace to be more than just available … he wants it to be plentiful.
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•      Hyssop is sweet and fragrant. He wants his cleansing to touch all our senses. Smell, for example, is known to fire off our memories in powerful ways. Therefore, I believe God wanted his people to walk the trails of Israel smelling God’s forgiveness (whenever they smelled the plentiful hyssop blooming in the rocks).
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•      While I’d definitely prefer to be sprinkled with water than with blood, I’m reminded of Revelation 7:14. While water is mostly a symbol of forgiveness and cleansing, the deepest, truest, spiritual healing that we can ever encounter is through blood – Christ’s blood. Indeed, as Revelation describes the saints in heaven, we are told that “they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” (And Jesus, of course, is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.)

Therefore, I cry with King David – claiming this 3000-year-old prophecy and saying,  “[Lord,] purify me with hyssop … wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.”

In Christ’s Love,

a guy who loves

the aroma of grace