Ps. 51.16-17 (sacrifices, brokenness, and resurrection)

For / you would not be pleased / with a sacrifice
or / I would give it
nor would you / want a whole offering.
The sacrifices of God / are a broken spirit
a broken / and contrite heart
these / O God / you will not reject.

It seems that the point of these verses lies in the contrast between the sacrifices and the broken spirit of David. On the one hand, the sacrifices that David speaks of would/could be "whole offerings" (those that are entirely consumed). These sacrifices would, by necessity, have a bodily intergrity to them (they would be without blemish). Because of David's bloodguilt, though, these cannot be presented to God. They would be 'rejected'. On the other hand stands David and his "broken spirit", his "broken and contrite heart". In contrast to the integrity of the sacrifices, we find brokenness. These, however, will not be 'rejected' but are acceptible to God. It seems as if once one has removed onself outside of the bounds of the sacrificial system the only sacrifices that can be offered are not those of an animal with bodily intergrity but a person with internal brokenness. This seems to me crucial: one would not be able to present an animal that was 'broken' in order to remove sin and to make cleansing. However, in this psalm we witness how one approaches God with a sacrifice that can be pleasing to him--it is through what David has performed throughout the psalm, by owning and possessing his sin, and making himself into an object of judgment, he makes himself into an object of mercy. The deeper David moves into his sin, and thereby remove any act of rebellion he, in a strange way, becomes simultaneously pure and broken. Pure, in that he has through claiming his sin, removed his rebellion. Broken, for the same reason--he stands as an object of judgement.

Here we see the themes converge: a sacrifice offered to God is destroyed; the animal always dies. On the outside of the sacrificial system, a death must still occurr but it will, here, be the heart and spirit being 'broken'. Furthermore, in the sacrifical system, the person remains alive and is, through the death of the animal, made alive. Here, through the death of the "heart and spirit", God's "abundant mercies" and "loyal-love" will, take that broken heart and--here is the point--create a clean heart. In the complete and total handing over of the heart, not merely a cleansed heart, but a new heart will be created by God. In the complete and total handing over to God of a broken heart, in sacrifice, God will remove the guilt and resurrect.