2 Samuel 11:2-4a, 14-15
“One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace.  From the roof he saw a woman bathing.  The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her.  The man said, ‘Isn’t this Bathsheba…the wife of Uriah the Hittite?’  Then David sent messengers to get her.  She came to him, and he slept with her…In the morning David wrote a letter…‘Put Uriah in the front line where the fighting is fiercest.  Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.’”

Matthew 26:69-70, 73b-74, 27:1
“Now Peter was sitting out in the courtyard, and a servant girl came to him.  ‘You also were with Jesus of Galilee,’ she said.  But he denied it before them all.  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said…‘Surely you are one of them, for your accent gives you away.’  Then he began to call down curses on himself and he swore to them, ‘I don’t know the man!’  Immediately a rooster crowed…Early in the morning, all the chief priests and the elders of the people came to the decision to put Jesus to death.”

Isaiah 44:21b-22
“I have made you, you are my servant; O Israel, I will not forget you.  I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist.  Return to me, for I have redeemed you.”

Righteous God, we have stained the image of perfect faithfulness that you designed for us.

Because of David’s night of sin, an innocent man was sent to his death.  After Peter’s night of betrayal, your innocent Son was put to death, securing a pardon for all our offences.

Forgive us for our failures in the dark hours.  May the rising light of the morning renew our hope for redemption.

For Christ’s sake we make our plea, who took our guilt upon himself to offer us a pure and blameless dawn.

Listen to ‘Just As I Am’ by Danny Donnelly