God’s Final Word
A Sermon by Andrew Colman on 2 Samuel 11:26 - 12:13
Tonight, we come to the answer to the question of how we can say that David was a man after God's own heart.
David had pulled off his deception. Uriah was dead, and Bathsheba had become his wife. As far as it went, no one would confront the king.
First of all, because he was the king, kings took and did what they wanted.
That was what was told to the Israelites during the time of the judges when they had asked for a king.
Secondly, David could now at least be portrayed as caring for Bathsheba after the death of her husband. He was, after all, one of the great 30 warriors of Israel.
It just wouldn't have mattered.
David had power, and power exerts itself, whether intentional or not.
But in the end, there is one from whom we simply cannot hide our misdeeds, and that is, of course, God.
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In this case, God spoke through Nathan. The prophet to whom David had listened during his reign until now someone with whom he had a good relationship
And Nathan tells the story of heartbreak.
It feels animated in a sense. With the first victim being a baby lamb, an ewe, the author is working very hard to convince the reader that David is the greatest enemy Israel has ever seen.
At the height of his madness, not even Saul was portrayed like this.
A Poor man, with a family, spent a some of the little money that he had on a baby lamb, and ewe and the man raised the ewe with every ounce of love that on could imagine could be poured out on an animal.
They ate together; they drank together, and the lamb even even drank from the same cup as the poor man.
This is just not sanitary. The author really is portraying an over-the-top version of the unreasonable affection between this lamb and the poor man.
And then the rich man—who had everything— flocks and flocks of sheep in particular - probably some of the finest in all the land—white as snow with the softest wool money could buy.
The rich man receives a visitor, and instead of taking from his essentially infinite resources, he takes the lamb of the poor man, for no discernible reason other than the fact that he can take what he wants, and there is nothing anyone can do to stop him, he does not care about any of the consequences that follow.
It's so awful because you can feel the heartbreak of the poor man and the total lack of sympathy empathy even being able to see the poor man, lack of anything from the rich man.
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David, at least somewhere in his heart, still has an understanding of compassion because he is enraged by this story.
"As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity."
Deep down, David knew the Law - but he had grown complacent and entitled - and then that fact was shoved right in his face.
Nathan said to David, "You are the man! Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I anointed you, king, over Israel, and I rescued you from the hand of Saul; I gave you your master's house, and your master's wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added as much more. Why have you despised the word of the Lord to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, for you have despised me”
The heartbreak that one feels when one hears the parable of the baby lamb, the ewe, is but a fraction of the heartbreak that God felt for Bathsheba and Uriah.
Why have you despised the word of the Lord - why have you despised me?
Twice God feels despised.
First, David, I gave you everything, everything! Land, gold, a kingdom, a dynasty
God asked, why have you despised, despised the Word of the Lord, The Law, the way of life that I gave you, so you might use everything else I gave you to be a blessing to the whole world.
And then, David, you have hurt so many people in so many ways. Why have you despised me?
God did not ask, why did you despise Bathsheba, and the messengers that you used to fetch her, and Uriah, and Joab whom you used to commit murder to cover up your abuse?
No, God, why have you despised me, God?
When we despise something, we think of it as worthless, or worse, throw it away, reject it.
The Gift, that is the Law of the Lord, is one of love.
When when we dig down and find the root of all of the Law, we find this
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your strength, and all your mind, and love your neighbour as yourself.
David rejected. Turned away from these two laws.
He used, abused and murdered his neighbours, and in so doing, he rejected, turned away from, and cast away the love of the Lord who had given him everything!
Nathan said to him, "You are the man." And David replied - "I have sinned against the Lord.”
David, after convicting himself through the parable of the poor man's baby ewe and being shown how it was he who was the villain of villains in that story,
said - "I have sinned against the Lord.”
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But the verse that follows is Nathan saying, from Eugene Peterson's The Message, "Yes, but that's not the last word. God forgives your sin."
“Yes, but that's not the last word. God forgives your sin.”
David did not absolve himself from his sin simply because he realized he had sinned, not even because he realized that everything he did not only destroyed the lives of these people but was ultimately against the one who created the cosmos.
The final word of this forgiveness - upon all of these heinous actions was God's.
And God did forgive him. God took away his sins.
This is the moment when we learn how it is said that David was a man after God's own heart.
Because in realizing that he had sinned against God, he repented - he turned back from his rejection.
David found healing that day, healing that I am sure many people today, with this cancel culture, would say he did not deserve.
This, by no means, means that he escaped the consequences of his actions; no, they are well documented as this story goes on through the end of the book of Samuel and into Kings and Chronicles and beyond.
But God saw David's heart, his repentance, and his remorse, and he was forgiven and given a new life that, by all the scales of justice that we have, he absolutely did not deserve.
But that's the story of God's love for each one of us again and again and again.
The story is that God's desire for a relationship with each of us is stronger than our will to reject him.
We all fall in all our own small and spectacular ways again and again and again and again and again and again….. God seeks us out and brings us home.
You see, God could have just noted David's wrongs, let him go on with his despicable life, and let his guilt and shame eat him from the inside out as all of the consequences of his actions played out.
But that isn't what happened.
God, through Nathan, held up a mirror to David and invited him to see how he had damaged so many people.
Nathan's rebuke was God seeking David's heart.
And as difficult as it was to see and hear, David saw and was moved. Through the scriptures we are offered both a lens to see the world as it is and a mirror to see ourselves as we are.
Sometimes, it is as beautiful as God's rainbow in the sky or as powerful as the pillar of fire in the desert.
In these times of beauty it's like Jesus is there cooking us, a breakfast of fish, on the beach after his resurrection.
But sometimes it's as ugly as egregious abuse of power and murder.
And when it's times likes these and we are as lost as we could possibly be to ourselves, the world and to God - it's more like Jesus leaving the 99 sheep to find the one because it would break God's heart to lose even a single one of us, either by our own makings of others, for any reason at all.
Amen.