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“How the mighty have
fallen.” These are the words of David in
his song of lament over the death of Saul.
Little did he know how prophetic these words would be. After the episode of David taking Bathsheba
and the murder of Uriah, we can now say the same thing about David. “How the mighty have fallen.” David
thought no one would notice. He thought
that he could do as he pleased without consequence, without responsibility,
without justification. He thought that
he could take Bathsheba and conspire to have Uriah murdered, and no one would
be the wiser. He thought that since he
was king, he had the absolute power and authority to do as he wished, to take
what did not belong to him, and to manipulate the outcome to suit his ambitions
and desires, simple because it was his will to do it. David is king, and kings do as they
please.
David thought no one would notice, but someone did
notice, someone who has been watching David his whole life, someone who has
been with David from the very beginning, someone who
has been the true architect of David’s rise to the throne, someone who has
provided for David everything he needs to be the leader of people, and that
someone is God, and now it is God’s turn to act. David has had his fun. He has acted on impulse without deliberation,
desire without forethought, power without humility. And he has even had the audacity to redefine
the moral reality simply at his own choosing, simply because it serves his best
interests to do so in telling Joab not to worry about Uriah’s death. The king may believe he is morally autonomous
and subject to no one, but in the end there is God with another moral vision,
and God will not allow David to get away with it.
David may think that this whole sordid affair with
Bathsheba and Uriah is not something to be troubled over, but God thinks
otherwise. And now it is God’s turn to
act. The time for David to act is now
over. He had missed the opportunity to
make the right choice, the right choice of faithfulness and obedience, and now
he no longer has a choice. All David can
do now is listen.
Just as David had sent for Bathsheba, it is now God’s turn to send, and
God sends the prophet Nathan to speak the words of judgment and truth. But Nathan must approach David
cautiously. It’s a tricky thing to
confront power with judgment and truth.
Kings can be temperamental creatures.
Many a messenger has died simply because the king did not like the
message. And so the prophet Nathan, the
oracle of God, must be prudent yet direct.
David must hear the words of divine judgment and truth in such a way
that he cannot help see what he has done.
And so Nathan tells a parable about two men, one rich and one poor.
The rich man is not very interesting. It does not take long to describe and dismiss
him. He had everything – period. End of description. The poor man occupies our attention. He had one female lamb, and this lamb meant
everything to him. He raised it and
nurtured it. His children played with
it. He gave the lamb part of his meager
food, and the lamb drank from his own cup, and it was like a daughter to
him. But the rich man needed something
to prepare for his guest, and he did not want to kill one of his own sheep,
even though he had everything and more.
So he comes up with an ingenious plan.
He takes the lamb of the poor man, just like kings take, because they
can, and he prepares the poor man’s sheep for his guest to eat for dinner.
David’s response is predictable. He is outraged by the crassness of the rich
man who acts in ways that are economically and socially and morally
destructive. The rich man, the one who
had everything, took what was not his to take and treated it as if it was his
own, and he deserves the deserves what is due to him. David the king indicts and sentences the man
without hesitation. Death is the
order. Reparations must be paid immediately. This man must not be allowed to get away with
this wanton disregard for others. He
must not be allowed to get away with this act of pure unadulterated
selfishness, this act of pure unadulterated use of absolute power. David is furious demanding to know who this
man is that could have acted in such a terrible and callous way.
“You are the man!,
yells Nathan. You can almost hear it
before the words leave Nathan’s mouth.
The answer is so obvious that it does not take a rocket scientist to
know who Nathan’s parable is really about, and there is no room for David to
escape. David’s response has indicted
and sentenced himself.
But Nathan is not finished, and he speaks the words not of himself, but
of the God of Israel. “I anointed you
king over
Nathan’s words are piercing and
without apology. They strike deep and
reveal the sheer depth to which David has fallen. Nathan has just told David that his house
will forever be plagued by the sword, he shall never
be free from conflict, trouble, and destruction. Nathan has just told David that David is the
one who has acted in such a terrible and callous way, that David has gone
against God and has taken everything that God has done for him and attributed
all to himself.
How will David answer? Will David do as a king does and kill the
messenger because of this very negative message? Will David allow this mere prophet to speak
such words to a king of such absolute power and authority? Will David simply dismiss the matter all
together? Has David been so seduced by
his power and authority, that he no longer can see let
alone act in faithfulness and righteousness?
Has David been so captured by the dangers and temptations of human
desire and human power, that he has completely
forgotten who he is and to whom he belongs?
How will David answer – as a king of absolute power and authority, or as
one who is a repentant servant of the Lord?
David’s answer is concise but profound, a simple sentence and yet a
profound and remarkable confession, “I have sinned against the Lord.”
Maybe in the end, this is why David
is so revered in the eyes of Israel, because when it came time to choose, when
it came time to be confronted by the destruction and chaos that David had
caused so many, and the offense against God and God’s will and purpose and
blessing for his life and the life of God’s people, David embodied the moral
courage and sensitivity to face his failures and sin and be held to account for
his actions. There is no need to cover
it up, or hide from it, or dismiss it.
David is a child of the Torah, the anointed of God, and therefore he
will repent, because that is the only way to forgiveness, restoration, and
wholeness for one who belongs to God.
For all that we can say about David,
for all the ways that he seemed to get it right and the ways that he continued
to do it wrong, in the end, David demonstrates what it means to be a child of
God submitting himself to the covenant of faith
without reservation, without question, without condition. David is willing to abandon his absolute
power and authority and presumed moral autonomy, and turn toward his
restoration as a fallen, but redeemed human being, and put himself at the feet
of the God of mercy and grace. In the
end, it is not too late for repentance, it is never too late, for this is the
gospel message, for the one who is truly faithful and merciful and righteous is
the one came to call not the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
Our story for today seems to end on
a sad note. There is a dreaded
consequence to what David has done, a dreaded consequence to David’s sin
against God. The child must die, and
this family is now permanently in the presence of death, and if you read on,
the sword will never depart from David’s house.
There will be trouble and tragedy the remainder of David’s life. But David will not die, and he will remain
king. But this story also ends on a word
of hope. With the death of the child,
there is a great show of grief, but not for David. Painful as it is for him, David will not
allow the realm of death to hold him captive, instead he moves quickly to the
vitality of life. David has returned to
a man of vigor and faith, just as he was in the beginning. He will continue to live boldly in the present,
ready to turn loose of what is lost and face life where he is now. David’s repentance was none other than a
claim on the hope that he had once lost, but now found once again in the God of
Israel, in the one who truly has the absolute power and the authority to do
something about it, to forgive, to turn us around, and to put a new and right
spirit with us.
But what about
God’s covenant with David? What
about God’s promise to bless David? Is
God’s promise still secure? Is God’s
promise still alive and active? Is
redemption still possible? Amen.