“So what do you have to say for yourself?” If you’ve ever been asked this question, it was probably because you did something wrong. The inventory worker who drops a jar of baby food so that the gooey green stuff splatters the aisle, and the daughter who stays out past her curfew will both be asked: “What do you have to say for yourself?” The butterfingered inventory worker might declare: “This mess isn’t my fault. I tripped over a mop someone left in the middle of the aisle.” And the tardy daughter might mumble: “I don’t know why I have to be back by 10 pm. All my friends get to stay out until midnight.”
Having to explain yourself to a parent or a boss can be quite intimidating. So will having to explain yourself to God. We will have to do this, you know. Some day God is going to ask you to give an accounting of your life. What will you have to say for yourself? I know what King David will say because he wrote a whole psalm on the topic. What David had to say for himself after his sins of adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband Uriah is what we’ll want to say for ourselves now and come Judgment Day. Let’s find out what that is.
You know well David’s fall into sin with Bathsheba. David saw this beauty bathing when he went for a walk on his palace rooftop one evening (2 Samuel 11). He called for her and slept with her even though Bathsheba was not his wife. I wonder, however, if you know the sin that got David into this mess. No, I’m not thinking of the lust David was guilty of when he saw Bathsheba and desired her. There was another sin David was guilty of even before that. We’re told that it was the spring of the year when kings go off to fight with their armies when David’s tryst happened. David’s army was out fighting but he wasn’t with them. Why not? Did he feel as if he was getting too old for combat? Was he nursing a wound from a previous fight (if so, it must not have been very serious considering what he was still capable of doing)? Whatever the reason, David didn’t do what God had called him to do as king: lead his army. But because of this compromise, David’s life was turned upside down.
It always works this way with compromise. The confirmand finishes with his Bible instruction and says: “I’ll put the Bible and the catechism on my shelf for now. I need a little break from them. I’ll get back to it after summer.” But two months stretches into three and then the busyness of school gets in the way of the personal devotions the confirmand had planned on doing come September. Before he knows it, he’s finished high school and doesn’t even know where his Bible and catechism are anymore. Not a great way to start college or work where his faith will come under even harsher attack.
What are the compromises you’ve made that are hindering your walk with God? Is it a compromise in regard to ethical business practices? Is it a compromise made to a friend who is only interested in what kind of physical satisfaction you can give him? Compromise is never a small matter. It will lead to sins with more serious consequences, as David found out. Not fulfilling his kingly duty as head of the army led David to lust, then commit adultery, and then murder when David sent Bathsheba’s husband to battle with a note to the commander to put him on the front lines where he would be sure to die. And that’s what happened.
Although David’s sins bothered him, as another psalm (Psalm 32) makes clear, he didn’t repent of them. He may never have repented of them had God not been merciful and sent the prophet Nathan to confront the king. About a year after David’s sin with Bathsheba (reminding us that sin doesn’t have a statue of limitations), Nathan appeared in the court and with a clever story got David to see the gravity of his sins. So what did the king have to say for himself? In a song meant to be used in public worship (!) David confessed: “I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. 4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge” (Psalm 51:3, 4).
What David had to say for himself was “I am sinful, totally.” There was no shifting the blame to Bathsheba for bathing in the open. There was no downplaying the sin saying that others were doing the same thing so why didn’t God send Nathan to call those sinners to repentance? There was only an honest acknowledgment of what his sin was - not “poor judgment” nor a “mistake” but rebellion (the meaning of one of the words David uses for “sin”) against God who blessed him with so much.
God loved David’s confession because it demonstrated humble sorrow for his sin. This wasn’t a worldly sorrow, you know, sorry because he got caught, or sorry because the sin now tarnished his image. No, David was concerned about what God thought of him, not what this scandal would do to his popularity at the polls. This too, then, is what we want to say for ourselves whether we’ve cheated on our spouse and physically murdered someone or not. “Lord, I am a sinner, totally. I have hurt your honor and have shown myself to be ungrateful of your blessings and I have no one but myself to blame.”
Because David had walked away from God’s path he made a mess out of things, not only for himself but also for others. There was nothing David could do about his sin but beg for God’s mercy. And that’s what David did. In fact he starts out Psalm 51 pleading: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin…7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. 8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. 9 Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity” (Psalm 51:1, 2, 7-9).
David’s begging isn’t the whining of a child who is not sure he will get what he wants. David firmly believed that God would, no, had forgiven his sins. The prophet Nathan had already assured him of this. And what descriptive words David uses to express his confidence that his sins were totally gone! He said: “blot,” “cleanse,” “wash and I will be whiter than snow.” David’s imagery leads us to think of someone whiting out mistakes on a report. Actually God did better than white out David’s sins. Whiteout might adequately cover a mistake but if you turn the piece of paper over, you’ll often still be able to make out what the mistake was. Plus whiteout leaves a record that a mistake has been made, as the white marks appear as gashes. That’s not how God forgives. He doesn’t offer a partial, clumsy covering of our sins so that if he looked hard enough, he could still see them. No. He forgives the way you and I delete a typing error on the computer. God highlights our sin first (as did Nathan with David), and then deletes it so that you’d never know there had ever been a mistake (Don Patterson). Thankfully God’s keyboard has no undo button to call back the error. When God blots out sin he does so forever and for all people. Jesus’ sacrifice guarantees it. And even though our sins continue to splat all over our lives like fat raindrops on a windshield, the grace of God’s wiper blades continues to slap them away. So now you have two things that you can say about yourself: “I am a sinner, totally. But I am forgiven, completely.”
That’s not the end of it though. God’s love for David made him realize that he didn’t want to stay the way he was. He wanted to change, not just a little bit, but radically from within. David put it this way: “Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place” (Psalm 51:6). It’s true that God loves us just the way we are but he doesn’t want us to stay the way we are (Max Lucado). He wants us to be like him. He wants children who obey their parents, not because they have to, but because they want to. He wants people who are not just more forgiving today than they were yesterday. He wants people who are as forgiving as he is. If we don’t want to change radically, what we’re saying is that we don’t really want a clean break from our sins. If so, then we aren’t really repentant nor should we call ourselves Christian.
Now I’m not saying we must want to change radically before God will forgive us. If so, no one would be forgiven because left to ourselves we would be happy to keep on cheating, cursing, lying, and grumbling against God and one another. God must work this radical change in us and so David prayed: “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10). David’s heart was impure. It was lazy, lustful, and lacked love for others. What he needed was a heart transplant and so do we. Thankfully this is just the thing God works in us when the Holy Spirit comes to us in Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, as well as through the spoken Word.
So what do you have to say for yourself? God, the judge of all, wants to know. Answer as did David: “I’m a sinner, totally. From the moment I was conceived I’ve been sinning, Lord (Psalm 51:5). And there is no excuse for it. But because of the great compassion you showed through Jesus I am forgiven, completely. And so I want to change, radically. Make me like you for Jesus’ sake!” Amen.
