I don’t know anyone anywhere who hasn’t done something they were sorry for afterwards. What’s the most recent one for you? Maybe it’s something you said - thoughtless or angry words. Maybe it’s something you did - or something you didn’t do. Perhaps it was something that you fight against and keep backsliding on, perhaps it’s something that took you completely by surprise that you never expected you’d ever do. Perhaps it was something big, something that really messed you up; perhaps it was just one of those niggling small things that get in the way of your self-image.
Whatever it was, there are a lot of different ways you can deal with it, aren’t there? You can beat yourself up for it, thinking, “I’m such a bad person, how can anyone put up with me, I never do anything right.” You can shrug it off, saying, “I’m only human,” and “everybody makes mistakes.” And of course that’s true. But of course neither one of these is particularly productive. The first response makes you feel bad, but it doesn’t fix anything; the second response makes you feel good - but it doesn’t fix anything, either. And the big problem with mistakes - which is a kind of mealy-mouth apology word for sins - is that there are consequences. There are always consequences, even if they don’t show up for a while. And, of course, the longer you go before dealing with them, the worse they get.
Fortunately, few of us have anything as big to repent of as King David. You remember the story, don’t you? David has been staying home in Jerusalem reveling in the luxury of kingship and letting Joab lead his army. After years of running around the desert with Saul on his heels, maybe he deserves the time off. But it was a BIG mistake. Maybe he was having a midlife crisis, maybe he was just bored, but David was ripe for mischief and found it with Bathsheba, whose husband was off with the rest of the army. He seduces her, gets her pregnant, and has her husband killed to avoid getting found out. And he would have gotten away with it if it hadn’t been for the prophet Nathan. And God, of course.
Nathan forces David to confront what he has done by telling him a parable, a story of a rich man with huge flocks who, instead of taking one of his own animals, kills, cooks and eats his poor neighbor’s only lamb instead. Nathan then asks David what should be done to the rich man. And David is outraged, saying, “As YHWH lives, the man who has done this deserves to die.” And that is where today’s passage begins, with Nathan saying, “You are the man.”
The rest of the passage is about the aftermath, how this story played out in David’s life, and in the history of Israel. We can divide it up in a lot of different ways, or focus in on just one of the pieces, but I found three particular things that I want to talk about.
The first, of course, is David’s repentance. A lot of people over the centuries have wrestled with the question of how David could be considered “a man after God’s own heart” when his record of sexual misconduct is so blatant. But we’re all sinners, big or small; what makes us men or women after God’s own heart is how we deal with our sinfulness. What we learn from David is how to repent. He gave us the most complete, heartfelt picture of the cost of sin and what is required to return to God that we could possibly ask for. We see the cost of sin in Psalm 32:
While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to YHWH,” and you forgave the guilt of my sin. [Ps 32:3-5]
The cost of sin is estrangement from God. David had stuffed this sin down inside himself for probably about a year: time for the child to be conceived, carried, and born. That’s a long time to be hiding from God.
The price of readmission into the presence of God is confession. Psalm 51 shows the steps: Open acknowledgment of sin comes first. Justifying yourself and making excuses isn’t confession; remember, that’s how Saul reacted every time Samuel confronted him with his actions, and eventually God got tired of it and washed his hands of Saul. Confession means admitting you’re wrong.
"I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment." [Ps 51:3-4] After that comes a plea for mercy and renewal. “Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me." [Ps 51:9-10]
We’re familiar with these steps. We take them every Sunday as we approach God with our prayer of confession. And we know that we receive forgiveness when we do these things, because God is merciful and Jesus has paid the price. What many of us do not realize, or perhaps do not want to recognize, is that God’s forgiveness doesn’t erase the consequences of our actions here in the world. We will not be punished for what we have done, but the ripples continue to spread out across the pond.
In David’s case, the consequences are drastic and painful. The immediate price is the loss of the son that was born to him and Bathsheba. “But how can God do that?” I can hear some of you say. “How can a merciful God punish an innocent child for David’s sin?” What you need to realize is that the real sufferers here were David and Bathsheba, not the child. Theirs was the sin, and theirs the loss. We don’t know exactly why it was necessary, the text doesn’t tell us, but it is possible that the pain of the child’s death drove the lesson home to David more than anything else could have done.
But the long-term consequences were even more dreadful. Just as Nathan had foretold, the sword never did depart from David’s house. His son Amnon raped David's daughter Tamar; Absalom killed Amnon in revenge after their father failed to do anything about it, and later fomented a civil war against David, during which time he lay with David’s concubines on the roof of the palace as a public declaration that he had taken his father’s place. I don’t know about you, but I think that betrayal by someone you loved and trusted is in many ways worse than their death. And the kingdom never recovered.
What is the relationship between David’s sin and all these losses? Well, it’s clear not only from this story, but from all the wives and concubines that David accumulated along the way, that David had a real problem with impulse control and keeping long-term commitments. His incredibly dysfunctional family - with all its rivalries and abuses - was a direct result of David’s slavery to his sexual appetites and his subsequent failure to exercise appropriate parental authority and guidance.
Note that David responded only to the immediate consequence. “He pleaded with God for the child.” [2 Sa 12:16] And this is acceptable. We can always ask God for the cup to pass. David wasn’t trying to weasel out of what he had done, or complaining that God was being somehow unfair. He was, simply, pleading for mercy. But he never addressed the rest of what God said would happen. He didn’t look at the long-term consequences or ask God to give him wisdom for managing his wives and children.
What have we seen so far from this episode in David’s life?
First, repentance and forgiveness.
Second, recognizing and accepting the consequences.
What’s the third stage?
The third stage involves simply pulling up our socks and getting on with life. The time comes to stop weeping.
I recently got into an interesting conversation with a colleague about the Beatitudes, you know, Jesus’ words from the Sermon on the Mount which begin, “Blessed are the poor...” Anyway one of the men at the table was sharing something he had learned while preparing a for a Bible study. His commentary said that the passage “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted,” doesn’t refer to ordinary grief but to sorrow over one’s sins. Now, think that is certainly true, but I also think that it’s about everyday grief and loss and pain as well. Because both kinds of grief are a window to greater intimacy with God. And in this story of David’s grief, we have both kinds. David is weeping over his son’s death, but also over his own sin. His grief is doubled because of his guilt. And yet the time comes to put away weeping and get on with our lives.
Whether you are grieving over a loss or over your sins, you can learn from David how to move on. Note that the first thing he does - after bathing and getting dressed - is worship. He stops praying for the child and simply praises God. The Jewish prayer for the dead, the Kaddish, isn’t mournful, either. It praises God. Praising God strengthens us to meet life renewed.
The next thing David does is eat. One of the symptoms of depression is failure to care for oneself. It’s a form of self-punishment, and it’s totally unproductive. God isn’t going to punish you; you’ve been forgiven. What are you doing by punishing yourself but defying God? And sitting around in sack-cloth and ashes so that everybody can see how sorry you are isn't productive, either.
The third thing David does follows today’s passage; he comforts Bathsheba, and fathers another son, whom he names Solomon. You’ll be hearing more about him later. And the lesson for us is to reconnect with our family and friends, those people around us to whom we have obligations and connections, and make an investment in the future. It works both for guilt and grief, because it reattaches us to everyday life, holding us upright and focusing us forward.
We all make mistakes, some bigger than others. There are episodes in my own life that I would much rather not have to remember. But God has shown us what to do with them:
Repent, receive forgiveness, accept the consequences, but then move on. Our God is a God of hope, and hope lies in the future. “Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.” [Phil 3:13-14]
