Readings for the Third Sunday after Pentecost

2 Sam. 11:26—12:10, 13-14

Gal. 2:15-21; 3:10-14

Luke 7:36—8:3

Passage for mediation: Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD." Nathan replied, "The LORD has taken away your sin. You are not going to die.”  2 Samuel 12:13 

Devotion:  David, the king of Israel sees a bathing beauty from his roof top while his army is off fighting.  He likes what he sees and sends for her- never mind that she was one of his trusted generals wives.  They spend the evening acting like husband and wife and as a result, she conceives.

The hand is caught in the cookie jar, so to speak.  There is a choice to be made at this point.  Confess and take responsibility or try hard to cover up the obvious.  David chose the latter.

King David calls Uriah back from the battle under the guise of seeing how the battle is going.  David’s plan is to encourage Uriah to go home to his wife so that they may be intimate.  The hope is that Uriah will be fooled into thinking that the child in his wife’s belly is his.  Only Uriah doesn’t stick with David’s plan.  Instead of enjoying marital pleasures, he sleeps outside on the floor like the other soldiers are doing. 

David tries again the next night to no avail.  His plan to cover up his action fails.  So he decides to try a new plan, one that involves the death of Uriah.  He sends a letter with instructions for Uriah’s death back to the battle field by the hand of Uriah himself.  The letter is delivered faithfully and David’s plan is fulfilled.  Uriah falls in battle along with a number of other innocent men.

It all went according to his plan.  David thought he could pull the wool over everyone’s eyes and get away with adultery and murder.  He may have deceived many of the Israelites, but he couldn’t hide his actions from God.

Nathan the prophet confronted the King about his sin.  And now, after men had been killed, a wife widowed, David hears the Word of the Lord and confesses his sin- against the Lord!

Truly- David sinned against people, many of them!   But here he recognizes the extent of his actions.  He has sinned against God by doing unto others what God did not desire him to do.  From a legal prospective, David should have been disposed of kingship, thrown in jail and executed by stoning.  His death would have been justified.

And yet, the truly amazing thing is that Nathan, God’s prophet speaks a word of absolution to David, proclaiming that God himself has taken away this sin- and that he will live.  Not without further consequence, but David’s life though he should have died was spared.

Christ Jesus, the son of David by the flesh and the Son of God has come to take away our sin and die the death that David, and that we all deserve.  He has come to pronounce absolution, the forgiveness of our sin- that we may lived lives spared by God’s grace.