unexpected | Bathsheba

The Lord sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him. “Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.” David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die! He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.” Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man! This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you all Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.

2 Samuel 12:13 NIV

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.

On September 17, 1862 the Battle of Sharpsburg took place during the second year of the American Civil War. Sharpsburg is a town in Maryland which was part of the Federal Union territory. Robert Lee had taken his Confederate Army of the South and crossed the Potomac River into the North in order to draw the Union Army away from occupying southern cities. It worked. The Union Army under the command of George McClellan descended upon Sharpsburg with a force that was easily twice the size of Lee’s Confederate troops. As an overwhelming line of Federal soldiers were approaching, the Confederates employed an unusual strategy.

In a wooded area near Antietam Creek, a small Confederate regiment snuck forward and positioned itself among the trees right between the 9th New York regiment and 5th Massachusetts regiment. Conserving their limited ammunition, the Confederates shot a quick burst of musket fire towards the New York regiment of the Union army. The union troops realized they were under attack and turned to begin returning fire. Meanwhile the small Confederate regiment slipped out of the way, so the advancing New York regiment was now turned and firing directly towards the Massachusetts regiment. The Massachusetts regiment took defensive positions thinking that it was the Confederate forces attacking them, and they fired back. Thus a small group of Confederate troops tricked the Union army into attacking itself and successfully delayed the advancing Union army long enough to allow time for Lee to withdraw and escape back across the Potomac River.

President Abraham Lincoln did not allow McClellan to remain in command of the Union army after that. And it shows us that sometimes we don’t even realize just how much we can be our own worst enemy. We have moments of causing harm not only to ourselves, but to everyone else around us, and we don’t even realize it.

Acknowledge sin

David arranges for Uriah to be killed and takes Bathsheba

Something like that happens in the story we see today with David and Bathsheba. 2 Samuel 11 tells the story of everything David did to take Bathsheba—a woman who was not his wife—essentially rape her, and then orchestrate an elaborate coverup scheme by murdering Bathsheba’s husband Uriah so that David could take Bathsheba as his own wife.

After all of this happens and no one seems to be the wiser, the prophet Nathan comes along in chapter 12 and shares this little story about a rich man, a poor man, and a ewe lamb. We see those stories back-to-back in chapters 11 and 12 and the connection is obvious. But apparently for David the connection is not evident. He has no idea and is completely unaware that this fable brought to him by the prophet Nathan is actually about him.

Nathan tells David a story about a rich man’s abuse against another

Nathan doesn’t waste any time or sugarcoat the truth in any way. David decrees the death penalty for the rich man who committed such a merciless act of injustice. Nathan immediately responds, you are the man! Nathan goes on to level the accusations against David. You committed murder to take a woman who was not your wife to be your own.

David does not realize what he has done until Nathan makes the connection

Catch the moment here. This is not an example of David getting caught with his own dirty laundry. Maybe we make that mistake. David commits a terrible sin and then tries his best to hide it and cover it up. And maybe David thinks, I got away with it; nobody else knows the horrible thing I have done. That’s not what is happening here. David himself doesn’t even know the horrible thing he has done. David himself has justified and his own actions as acceptable. And only when Nathan reframes the events into another story does David make the connection. He did not know how deep his own sin went. Up until that moment, he was unaware of his own transgressions.

We cannot overlook that feature of the story because we all need to admit that there is hidden sin in each one of us. And it is sin that is hidden so deep, we ourselves don’t even know or acknowledge it. We have justified and rationalized our own broken and harmful behaviors as normal and acceptable. This story is about acknowledging the sin that we don’t even know about in our own lives.

Sin is a touchy subject we do not talk about much. It seems we always have a ton to say about love and grace and mercy. Those are features of the gospel story that always make the highlight reel. But we ignore sin. Well, that’s not exactly true. We are really good at pointing fingers at the sin of other people. But we are also really good at ignoring our own sin. This story today confronts us squarely between the eyes with the knowledge that sometimes we are not even aware of the all the ways we harm ourselves and those around us. We don’t even know.

Jesus says exactly the same thing in Matthew 7

Matthew 7:3–4 NIV

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?

Can we admit how blind we all are to our own sin? Nathan’s confrontation of David is a confrontation to every single one of us.

I am far more broken by sin than I know.

Santa Claus doesn’t help us with this. In the Santa Claus story, if you are good you get a present, but if you are bad you get a lump of coal. It reinforces the idea that a gift only comes to people who deserve it. It feeds into an idea that we hold somewhere in the back of our minds that misses and ignores my own sin. Yes, salvation means I am being renewed and restored into the image of Christ by a powerful work of the Holy Spirit; but I was kind of okay to begin with. That’s wrong. The gift of salvation did not come to me because I am on the nice list. In fact, just the opposite. I am on the naughty list; I didn’t even realize it; and I got the gift anyway.

Matthew writes his gospel to a Jewish audience. The Hebrew people had been waiting for a Messiah they believed would arise to the legendary ideal of king David. Matthew gives a family tree of Jesus which reminds us that even the mighty king David needed God to rescue him from his own sin.

Acknowledge repentance

David - “I have sinned against the LORD”

After Nathan finishes telling his story and connecting the dots so that David can realize what he has done, the response is immediate. David says, I have sinned against the LORD. There are no excuses. There is no passing the buck or spreading the blame. There is no attempt by David to justify his actions. You know, that Uriah was a Hittite; not even one of us; it’s not really that bad. Nope. David owns it all. And he acknowledges that his sin is not just an offence to others around him. It is an offence against God.

judgment is already pronounced - “the man who did this must die!”

The worst part is that David himself has already pronounced judgement. When Nathan tells the story of the rich man, poor man, and ewe lamb David decrees that the crime was punishable by death. David is the king. He is the highest authority in the land below God. his words carry legal weight. The sentence for this crime has already been declared.

David’s confession of sin is an acceptance of that penalty. This is a rather heavy confession to make. David cannot undo his actions. In acknowledging his sin before God, he also acknowledges his own death sentence which he has placed upon himself. In this moment, David realizes that the LORD has every right to take David’s life—David’s own words have decreed it to be so.

repentance - David acknowledges his sin and accepts the consequence

And David accepts it. He accepts that the LORD is right to carry this out. This is the moment of David’s repentance. This is the moment David fully grasps the enormous weight of his sin and the consequence is carries. He cannot shrug it off. He cannot say, my bad—just kidding. Repentance means David fully acknowledges and accepts the consequence for his action. Repentance means David agrees that God alone is perfect and true and right, and David is not. Repentance is a moment of humility.

key words of 2 Samuel 11 & 12 — send and take

We might back away from this story and say, you know what? I have never premeditated a murder so that I could cover up a rape of another person’s spouse. Sure, I’m not perfect. But don’t try to apply this to me. Let me point out the key words that repeat in 2 Samuel 11 and 12. It is the Hebrew words for take and send. There is an awful lot of sending and taking going on in chapter 11; and it is all being done by David. It is David who sends for Bathsheba to be brought to him. It is David who takes Bathsheba. It is David who sends the army. It is David who tells Joab to take Uriah and send him to the front line. And it is David who then takes Bathsheba after Uriah is killed. God never shows up in chapter 11. David is doing all the sending and all the taking.

David’s sin against God was an abuse of the blessing God provided

But chapter 12 begins this way, God sends Nathan to David. In other words, God is taking over the actions now. God reminds David through Nathan that David is blessed by God. God is the one who provides blessings. God is the one who does the sending and the taking. David’s sin against God is an abuse of that blessing. He abuses the position of power with which God has blessed him. I may not be guilty of premeditated murder. But there is not much defense left for me to stand upon when the crime against God is more generically an abuse of the blessings which God has provided.

sin I know is wrong | sin I have convinced myself is not wrong | sin I don’t even know I do

And this is where repentance meets us as well. It is the moment of humility in which every one of us comes before God in repentance. There have been instances in which I have said or done things I know were wrong. I own it—that is my sin. There have been instances in which I have said or done things that are wrong, but I have convinced myself it’s not that bad, it’s all okay. I own it—that is my sin. And I have said and done things that are wrong, and I am completely unaware this is happening. I own it—that is my sin.

It is a reminder that every time I see injustice in this world and burn with indignation that corrupt people get away with doing evil things, I might as well be looking in a mirror at my own reflection. We have all gotten pretty good at hiding this plank in our own eye away from other people. But God sees it. Repentance means I declare before God I am a sinner and I have sinned. I know God is right and I know I am wrong. That’s repentance.

Unexpected forgiveness

Nathan’s immediate reply to David’s repentance - “the LORD has taken away your sin”

And so, David’s immediate response is the simple confession. I have sinned against the LORD. Look what happens next. Nathan’s immediate response to David is this. The LORD has taken away your sin. In the middle of David’s repentance comes something he did not expect. Forgiveness.

David did not even know his own sin and was not ready to forgive others; but God still forgives him

When Nathan first told the story to David, David’s response was judgment and penalty; not forgiveness. Why should God show forgiveness to someone like him, who will not show forgiveness to others? It is completely unexpected.

Jesus says on the cross - “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”

And this is the unexpected feature in the story of Bathsheba that pulls all the way through from the Old Testament and makes it into the family tree of Jesus. We approach Christmas time with a reminder that God’s gift to the world brings more than love and joy and peace. Jesus also comes with forgiveness. How quickly we forget how much we all need forgiveness. Fast forward to a dark Friday afternoon when Jesus would hang upon a cross and say Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.

Perhaps Christmas is not the time of year when we automatically turn our attention towards our own sins and our own brokenness. But the way Matthew pulls the story of David and Bathsheba into the opening of his gospel reminds us of exactly that. And maybe that isn’t a depressing or negative reminder. In fact, this unexpected forgiveness adds to the miracle of God’s gift of grace for the world at Christmas.

I am far more broken by sin than I know; yet God is far more forgiving than I expected

The example of David in this story of Bathsheba is a reminder that I am far more broken by sin than I know. But this is what makes the unexpected gift of God’s forgiveness all-the-more powerful and amazing. I am far more broken by sin than I know; yet God is far more forgiving than I expected.

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