Matthew 28:1-10 - He Is Risen

Have you ever been told something that was just too unbelievable? Maybe it might have been part of a prank and not been real at all, or maybe it might have been something that you just couldn’t let yourself truly believe, even though it was true. How do you respond when the miraculous happens? Do you respond with skepticism or with belief? If you’re too believing and hopeful you run the risk of being let down. If you’re too skeptical you miss out on things that are absolutely amazing. So the vast majority of us sit somewhere in the middle of skepticism and belief.

On many things, I skew much more towards skepticism than belief. Back in the 90’s there was a television show whose tagline was “the truth is out there” in which two FBI agents faced things that seemed impossible. One of them believed in the impossible, the other was full of skepticism. The real mistake I think the show made was never having the skeptic be right. But there are times that I worry about my skepticism. If I had been one of the disciples and my teacher had been killed in such a horrendous way, would I have immediately believed when I was told that he had come back from the dead? I’m not entirely sure. I know that, just like all his disciples, I wouldn’t have believed him when he promised to do so and would have waited to see it happen to truly understand it. I know I accept it now, but it is sometimes easier to believe in something miraculous that happened 2000 years ago than to believe that something miraculous can happen today. And yet, we serve the same God who brought Jesus back from the dead. We serve the same God who created this whole world with its many wonders. Perhaps we should put away our skepticism just a bit and trust that God is still able to do the amazing, to do the miraculous.

I. What a Week

We celebrate an amazing day today. We celebrate the resurrection of our Lord. But you cannot have resurrection without death. You cannot have Easter celebration without the pain that has come before. And it has been a hard week for Jesus’ disciples. It has been a hard week for the two Marys that we read about om this morning’s scripture. Just think, a week ago Jesus had been entering Jerusalem majestically, on a donkey. He had been proclaiming himself the prince of peace and had been fulfilling scripture showing him to be the messiah that all of Israel had been looking for. On Thursday night we spent time looking at the rest of the week as Jesus faced pain and suffering; as the joy of Palm Sunday evaporated into the reality of Jerusalem politics and as all those who joyously proclaimed “Hosanna” slowly left Jesus, and started to shout “Crucify him”. And when this hoped for messiah is killed in such a gruesome way, they aren’t even able to give him a proper burial because the Sabbath is coming and there are certain rules to be followed. So Jesus is hastily put in a tomb and a stone is rolled in front of the entrance so he won’t be disturbed.

We know that Jesus’ followers have not given up their love for their teacher. Though their greatest hopes for him have not come to be (or so it seems) they are still gathered together. I wonder what they must have been thinking after such a horrible week. They probably wondered why in the world they even came to Jerusalem. What a waste. They could not see any meaning in Jesus’ death. All they saw was pain and suffering, trial and tribulation, hope extinguished and evil victorious.

But then came Sunday morning. Some of the women who had followed Jesus decided that morning, on the third day since Jesus’ death, after the Sabbath was over, to go to his tomb and care for his body so it could be properly laid to rest.

It is at this point that things become confusing for them. What had seemed to be a straightforward job turns into a most amazing day for these followers of Jesus. For, as we read this morning, when they got to the tomb, they discovered that the stone had been rolled away and they discover that there is a man in the tomb (not Jesus) whose appearance we are told, is like lightning. And this man, or as we are told, this angel, tells these women some wonderful news. Jesus is not here. He has risen, just as he had promised he would. The angel shows the women the place where Jesus had been and tells them to tell the others, to share this news with the rest of the disciples.

II. Confusion

We know that the resurrection did not immediately bring peace to the disciples. It did not immediately bring sighs of relief. In all honesty, the disciples did not believe the women at first. Peter and John figured that they should check out the news themselves and ran to see the tomb for themselves, but the others didn’t even do this. Christianity did not begin with clarity, it began in confusion. It did not begin with certainty, it began with mystery. Oh, clarity and certainty came, but it was not where things began. The women did not go to the tomb to witness a resurrection. They went there to finish preparing Jesus’ body for proper burial. The disciples were living not with hope but filled with fear. And even when the women heard that Jesus had risen, from an angel no less, we are told that they were still filled with fear but at the same time filled with joy. Jesus’ resurrection was not expected. It was not normal. They were not able to put their minds around it. Just days before they had watched their teacher die. They thought it was over. But what seemed like the end was only the beginning. When it seemed that all was lost, all was yet to be gained.

And so there was confusion on that first Easter morning. There was confusion and fear and joy and excitement and worry that we can’t let our hopes get up too high. Imagine being there with these two Marys. Imagine grieving with them at the loss of Jesus. Imagine going through all that they had gone through this last week. And then, something happens that is beyond your greatest hope. He who was dead is now alive. You don’t want to trust it. You don’t want to get your hopes up. You don’t want to be disappointed yet again. You just aren’t sure that this could really be happening. You almost don’t want to let your hopes get up because it just might be true. And you aren’t sure whether you could really handle that.

It’s the way we’re built. We protect ourselves by preparing ourselves for the worst so that when it happens we are better able to handle it. We figure if we prepare ourselves to be disappointed, then when we are disappointed we are ready for it at least… and if, for some reason, things do go our way then we will be able to enjoy it all the more because we aren’t really expecting things to go our way at all. It is a self-defense mechanism that we all learn to build into ourselves. It starts when you are a child with your first crush, when you find out that person you like doesn’t like you back; and it continues when you apply for a job and don’t get it. The disappointments in your life help you to build up a wall of skepticism and pessimism that is designed to keep you from getting hurt. But this is not what the resurrection is about. For when the resurrection happens we discover that not only can the best happen, it does happen.

And so we see that these women after hearing from the angel are filled with joy but also filled with fear. The skeptic and the believer are both there in them. They are worried that something might have happened to Jesus but they are also hoping that what they have been told just possibly may be true.

And then they come face to face with their Lord. Now in the other gospels we discover that they don’t recognize Jesus right away but Matthew skips right over this to show us the ultimate result of Jesus’ resurrection. The women came to Jesus, clasped his feet and worshiped him. They allowed themselves to believe, and this belief brought them to worship their Lord.

They had never worshiped Jesus when he had walked among them. But now they see who he really is and they know the true power that he brings. Now all those things that he had taught them about himself are shown to be real. And so they, after witnessing the resurrection firsthand, worship Jesus. Now, even this meaningless death has meaning to it. Now all of a sudden, the things that Jesus had gone through were not just a horrible injustice. What amazes me is that even at this point, these women and the disciples probably had no clue what it was that Jesus had truly done for them. They probably didn’t understand that he died for them. All they knew was that he had risen from the dead. It probably wasn’t until much later that they realized what the resurrection really meant. But in the midst of the resurrection they found joy and they worshipped their Savior.

III. Resurrection People

We also worship our resurrected Savior. We are a resurrection people. This changes us. It changes what we are about. It changes how we live. It changes who we are. And so we come before Jesus to worship and praise him. We glorify him because he has risen. We even have more reason to rejoice because we understand the meaning behind his death and resurrection. We know that he faced death for each of us and that he took our sin on that cross with him. His death was for us. We know that in rising from the dead he showed his authority over death and sin and he showed us that he is capable of bringing us out of death into life. We know that God sacrificed all for each of us on that cross and we know that God made a promise to each of us as he left that tomb.

So as a resurrection people we no longer need fear death, for we know that there is something, someone greater than death. As a resurrection people we know that we no longer need fear sin, for we have someone with us who has taken away our sin. As a resurrection people we are allowed to believe that God will do miracles. As a resurrection people we realize that nothing is too much for God to deal with.

What are your greatest hopes? What is it that you are hoping and praying for God to do for you? Do you really trust God to be able to do this? He rose from the dead. He promises to bring us life out of our death. Do you believe that he can do your hearts desire for you?

It fits that we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord in spring, though it is early in spring this year. Spring is a time of new birth. It is a time where the sun comes out and the days are getting longer and many of us are preparing to plant our crops. Spring is the time that we expect the earth to heat up. It is what we wait for throughout the winter. It is what helps us to make it through the winter. Jesus’ resurrection is the same. It is what allows us to make it through this world. It is what allows us to deal with the things in this world that plague us. He is risen. And we too will rise because of what he has done. And we too will have a place for us with no pain and no suffering and eternal joy. This is the mystery that we celebrate on Easter. We are celebrating the truth that God is able to do things that we cannot even imagine, that we cannot even think about. We are celebrating the truth that there can be joy in our lives no matter what we are going through because Jesus is alive and active in this world. There is so much to celebrate, for in rising from the dead, Jesus began something new and something powerful.

Easter morning began with confusion and mystery. It began with people not knowing what to believe and what to trust. But it also began with two women kneeling at Jesus’ feet, worshipping their Lord. As we face the confusion that this world brings; as we face the mystery that is our God’s love; let us join these women as we fall at Jesus’ feet and worship him with all our hearts. Amen.

Matthew 21:1-11 - King Jesus

When I was 15 my family took a trip to Europe, and during this trip we spent two weeks in Egypt. We spent our time looking at the sights and enjoying the scenery and sweating to death. We actually would do our sight seeing in the mornings and then pretty much spend the afternoons at the hotel in the swimming pool because it was just too hot to do much of anything after 1pm. One of the days we went donkey riding. We each got a donkey and we had a guide with us and we went to about three different sights of Egyptian ruins. It was actually quite fun and a lot cooler than being packed in the busses that most people were. The busses didn’t have air conditioning, but as we trotted along on our donkeys, a breeze would build up and keep us cool. I could tell stories about my mom not being able to control her donkey and going off the wrong way a number of times or I could talk about how there were caves near the valley of the kings where garbage was piled up. I remember commenting on how there might be something neat in those caves and being laughed at by my family. Years later it was discovered that these caves were entrances to a whole complex of tombs for princes. I could talk about the man who pulled my dad aside and tried to sell him a mummy finger. But none of these things really apply to today’s scripture. Instead I want to share about the looks on people’s faces as we rode up on donkeys. You see, there were these main roads that the tour busses followed and people pretty much stayed on them, but our guide knew back ways that basically seemed to go right through the desert. So there were these tour groups that would be at a sight and looking around and here comes my family over a dune out of the desert on donkeys, trotting away. And people stared as we came up, got off our donkeys, looked at the sights, then re-mounted and headed back off into the desert in a different direction. You could see people talking about us. You could see people wondering at what was going on and trying to figure out who we were.

I think I got a small taste of what Palm Sunday was like for those with Jesus. Here was this teacher that they had been following, who was obviously special, but who they had been spending time with regularly. And as he entered Jerusalem on a donkey, all the people became very excited and turned it into a great celebration. And Jesus trotted along on his donkey and accepted the praise that all those around him gave. It must have been quite the sight.

I. The Gift of a Donkey

Today’s scripture tells the story of Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem. To put this in context we need to quickly map out the last week of Jesus’ life. For this triumphal entry is the beginning of that final, fateful week. Jesus has been traveling down to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. Some great things have been happening and Jesus even brought Lazarus back from the dead not too long before this. His name is going before him and there is this excitement in the air. There is anticipation that something great is about to happen. The anticipation is so great that an impromptu parade breaks out as Jesus and those with him enter the city. Jesus is just one of many who are entering the city, but there is something special about this one.

This Triumphal Entry actually took place on the Sunday before Jesus’ death. We are told in John’s account of it that it took place 6 days before the Passover. The next day, which would be Monday, Jesus goes to the temple and overturns the tables of those buying and selling in the temple. Tuesday and Wednesday Jesus taught. Thursday found Jesus meeting with his followers in the upper room for his last supper with them. Thursday evening then took Jesus out to the Garden of Gethsemane, which is where Jesus was arrested. On Friday we have the trial and death of Jesus on the cross. This all happens before sundown, which is when the Sabbath begins. And then, you all know, we have Saturday and then on Sunday Jesus rises from the dead.

So this Triumphal Entry is the beginning of a busy and crazy week for Jesus. And it begins in an odd way: with a donkey.

The beginning of Holy Week, the beginning of this amazing event in Jesus’ life that changes the whole world, is in the theft of a donkey. That’s right, Jesus tells his disciples to go steal a donkey for him. This donkey does not belong to them. This donkey is not theirs. But Jesus has use of it and sends his disciples off to get it. And someone stops the disciples as they take the donkey, as you would expect. But Jesus has told the disciples to explain to the people who might stop them that “the Lord needs it”, the disciples do this and they are not stopped, but are allowed to take the donkey that Jesus rides as well as this donkey’s mother.

We are told that this fulfills prophecy, and it also affirms that Jesus is the Prince of Peace, for kings would ride donkeys in peacetime and horses as they went to war.

But it is an odd thing for Jesus to ask a stranger for use of their donkey and for that stranger to allow it. It makes me wonder what kind of strange things God might be planning to ask of us. We think of the obvious things that God asks of us, our time, our talents, our treasures. We focus in the evangelical church on the fact that God wants our hearts. This all is important; but what happens when God asks for that odd thing from you that just doesn’t make sense. What happens when God asks for your donkey?

What happens when God calls for you to spend more time with your family instead of working harder so that you can build better relationships with those around you? What happens when God tells you to slow down because you are trying to do too much and will hurt yourself? What happens when God asks you to give up your anger and turn it over to him? What happens when God asks you for something small and insignificant, something that you need to give up; something that you need to do in a different way? It may not even make any sense, but God is calling for you to do it. God is calling for you to let him steal your donkey. Are you going to say no to your Lord?

II. Crowds Cheer

Palm Sunday is just an odd place for a celebration. Here we are beginning the roller coaster ride with Jesus that will make the next week of his life the most important event in the history of the world. Here we are, rejoicing and cheering with the crowds, singing “Hosanna” with the children. But in just days we will see Jesus at the lowest point of his life and we will see humanity at its worst, killing their God and Savior.

You know why people are cheering. They’re on their way into Jerusalem, heading into the celebration of their most holy holiday. They’re excited and ready for great things to happen. Some would regularly go to Jerusalem for Passover. Others would try to make this trip a few times during their life, but it was a holy trip and a trip full of celebration.

This is Christmas, Easter, the Fourth of July and Mardigras all rolled up together. This week is a time for people to party and enjoy themselves, but to do so in a holy way. And so the people entering Jerusalem are already excited and hoping for something great to happen. When they see a celebration they want to become a part of it. So they celebrate what God is going to do through Jesus.

That’s what is really great about Palm Sunday; it is a time to celebrate that which God is going to do. The people are cheering because of hope. They are cheering because they expect great things to happen. They are cheering because though life is difficult for them now, they see the possibility of something great happening. Their hope causes them to cheer, to praise God, to rejoice. They see great possibilities in Jesus. So, they celebrate. They throw him a parade.

Hope can be a wonderful thing. It can take you out of the place where your pain and suffering is in control. And it can cause for you to celebrate God’s promises and the fact that his promises will be fulfilled. The Triumphal Entry is a time where God’s people celebrate God’s future work. It is a time where Jesus is acknowledged for who he is and what his role will be. It is a time where God’s people can rejoice because even though it seems like a bunch of Roman soldiers are in control, they know that in truth it is God who is in control… and God will do amazing things through this Jesus, though the people cheering have no idea what these things could possibly be. The Triumphal Entry, Palm Sunday is a time to celebrate because we know that something great is about to happen, though we don’t know what it will be. Do you ever rejoice in this way? Do you let yourself get excited about the fact that Jesus is yet going to do great things in your life? Are you ready to celebrate because you know that God has not yet done his best work? He still has great things to offer this world. He still has great things to offer you.

III. Crowds Curse

But, as I said at the beginning, the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem is only the start of holy week. Jesus has a difficult week ahead. After this entry he will visit the Temple, a place that holds a special place in his heart. And he will find it to be in a way that is shameful to him. And he will overturn the tables of the moneychangers. He will have constant attacks from the Pharisees and leaders of the religious community. And a mere five days from now the crowds who were praising him today will be cursing him and calling for his death.

I cannot imagine the people of Jerusalem changing so very quickly, going from praise and joy, from celebration, to cursing and calls for his death. I believe they allowed themselves to act this way because of fear. They were afraid of Jesus’ power. They were afraid of the unknown. They were afraid of what the Romans would do to their culture, to their temple, to their way of life. They didn’t want to lose what they had, which is our greatest fear, so they lashed out at Jesus.

I worry that sometimes we act out of fear ourselves. We focus too much on protecting ourselves and our way of life. We want to protect our identity, we want to protect our faith; we want to remain comfortable in what we know. We want to remain safe and secure in the place that we are at, but if we let this be the motivating source behind everything we do, we will also find ourselves acting out of fear. And decisions that are made based on fear do not take account of God.

Jesus never made decisions based on fear. He relied on God for all and was rewarded mightily for this. He knew that fear was distrust of God. Does this mean that fear itself is bad. No, it is a natural reaction to much that we face. But when we make decisions based on it, they will not be the right decision. Instead, we are to make decisions based on God’s promises, based on God’s reality, not ours. We are to make decisions based on the fact that Jesus rose from the dead, and so shall we.

Throughout the week leading up to Jesus’ death, we see people again and again acting out of fear: the high priests and Pharisees, the Roman rulers, the crowds, and even the disciples. And this fear continues to lead them to a place where they need forgiveness. The amazing thing is that Jesus does forgive them. He calls out on the cross for God to forgive the people responsible for his death.

Jesus doesn’t want us to live ruled by fear. He knows that if we do, any triumph that we think we might have, that he might offer us, will turn to tragedy. No, he wants us to live with the hope that trusts in his promises. He wants our lives to be lives that celebrate the possibilities; that celebrate not only what God has done, but also what he will do. He wants us to live in a way that trusts him enough to even give him our donkeys when he asks. For it is hope that allows this, it is hope that brings us to a point where we can trust God, where we can know that what he asks of us will not only make his kingdom great, but it will help us. So let us enter this Holy Week as we celebrate God’s love and Jesus’ sacrifice; let us enter it filled with hope. Amen.

II Samuel 23:1-7 - David's Last Words

There’s something about hearing the last words that someone famous has said. You think that you might learn something about someone by what it is that they have to say when they know they have reached the end.

Sometimes the last words someone speaks are profound. Joseph Addison, a writer who died in 1719 ended his life with a statement, “See in what peace a Christian can die.” He wanted his death to show the peace that faith can bring. Sometimes the last words are complete nonsense, or even ironic. J.M. Barrie, who wrote Peter Pan ended his life with the statement, “I can’t sleep.” Sometimes there is humor as in Lady Nancy Astor who awoke during her last illness and found her family around her bedside and asked, “Am I dying or is this my birthday?” Oscar Wilde also felt there was a statement to be made and said clearly that “Either that wallpaper goes or I do.” The wallpaper is still there. Some worry about what history will think. Pancho Villa, the Mexican revolutionary told those with him to “Tell them I said something.” And Henry Ward Beecher, an evangelist in the 1800s, as he looked to what was to come, said, “Now comes the great mystery.”

Kings throughout history have had their last words recorded. Julius Caesar is famous for his, “Et tu Brute?” You too Brutus? Charles II of England told those around him to make sure his mistress, Nelly, didn’t starve. Louis 14 of France was confused by those around him who wept and reminded them that he too was mortal. Another king in France felt that kings should die standing up. And there was one Roman Emperor who, as he felt himself dying, stated that he felt himself becoming a god.

We are told that King David had some last words to share with those around him. And though his last words did talk about the greatness of his reign, they did not aspire to godhood. But we are told in 2 Samuel that the last words of David were inspired, and therefore something that we should listen to and learn from. And so today we are going to look at the last words of David and see what we can learn from this man after God’s own heart, even in his death.

I. Being God’s

We have spent the last three weeks looking at King David. We have seen his start as a young shepherd boy, who is called out from among his brothers to be the future king of Israel. We saw him trust God in impossible odds as he took on Goliath with a slingshot and rocks. And we saw David fall last week as he let his sin take control and build up on itself so that he was responsible for the death of someone; basically, murdering one of his subjects, and sending his army into disarray.

But this is not the end of David, and his great sin is not the end of his relationship with God. David repented and asked for forgiveness and God removed his sin from him completely, something God is willing to do for each of us.

And so we come to the end of David’s life. It wasn’t an easy life. He spent the first part of it running from the King of Israel, King Saul. He spent the middle of it at war with the Philistines, his neighbors. And he spent the end of his life dealing with his own sons who were warring with each other and even went to war against him in order to become the next king. David faced difficulty throughout his life, spent much of it on the run and constantly had to rely on the Lord because he knew he couldn’t handle everything that was happening to him on his own.

I think it is important to remember this when we look at David’s last words. It is important to avoid imagining that he lived the perfect life and everything went perfectly well for him. On the contrary, his life was quite difficult. He faced enemies on all sides.

David would be looked upon today as a self-made man: someone who took a difficult situation and made the most of it, someone who persevered when all was lost and amazingly found victory in the midst of it. But David’s last words aren’t about his own greatness, though they may first seem like it. David’s last words are about the one who was with him throughout his life. They are about who it is that allowed him to do the things he did, and helped him create the kingdom he created. Unlike that Roman Emperor, David did not see himself becoming a god, but David did see the work of God throughout his life.

II. Famous Last Words

From the beginning of the chapter, David puts the glory in God’s hands and not his own. It could sound like he is bragging, “I was so great and so wonderful that the Spirit of the Lord spoke through me.” Or, David could be telling those around him, “It was not me who spoke while I ruled, it was not me who made wise discernments, rather it was the Spirit of the Lord that spoke through me. I am not the great one here, it is the Lord that is the great one.” He goes on to tell his people that God told him that if he ruled in righteousness, if he ruled with fear of God, then he would be like the light of morning at sunrise, like the brightness after rain. Again, this could be read as if David were bragging. “I followed the Lord and therefore I was like the light of morning at sunrise.” But again, this is not the case. David knows what it is that made his rule great. He knows who it is that is responsible for his greatness, and it is not himself. It is the God whom he feared; it is the righteousness that God commanded.

David continues by telling people that there is a reason for his success. It isn’t his good looks, it isn’t his height or his ruddy good looks (hey, that’s how the Bible describes him). The reason for David’s success is that his house is right with God. David is telling the people of Israel. “You see my greatness. Yes, I am great. I have brought peace to this land. But this is not because of anything I did, rather it is because of the God who I follow.” And so we come full circle. We hear at the beginning, when Samuel is attempting to choose the next king; that God doesn’t look at that which people look at, but rather God looks at the heart. God looks at what we cannot see and God blessed David because David was faithful.

In David, who lived in the Old Testament, about 1000 years before Christ came and there was anyone known as a Christian, we see the example of what Christian faith is all about. David knew that he couldn’t earn God’s favor. He knew that he didn’t have to follow a bunch of rules to earn God’s favor. Instead, he loved his Lord, he trusted his God and he relied on his savior to, well, save him.

Again, it sometimes is hard to connect with someone like David. He lived 3000 years ago. The stories we read about him are legendary, larger than life, hey he’s in the Bible of all things. And he was the king of a country. Maybe when George Bush reads about David he can relate to him, but what about us, living here in Iowa in our small town of Albert City? How do we relate to this great man of God? How does his life connect with ours?

Well, obviously, I believe it does, or I wouldn’t be preaching about him. And I don’t see the connection in his ruling or in the great deeds he did. I see the connection in the small things. I see the connection in the way that he talks with his Lord. King David shows us what it means to have a personal relationship with God. David didn’t let his faith be something that he just accepted because he was born into it. For David, the faith was personal. It was real.

And this faith, this personal relationship with God is something that isn’t only for kings and rulers. God has told us that it is available for each of us as well. All the outward trappings are not important to God. He looks at your heart and he is ready to have that heart-relationship with you. We read Psalms that David wrote because they connect with our hearts. We have that same love and faith open to us as much as it was open to King David. Jesus, when he died on the cross and rose again, was sacrificing as much for you and for me as he was for the kings and rulers of this world.

So, let us learn from the king. Let us allow his example of faithfulness speak to each of us and guide us in our own faithfulness to God. And help us to remember that, like David, God is with each of us and God is the one responsible for helping us through our difficulties and troubles. We have not made it on our own, it is God who has been with us and helped us and brought us to where we are. I pray that we can always remember this and remember to give God the credit instead of trying to take it for ourselves.

III. Looking at that which is from God

There is something else we can learn from David and his final words. It’s something that I’ve been alluding to throughout this message. David didn’t lead the perfect life. The blessings he received from God were him being saved from his enemies and surviving battles as often as those blessings were riches. He didn’t live the American dream, and always have all his needs met. Actually, the crazy thing about him is that it was precisely when he did try to live the good life, sending his troops off to battle as he loafed around at home on his roof and sleeping until evening, this is when everything went so wrong for him.

If we look at David’s Psalms, he isn’t thanking God for riches or leisure. Rather, he is thanking God for saving him from evil, for sparing his life, for delivering him from those out to kill him.

And yet David, at the end, doesn’t focus on the negative that his life suffered. Instead he remembers those places where God was with him, where God worked on his behalf.

David didn’t have a better life than what we face. He dealt with a lot in his time as king. But he doesn’t let this get to him. He doesn’t allow himself to get overwhelmed by the negative. Instead he chooses to see where God was with him in the positive. He chooses to give God credit where it is deserved.

We face difficulties in this world. We struggle with many things that King David struggled with, we also struggle with things that were completely foreign to King David. But we need to know that these things are just temporary. They will not last, though it doesn’t always feel like that.

These things will too pass, and in the end we will be in the presence of our Lord, we will be with all those who love the Lord, and we will be filled with praise for our Lord.

David, at the end of his life, saw with clarity that God had been with him throughout. And he saw that all his own greatness had come from the Lord, and he even saw that God was with him in the midst of his struggles. And his last words, his final thoughts were not on the pains of the world, which he had faced and which were many, but rather they were on the God who brought him through these pains. Let us work in our lives to remember to give God the glory. Let us know that the pains of this world aren’t going to be the things that we remember in the end. And let us live lives that are inspired by David’s love for God and David’s faithfulness. Let us try to be people who are known to those around us as someone after God’s own heart. Amen.

II Samuel 12:1-13 - David's Sin

Mike Yaconelli is an author who lives in a small, rural community. There are a lot of cattle ranches around where he lives, and, every once in a while, a cow is known to wander off and gets lost. Mike tells us that if you ask a rancher how a cow gets lost, chances are that he will reply, 'Well, the cow starts nibbling on a tuft of green grass, and when it finishes, it looks ahead to the next tuft of green grass and starts nibbling on that one, and then it nibbles on a tuft of grass right next to a hole in the fence. It then sees another tuft of green grass on the other side of the fence, so it nibbles on that one and then goes on to the next tuft. The next thing you know, the cow has nibbled itself into being lost."

This is a lot like what we face in our lives. Americans are in the process of nibbling their way to being lost. We keep moving from one tuft of activity to another, never noticing how far we have gone from home or how far away from the truth we have managed to end up. But thankfully, we have a good shepherd who is able to come find us and bring us back to our home.

I. Messing Up

David is described in the Bible as a man after God’s own heart. He shows throughout his life that he truly seeks to follow God and allow God to direct his path. We see that he trusted God even as a shepherd and would go up against bears to protect his flock, trusting that God would bring him through this. And God did. We see him rule with justice and bring peace to the land. Though he spends most of his reign as a wartime king, he is able to bring a peace that lasts through his son’s life. Later in life, as a great palace is being built for him in the city of Jerusalem, which he had conquered, David realizes that there is something wrong with him having beautiful, rich palace and God’s tabernacle being a mere tent, so David desires to build a temple for God. Again, David is doing what it is hard for a person with so much power to do. He is thinking beyond himself, thinking of others and thinking of God. God tells him to wait, for his son will build the temple, but it is David’s idea that causes it to be built.

David, again and again, shows through his actions and his psalms and his life that he truly is a man after God’s own heart and he has something great to offer us as we learn what it means to follow and love and honor God.

But this does not mean that David is perfect. And so we come to today’s scripture. In today’s scripture we see David get rebuked for his greatest sin. It isn’t his only sin, but it is a horrible one, and it brings great difficulty to David’s life as well as the lives of those around him and even the subjects who he rules.

So, to set up for what the prophet Nathan has to say to David, let us look at the story of David and another man’s wife. In 2 Samuel 11 we see that it is springtime and therefore time to go to war. But for some reason, David is not going out to war with his army. He sends his general out to battle and his army goes with his general, but he stays behind in his palace in Jerusalem. We are not told why, but we see that this is so. And we get the idea that perhaps David was a bit idle. One evening, we are told, David got up from his bed (he was in bed in the evening) and walked around on the roof. Talk about the good life: sleeping in until evening and then taking a leisurely stroll on the roof. All this while men are out battling for him and fighting his war. And from this roof he saw a woman bathing in his city. And we are told that he found her beautiful. This woman, Bathsheba, was the wife of one of David’s soldiers who was out fighting David’s war as he loafed around in his palace. Now there are those who say that Bathsheba was specifically bathing on her roof, in sight of the king in order to seduce him. There are those who want to make her complicit in this sin of adultery. The fact is that the Bible does no such thing. It constantly places the blame with the king and never once implicates her in the sin. Though it can be said that she is the one who is hurt most from it as through it she loses both a husband and a baby. But the fact is that roofs were the place where people bathed, and normally the king wouldn’t be up there in the evening. It seems much more likely that Bathsheba was an innocent brought in by David’s sin than a seductress trying to woo him.

So we see the King, David, misuse his royal power and have this woman who he sees in the distance brought to him, she comes as her king has commanded her and we are told that he takes her.

Now the story could have ended there, but this is where it became complicated, for Bathsheba became pregnant. And this is the point where David begins acting like a good politician. He attempts a cover-up. First, he has Bathsheba’s husband brought back from the field, hoping that he may sleep with his wife and therefore people will think that the child is his. But Bathsheba’s husband doesn’t think that it is right for him to come into the city and spend time with his wife when the rest of the soldiers, his brothers in arms, are participating in a siege, are in the middle of battle. Disgusted, David sends Bathsheba’s husband back to the line with a note saying to put him at a place where he is sure to die and to pull back from him so that he might do so. The cover-up gets worse. Basically, David is having his army battle in a bad way so that he may kill Bathsheba’s husband. Lives are lost and there is a setback in the battle. David’s general fears that David will be upset by the results of his plan, but Bathseba’s husband is killed in the battle, and David gets what he wants. The cost is very great and the battle has turned towards the enemy, but David has gotten what he wants.

Now that Bathsheba’s husband is out of the way, David brings Bathsheba to himself, marries her, and a son is born to them.

This whole instance is much like the cattle eating tufts of grass and letting themselves get out of hand without realizing it. David didn’t wake up on that spring evening thinking he was going to commit his troops in an unsafe way so that he could murder one of his soldiers. But he let one sin lead to another, which led to another, which led to another. And we are told at the end of 2 Samuel 11 that what David had done displeased the Lord.

II. Blinders

David knew right from wrong. He understood justice. 2 Samuel 12 shows us this. Nathan comes to David and tells him about a rich man and a poor man and how the rich man abuses the poor man and takes all that he has. We are told that David burned with anger against the rich man. Here we see that even having sinned, David showed that he was a man with God’s own heart. He saw the lack of justice in what the rich man had done and his heart burned with the need for justice.

But David had blinders on, for he did not see the evil in what he himself had done, and Nathan, the prophet then spoke to him and showed him his own sin, saying, “You are the man.” And here is where we see something amazing in the character of David. For he doesn’t try to make excuses as we might. He doesn’t try to explain himself. He doesn’t try to wiggle out or downplay the sin he has committed. Instead he confesses, “I have sinned against the Lord.”

We like to downplay sin and make it into something that we can live with. This makes sense because sin is something that we all do have to live with. Even the man after God’s own heart, King David, lived with it in a horrible way. But that doesn’t mean that we should downplay it. I found this little saying from Moody press, which talks about the seriousness of sin.

What is sin? We call it an accident, God calls it abomination. We call it a defect, God calls it a disease. We call it an error, God calls it an enmity. We call it a liberty, God calls it lawlessness. We call it a trifle, God calls it a tragedy. We call it a mistake, God calls it a madness. We call it a weakness, God calls it willfulness.

We all have certain blinders that we wear. Special glasses that help us to think that all we do is fine. These blinders allow us to come down hard on others and their sins. They allow us to point out the wrongs of the world around us. But we can continue to live in sin ourselves without realizing it, without accepting how much it truly affects us. David was lucky, he had a prophet come right to him and explain to him his sin in a way that he could understand, in a way that didn’t allow for him to make any excuses. We need the same thing. We need to be convicted of our sins, of our failings. We need to have our blinders taken off as we realize what it is that is keeping us from that proper relationship with God.

Once it was made known to him, David didn’t try to downplay his sin. Instead he admitted to it. He confessed it. He turned it over to God and put it in God’s hands. The sentence that David had proclaimed for this horrible act was death, and by admitting to the sin himself, he was accepting that punishment from God himself, but God showed mercy.

III. Forgiveness

Nathan responds to David’s confession by saying that the Lord has taken away his sin. God forgave David for what he had done. God didn’t take away the results of this sin, he didn’t take away the consequences, but he did forgive. David himself did not face death.

I don’t know which is harder for me to understand about this story and about David. Is it harder to understand why a man after God’s own heart could do such a grievous and horrible thing or is it harder to understand how God could forgive such an act? David let his power get to his head. He allowed his kingship to tell him that the rules didn’t apply to him. David messed up, he made a mistake, he had an accident. And people died because of his actions. He was corrupted by his power and if you continue to read the story of David, you discover that this event in David’s life leads to a very difficult time for David as his sons turn against each other and against him and he even needs to flee from his palace in Jerusalem to protect himself from his own son.

But David repented. David turned from his evil ways when his eyes were opened to them. And David found much needed forgiveness. The same is available for us. Though none of us are responsible for having someone killed wrongly, we all do have sins that our blinders help us to ignore. We all need the forgiveness that God offers. We all need to repent and turn from our sinful ways. God is good. Yes, there are consequences to the sins you commit, and God does not take away these consequences, but as God told David, he tells us, “The Lord has taken away your sin.” That’s what Jesus did for each of us on the cross. He hung there, taking away our sin and paying the price that we all owe.

So stop making excuses. Stop ignoring your conscience. Allow God to convict you of those problems in your life, those things that you need to change. And then allow God to forgive you and change you, allow him to make you whole. A forgiven life is a healthy life. A forgiven life is one lived without guilt. A forgiven life fills us with strength. Let yourself be filled with the strength and love that forgiveness brings. Give it to the Lord. Amen.