Lenten Vespers - The Gift of Absolution (3/11/26), Homily III
Primary Text | 2 Samuel 12:1-15
Catechetical Text | Small Catechism 4:19-20 “Which sins are these?”
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Dear People of God,
“You are the man!” (2 Sam. 12:7). God sent the prophet Nathan to David to give him a reality check. “You are the man!” Biting words of critique against David the king. David deserved to hear them. He did two things wrong. He killed a man, Uriah the Hittite. He had him killed so he could wrongfully take Uriah’s wife Bathsheba as his own wife. We got “You shall not murder” and “You shall not commit adultery” in one fell swoop. Two birds with one stone. “You are the man!” These are words of the law. Meant to convict David of sin. David truly fell from God into the swamp of his sins. The prophet Nathan correctly diagnosed the underlying problem with all of this; David has despised God’s word. Meaning, he even knew what he did was wrong, but still went ahead with it. Killing a man to steal a woman for himself. Now we might think we’ve never done something that bad. We haven’t committed murder. We haven’t committed adultery. But Jesus will tell us that to hate someone is to commit murder, to lust after someone is to commit adultery. Therefore, he wants to root out all the hatred and lust built up in our hearts—in order that it doesn’t fester and blight doesn’t rule over us—for a hateful heart is fertile ground for murder to be acted out, and a lustful heart is fertile ground for adultery to be acted out. So, it’s not just the act itself that is sin, but what leads to the act that is where sin begins.
Let us not be surprised when God points at us and says, “You are the man!” “You are the woman!” We might be able to hide it from others, but we can’t hide it from God. The law of God always accuses. It unveils the sin that we would very much like to hide. But does God do this to be a jerk? Does he not like us to be happy? Why must we worry about sin in the first place? God prods us because he loves us. When sin festers in our hearts it leads ultimately to death. So, it is good for each of us to reflect on our place in life in light of the Ten Commandments. Have I held God first place in my heart? Am I a mother? Am I a daughter? How have harmed someone else? How have I been unfaithful, or lazy? Have I neglected or wasted or injured anything? And soon enough you will find that you as well have fell deep into the swamp of your sins just as much as the next person. As Nathan confronted David, so God confronts you. So, God uses his word to convict you and me of sin. God holds up a mirror to our face to show us the ways we have loved ourselves more than God and more than our neighbor.
After having the wind knocked out of him by Nathan, David confessed his sin, “I have sinned against the LORD.” But what happens next is the most important part. Through the mouth of Nathan, God forgave David his sins, when Nathan said: “Now the LORD has put away your sin; you shall not die” (2 Sam. 12:13). So, this comes back to our theme of absolution. Which sins do you confess to your pastor? The ones that bother you, the ones that you know of. And if you wonder what they might be you have a whole Ten Commandments to give you a clue. Whatever you confess to me as your pastor I am bound in two ways. The first binding is on my lips. I must never divulge to anyone what you have confessed to me. The seal of confession is sacred. The second binding is on my tongue. What I must say. When you confess your sin to me, God binds me to speak in a particular way. In obedience to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for you, I forgive you your sins. So, whether you’ve killed a man, committed adultery, lusted after someone, hated someone, or despised the word of the LORD……through the pastor God graciously forgives you. And he wants to. For we can confess to God on our own as we do in the Lord’s Prayer. We can confess at the beginning of the church service. But God has provided you with a special gift—private absolution. So, if your sin bothers you and you feel terror in your heart, you have here in private absolution the whole forgiveness of God. The forgiveness is not my own voice but the voice of God himself. Here and now: I forgive you, dear people. You shall not die.