This morning’s entry from the Mockingbird Devotional comes from Sean Norris.
Nathan said to David, “You are the man!” (2 Samuel 12:7, NIV)
Life is a game of denial. In fact, I would argue that most of the things we fill our day with are, or at least can be, tools for denial. Work, play, shopping, television, relationships, hobbies, philosophies—anything can be used to manipulate the reality of things gone wrong. It would not be too far to say that Christianity itself has often been used as a tool of reality-rejection.
People often have a sober view of themselves around the time of their conversion. They are confronted with the reality of their need for help, and like Saul on the road to Damascus, they fall off their horse and cry out for mercy from the Lord. This sobriety, however, proves fleeting. Old habits die hard, and we return to striving against reality faster than you can say pickle. Almost as soon as we become Christians, we start the business of working Jesus out of a job.
Consider David. We often look at him as an example of humility and dependence upon God. He suffered greatly while being persecuted under King Saul, and he was keenly aware of his need for God’s grace. But when Nathan comes to him, he is now the king of Israel, the chosen one of God, the “man after God’s own heart.” Nathan comes to him and tells him a story of betrayal, deceit, and murder and asks David to judge the fate of the perpetrator in the tale. An amazing thing happens: David is so disconnected from himself that he promptly and indignantly dispenses a harsh judgment upon the guy in Nathan’s story. Then the anvil falls. David has taken the bait, as it were, and Nathan delivers the crushing reality to which David is blind: “You are the man!”
There is no wiggle room here. There is no compromise due to his kingship. There is simply the pointing of the finger; the definitive, indisputable reality that David is the guilty man. This “man after God’s own heart” is the adulterer, murderer, betrayer, liar, and denier. (Aside: Isn’t it interesting that often, like David, the qualities you react to most harshly in someone else are also true of you?)
We are just like David. We are okay with the fact that we are the guilty ones until we are the chosen ones, but no one wants to face the fact that we continue to be the guilty ones afterward. In becoming Christians we often think our deceit and pride have (or should have) been arrested. But just like David, our denial cannot last. No matter how hard we resist it, we will always be brought face-to-face with the mirror. God’s Law, which demands absolute perfection, will always catch up to us. After all, it is written on our hearts that Nathan’s words are true.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R2NrV4ve1o&w=600]
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5 responses to “Hopelessly Devoted: Second Samuel Chapter Twelve Verse Seven”
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This is so good, so awful, and so helpful, because it does not rush in with the “grace” answer, falling all over itself to provide a “pastoral” response, before the reality, our reality, is even fully exposed. This is why Michel Houellebecq is currently my favorite preacher…the ugly realities of life, my life, must be fully embraced, or the “gospel” very quickly starts to sound to me more like saccharine words than “comfortable words”.
I’m not familiar with Michel Houellebecq… Could you point me to a website please?
Houellebecq (pronounced sort of like “wellbeck”) is not really a “preacher”, except in the same way Nathan was a preacher to David and Aristophanes was a preacher to 5th century b.c. Athens. He is a French novelist, primarily, and the most celebrated and hated man in contemporary French literature. He is an atheist who, in his latest novel, The Map and the Territory, gives an account of his own murder followed by the revelation that he had been baptized 2 months before his death, to the dismay of his readers. In translation, his books include Whatever, The Possibility of an Island, and The Map etc. He is brutally graphic when it comes to descriptions of “reality” as he sees it. I think that he can be hilarious, but I have a very sick ironic sense of humor.
Thanks! Sounds fascinating! I’ll have to add him to my summer reading list.
“Irony won’t save you from anything; humour doesn’t do anything at all. You can look at life ironically for years, maybe decades; there are people who seem to go through most of their lives seeing the funny side, but in the end, life always breaks your heart. Doesn’t matter how brave you are, or how reserved, or how much you’ve developed a sense of humour, you still end up with your heart broken. That’s when you stop laughing.”
― Michel Houellebecq, The Elementary Particles