Sun Kwak, “Bathsheba: The Scandal of God” (Advent 2025)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyi8MnMBP8k

TEXT: 2 Samuel 11:1-5, 14-17, 26-27; 12:1-13

[1] In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel. And they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.

[2] It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful. [3] And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, “Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” [4] So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness.) Then she returned to her house. [5] And the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.”

[14] In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. [15] In the letter he wrote, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, that he may be struck down, and die.” [16] And as Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew there were valiant men. [17] And the men of the city came out and fought with Joab, and some of the servants of David among the people fell. Uriah the Hittite also died.

[26] When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she lamented over her husband. [27] And when the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD.

[1] And the LORD sent Nathan to David. He came to him and said to him, “There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. [2] The rich man had very many flocks and herds, [3] but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. And he brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children. It used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms, and it was like a daughter to him. [4] Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the guest who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.” [5] Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the LORD lives, the man who has done this deserves to die, [6] and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.”

[7] Nathan said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. [8] And I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more. [9] Why have you despised the word of the LORD, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. [10] Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ [11] Thus says the LORD, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. And I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. [12] For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.’” [13] David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” And Nathan said to David, “The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die.

SERMON: “Bathsheba — the Scandal of God”

There’s an experiment from the 1990’s known as and referred to as The Invisible Gorilla. In this experiment, a pre-recorded video is shown to a group of volunteers. And the video is about a group of people on a basketball court — one team dressed in black, the other in white. And what the viewers of this video were tasked to do was to count the number of passes amongst players on one of the teams. While this is happening, in the video, a woman dressed in this gorilla suit walks in and through the players, pounds her chest, and then walks off the court. All the while, the passing continues — before, d uring, and after this gorilla incident happens. And so after the video ends, the viewers are asked if they saw a gorilla in the video. And it turns out that half of the volunteers watching the video failed to see and to recall any gorilla at any point of the video, because their attention was given to the task at hand — in counting the number of passes. And this has come to be referred to as inattentional blindness. It happens when we’re hyper-fixated on a single detail or a particular mission. It happens when we enter situations with a particular bias. And it also often happens when we jump to conclusions and use presumptions or preconceived notions when looking into a situation. Today, we get to a story that often misses the gorilla because of preconceived conclusions with a misunderstanding of the text.

This story of David and Bathsheba has a reputation. If you were to ask most people — people both in the church and not in the church — what David and Bathsheba is about, they’ll most likely tell you that it’s about sexual sin and specifically adultery. And of course, they might mention something about murder and lies, which are also part of the plot. But here’s where I think we miss the gorilla. None of those things just mentioned are the main players in the plot, especially when read by the original readers. And the part that helps illuminate this, in my assessment, comes with Nathan’s confrontation. And this confrontation is about exposing David’s sin — what he was guilty of and had kept hidden. Because he tells this parable to King David not immediately after the event but close to a year after these enactments of adultery and murder and lies happen. And so, it’s reopening something that David thought he sealed shut. And it’s highlighting something that will catch David off guard. And so, in this parable that he unpacks, there are these two men — one was rich, the other was poor. The rich man had all of these animals under his care and possession, and the poor man had just one little ewe lamb. And so, into town came this traveler who the rich man wanted to show some hospitality to. But instead of taking one of his own animals, he takes the poor man’s special and precious one little ewe lamb that he cared for, raised up. And he takes this little ewe lamb and slaughters it in order to prepare a meal for this traveler. And it’s to this conclusion that Nathan asks David what should be done. And not only does David answer immediately, but it’s said that he was greatly angered. And he tells Nathan that the rich man deserved to die, which according commentators, was an extreme overreaction. Hebrew scholar Robert Alter notes that when David overreacts to this parable, he’s overcompensating because of his own guilt. And this whole overreaction is not too dissimilar to what we saw from Judah when we visited the story of Tamar.

Now, first things first. You think about this story, this parable that Nathan uses to convict David of his sin. And I want us think about why he used this particular parable. Take your preconceived thoughts out of it, and just consider the way the narrative is structured and written. What’s your immediate thought? Is it — Nathan obviously used this parable, because the sin that David needed to be convicted of was his sexual sin. I don’t think so. You’d be more inclined to say that the purpose of the parable was more so driving at the very least the injustice of rich exploiting the poor, and at the heart of it, power abuse. Now, we’re not excusing the sin of adultery, and we’re not saying that Bathsheba is without complete fault. But let’s not forget the main player here, let’s not miss the gorilla. Because the Bible doesn’t, as shown by this parable. Sure, when your child draws on the wall with a marker, the marker is involved. But the main perpetrator is not the marker. It’s that little four year old who thinks the world is his canvas. And here, like a lot of our contemporary spiritual leaders who have fallen morally in these past several years, David assumes too much of his authority. Because the invisible gorilla here is how David acted as king — as somebody who was supposed to protectand guard vulnerable people and those who needed his cover. Here, he exploited and unjustly treated another who was put under his care. And that’s where we want to dive into today, as we look into the fourth of the mothers of Jesusfound in the genealogy of Jesus Christ recorded in the first seventeen verses of the Gospel of Matthew. Because the criminal act of David was not just in engaging inappropriately with Bathsheba but in disregarding her as a fellow image bearer. And for Bathsheba, for David, for you, and for me, we look to a better king — one to whom David himself pointed and the one Bathsheba ultimately longed for.

Now, I want to preface what I’m going to share by saying that David was a great king. He was and became Israel’s most beloved king. And part of his greatness is reflected not through his moral uprightness per se but actually through how he reacts in moments of failure. He models for us what true confession, contrition, and repentance looks like. And the Psalm that he wrote in response to this confrontation by Nathan in Psalm 51 is the hallmark of what true repentancelooks like. But before we get there, what we have to state here is that what he did to Bathsheba was horrible. We can celebrate God’s grace, but it must not come at the expense of making less of sins. Because God has an incredible way of making right things that are horrible, through the means of confession and reconciliation and restoration. But it does not make what David did any less horrible. As one commentator put it, David compellingly breaks five out of the ten commandments in this one ordeal. Because there is coveting, there is adultery, there is stealing, there is murder, there are coverups, and there are lies and false testimony. But with great power comes great responsibility. And here, Davidfailed to use it charitably. But rather, he exploits another for his own benefit.

And just in case you think that Bathsheba was somehow seducing David or culpable of blame here, something Jen Wilkin says when teaching on the passage, she asks — When the king, the most powerful man in the land, tells you to come to his chambers, what choice do you have? And this is not to say that Bathsheba is without sin. But she’s not to blame in this situation. And consider with me here — what was Bathsheba doing? We often get the details mixed up, and we somehow picture it as Bathsheba out on the rooftop bathing out in the open. But that’s actually not what the text says. David is the one on the rooftop, but the text makes no mention of where Bathsheba is. But what does the text say? What does it actually highlight? We get this in parentheses, because the Hebrew text goes out of the way to inform us of this detail. We might call this a parenthetical inclusion. But it’s more like pumping the brakes in the narrative flow. It’s as if the author is trying to communicate something to us the readers before we got too carried away or miss the gorilla. Because it’s not just that Bathsheba was bathing. But in verse 4 we’re told — Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness. This was abiding to the ceremonial law for women to purify themselves after their menstrual cycle, to be made ceremonially clean and fit for community. Whatever you think about that law, what this description tells us is that Bathsheba was adhering to the law. Because the narrative provides stark contrasts, this literary tool we might call a foil. On one hand, there is a king who, according to verse 1, was not going to to battle as king, as kings were expected to do. Instead, he’s in the comforts of his palace, not engaging in his kingly duties. All the while, here is a woman who is abiding to the laws that God had set out for his covenant people and community. Right from the beginning, we’re being told — Don’t get it twisted. This is not Bathsheba’s doing. This is on David. The king who was supposed to guard and cover and fight with and for his people. And instead, here he is exploiting and taking advantage of those weaker than him.

When you look over at the description of Bathsheba as one of the mothers of Jesus over in Matthew 1:6, her name isn’t actually mentioned. Rather, she’s referred to as the wife of Uriah. And here in 2 Samuel 11, her name is mentioned in verse 3 but not again until the next chapter all the way down in ch12v24. Not because she’s not involved, but because providing a name in Hebrew writings was to highlights one’s importance, significance, and dignity. But here, she’s left nameless, because she’s been utterly dehumanized. In fact, the only time her name is mentioned is in relation to her father and to her husband Uriah. But when described next to David, she’s merely the woman. The woman that David exploited. Because the place where the description of Bathsheba as the wife of Uriah that Matthew 1:6 takes cues from and directs our attention to is in 2 Samuel 11:26-27: “When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she lamented over her husband. And when the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD.”

There’s a British TV show Blue Lights, and in one of the episodes, a pair of police officers respond to an emergency callmade from a certain home. And it was in response to a young daughter who called the police and seemed to be asking for help before hanging up the phone. The officers approach the home, and the father of the home answers. And upon being asked of his awareness of someone calling the police from the home, he denies that there were any calls made from the home. And when pressed further, he lets it known to them immediately that he’s also in law enforcement, in fact, a chief, the highest ranking officer in a given department. Kind of a power play, if you will. But because of a hunch, one of the the police officers — the woman — insist on coming into the home in order to speak to the young daughter. And as they enter the home, things just don’t feel right. Kids are hiding behind the bannister and observing, the mother seems to comply to everything that the father wants, acting of our fear. But when the female officer presses further into wanting to speak to the child, the father doesn’t let his daughter talk but speaks on her behalf, saying that she was just playing with the phone and called on accident. Leaving her voiceless in the situation. But as the officers are leaving the home, the mother asks — Excuse me? What did you say your name was again? Angela? Her name was Ashley, but that wasn’t the point. Because Angela is common code for asking for help when someone feels unsafe. Asking for one to intervene, to come into the danger and to rescue them from this place of helplessness.

When you look at the story of Bathsheba, the only words that come out from her is that she is pregnant. She laments over Uriah’s death, but in many ways, she’s not given any words in this whole ordeal with David. And she may have felt silenced. But in her lamenting, she wasn’t unheard. Because it displeased the LORD what David had done. And take note of how the narrative is constructed. Immediately after this, what do we get? The confrontation of Nathan. Godproviding a voice to speak into the scenario. Because you look at Nathan’s confrontation. And it’s almost a year after this whole incident of adultery and murder and covering up occurred. And when it seemed that Bathsheba was merely exploited and then left silenced, here is God who burst into the narrative, breaking the silence and reversing the script. Because you look at what David does in wronging Bathsheba and Uriah. The text tells us — he sent Joab, he sent and inquired about the woman, he sent messengers and took her, he sent word to Joab to send him Uriah, who he would then send back. He sent a letter to Joab, to kill Uriah. Over and over, there is this sending that David does in his abuse of power — to covet, to commit adultery, to steal, to murder, and to lie. And after almost a year of silence, God reverses the script in chapter 12 — And the LORD sent Nathan to David. To speak on behalf of Bathsheba, to step into the danger, to respond to the lamenting and cries and to one who was unjustly treated. That it wasn’t going to be David’ssinning and speaking over Bathsheba that was going to write her story. But ultimately, it would God himself who would speak on her behalf, to write her into his story of grace.

Because in one of those first acts of sending, we read in verse 4 that David took her and he lay with her. And that act of taking was something that Samuel had warned Israel of when they were asking for a king like all the nations back in 1 Samuel 8. Repeatedly, he warns them about these earthly and imperfect kings. He will take your sons. He will take your daughters. He will take the best of your fields. He will take the tenth of your grain. He will take your male servants. He will take your female servants. He will take the tent of your flocks. Over and over, it’s emphasized that these kings would take. And it’s something David likewise does. But as the God who reverses the narrative, for Bathsheba, for David, and for you, and for me, he enters the plot. And instead of king who takes, God gives to us the king who would ultimately give. He who did not spare his Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also with him graciously give us all things? God ultimately acts, and he sends to us the better Nathan and the better David. The Word who became flesh and the King who would not take but give his life so that we might have ours. He who the Father would not be displeased with but would announce from the heavens. This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased. Who God sent to respond to our cries, to our pleas, to our laments. To make everything right and new. To do away with all the bad and wicked things in this world. Because there would another late afternoon, where one would be uncovered. But this time, the king wasn’t on his rooftop, but rather pinned on the cross. And it wasn’t he who was viewing another exposed but he himself who was exposed and ashamed, naked on the cross — in our place, in our stead, in protection of the vulnerable, that we might have his gospel cover. Because unlike David, he didn’t send his servants to fight his battle. But in his final words to Pontius Pilate, in his kingdom, he fights for us. On the frontlines and into the certainty of his death when hanging on the cross. And it’s to him we fix our eyes — not in lust or exploitation. But because he is the true king who came to our danger and rescued us. Join us for our Lessons and Carols service on Christmas Eve for our final installment of our series here looking at the mothers of Jesus, as we look at Mary and her role in birthing Jesus into this world.