A Time of Assurance
University Baptist Church, Columbus, Ohio
I. Introduction
- There are very few things in our world of which we can be sure – according to Benjamin Franklin, the only certain things are death and taxes – I am not complaining – this is the way the world is – I remember the United States Bicentennial celebrations in 1976, and I remember thinking what a long time 200 years is – but in the whole span of human history, 200 years is not even a blink of an eye – the Roman Empire stood for nearly 1000 years – other empires and nations have existed for even longer periods than that
- The buildings we humans build, the monuments we erect, we think, “Ah, this will be here long after we are gone” – and often they do remain after their builders have faded out of memory – but eventually everything will fall – earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust
- But before it all began and after it all ends, God is – this is a consistent testimony of the Hebrew and Christian Bible – and God’s existence also means God’s consistent, enduring, unending love for us and for all of creation
- This word of assurance is at the heart of our text today from the Hebrew Bible
II. Assuring King and People
- Very rarely does anyone write history while it is happening – usually, we write about events long enough after the fact for us to begin to process the events in historical terms – so, too, with this biblical text – the historians of ancient Israel and Judah did not write their texts until the elites of the people were in exile in Babylon – and when we keep that in mind, we begin to see how important this text would have been to God’s people
- David is, of course, the model king, the epitome of a faithful king – faithful to God and faithful to the people – the time of David’s reign was so powerful in the memory of the Hebrew people that it became the representation of the reign of God’s anointed, of Messiah – in looking forward to the reign of Messiah, the people looked backward to the reign of David – it was a time of relative peace, a time when the enemies of Israel had gone down to defeat or were otherwise occupied with greater nations, a time when Israel was able to secure and even to expand the borders – while we would not call Israel under David an empire or even a particularly large nation, the nation did reach the height of its glory and power under David and his son Solomon
- The interesting thing is that David was so wonderful in the national memory, but he was not a very nice person and he was a lousy parent – you know the stories of David – I will not rehearse them now – they are all there in the same books where we read of how much God and David delight in each other – but here is one time when David wanted to do a thing and God said “No”
- David is looking around himself and he likes what he sees – his nation is more or less free from outside threat – he is a settled man in a nice, comfortable palace made of cedar – the ark is back in the safekeeping of Israel, but it sits in a tent – David thinks this is not a good thing – the primary symbol of the presence of God with Israel rests in a tent – the gods of all the other nations around Israel have fancy temples – they are impressive buildings, many of them, buildings worthy of a god – but a tent – that just makes Israel’s God look small – and it does not make Israel, or Israel’s king, look very impressive either – so David comes up with a solution to the problem – he, David, will build a house for God – then everything will be peachy – David tells the prophet, Nathan, about his plans, and the prophet tells the king to do it – he tells David that he should do just as he has planned, that God is with David – it seems that Nathan is only half right
- That night, as the historians tell the story, God speaks to Nathan and says to tell David to slow down – who does David think he is to build a house for God? – now, in I Kings 5, when Solomon is telling Hiram, the king of Tyre in Lebanon, about building a temple, Solomon says that David could not build it because he was too busy making war on his enemies – but here, the reason seems to be that God does not like closed spaces – that is awfully flippant, but what God tells the prophet is that God does not need a house – from the time in the wilderness on, God has moved about with the people – as God has moved among the people God has never said to any of them that God wants a house – so forget the house already
- The message seems to be that God is free to act, to move, to be – in a sense a house would be too confining, not for God, but for the people – if the people identify God too closely with a particular place, then they cannot see that God moves, that God has no limits
- In fact, this was one of the problems that the people in Babylon had – their idea of God was bound tightly with the temple, and it took them a while in Babylon to realize that they could worship God anywhere, that God was with them everywhere
- After God tells the prophet that David will not build a house for God, God goes on to say that God will build a house for David and that God will establish David’s house forever
III. A Time for Assurance
- As we have moved through Advent, we have shared messages from the school of the prophet Isaiah, messages of comfort and of justice and righteousness – as we live in this text today, I hear a message of assurance
- Of course, understanding why this is a text for Advent seems relatively straightforward – history tells us that David’s house eventually fell, that a time came when there was not even a nation of Israel or Judah any longer – Christians have then read the text and spiritualized it – many Christians have said that even though David’s physical and geographical dynasty ended, his spiritual house continues in the presence of the Christian traditions – that Jesus, as a descendent of David continues David’s house in a spiritual sense by sending the Holy Spirit to live in and through followers of Jesus – for myself, I do not think that is what the promise and covenant with David are about – you can decide what you think
- I think that the promise that God makes to David, the promise that sustained God’s people in Babylon, is the assurance that God moves with the people wherever they go
- To assure the exiles that God moved with them, the historians of ancient Judah looked to the past – they reckoned that if God had been with the king and the people then, God would be with the people in their distress in Babylon
- The message of assurance is the same for us – through the ministry of Jesus, God assures us that God is with us always and everywhere – and not only that, but God assures us that God is always leading us – God does not leave us to fumble our way through life alone – God persuades us, God encourages us, God guides us – in addition to Advent being a time of comfort and justice and righteousness, the message of assurance is another dimension of Advent – Advent is a time for assurance – Emmanuel, says our banner, God is with us
IV. Conclusion
- Advent is almost over – the celebration of the coming of Jesus into the world is nearly here – as we move through these last days of Advent, let us move with the assurance that we move with God and that God moves with us, every step of the way
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Tags: II Samuel 7.1-11 and 16
