“You Are the Man”
By Rev. Dr. Jason Byassee
Sunday, February 22, 2026
Reading: 2 Samuel 12:1-9, 12-13a
I’m going to start with something I hope you find shocking. There are some things in our faith that Jesus can’t help us with. Really. For example, he can’t help us with dating or marriage. No evidence he engaged in either. If you find me a book called Dating Secrets from Jesus, it’d better be blank. We probably don’t want to go to him for financial advice either. He mostly says to give money away. If the tax man cometh, catch a fish with a coin in its mouth. And he entrusts the twelve’s finances to the guy who likes to steal. So, more input on money than on dating, but we probably wouldn’t let him on the investment committee. Then the topic for today: Jesus is no help for how to repent. Because he never sins. So, if we want guidance on how to repent, we’ll have to look elsewhere. Not to worry, all the rest of us sin, so we’ll find plenty of examples to draw from.
Our Lenten series this year is called: “How to repent.” For the next six weeks or so we will focus on stories of repentance. “Repent” is one of those words religious types use and non-religious types shrink from. But it’s a good word. It has good news in it. It’s a geographical term. You use it offering directions. It just means “turn around.” Go another way. Divert. It suggests you have options. You may turn around. There is another way to go. It’s not like the Irishman asked for directions by a tourist, who says ‘ooh, you can’t get there from here.’ No, there is a way to go, a hopeful way, a lifegiving way, let’s get started as soon as possible.
The early church began the observation of Lent for 40 days before Easter. The idea was to prepare ourselves spiritually for Christ’s passion and death, so we could enter more fully into his resurrection. All Christians know about these things abstractly in our heads: Christ was betrayed, judged, condemned, all for us. Lent allows us to experience them. To step into them. To take part in them. So, I encourage each of us to do something this Lent to take part in Christ’s suffering. Pray every day without exception. Go without something you really like. I remember visiting a friend in London with a great liquor cabinet. He offered me none. It’s Lent. Here’s some water. Grrr. A silly small thing. And most of life is silly and small ultimately. In some minor way, disciplining ourselves lets us enter more deeply into Christ’s life. And that’s the most joyous thing there is.
Forty is a magic number in our faith. The Israelites are lost in the desert 40 years before God delivers us to the promised land. Jesus fasts in the desert 40 days before the devil tempts him. Years, days, doesn’t matter. Forty is the key. Some expert said it takes 28 days to make a new habit. So, whatever we do in Lent, will be hard to change back. In general, we don’t talk about discipline enough in church. We’re afraid to sound morose or judgy. But being a disciple just means submitting to discipline. Being Christ’s follower means we let him change us. Takes time and effort. Like anything else worth doing. And for the more mathematically fastidious among us: you are correct, it is more than 40 days from Ash Wednesday to Easter. Because Sundays don’t count. Whatever you give up, you can indulge on Sundays; whatever new discipline you take up, take a break for the sabbath. It’s the Lord’s Day, the day of resurrection, no frowny faced repentance allowed on Sundays (even if Canada loses).
How to repent then, from King David. David’s is the disappointing career arc that runs the wrong way. Normally we want someone to start out slowly and then get better and retire at their best. David starts out great and then gets worse. Early in his life he defeats Goliath and delivers Israel from its enemies. He plays music for the mad king Saul and relieves him of his agony. But then later in life, David gets worse. Israel’s greatest soldier won’t soldier. Right before our text, “In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab ...” (2 Sam 11:1). Hold it right there. David’s greatness is his leadership in battle. But now, when it’s time to go soldiering, David sleeps in. “It happened, late one afternoon, when David rose from his couch” (2 Sam 11:2) With nothing better to do, David emerges from hibernation, then eyes Bathsheba, sends for her, and lies with her. David’s hustle had been the secret to his greatness. Now he’s sleeping till late afternoon and “sending” for other people’s wives.
Watch out for sloth. Pretty soon you’ll be murdering people.
Bathsheba becomes pregnant, and her husband Uriah the Hittite has been at the front, where David has been absent. Calling him a Hittite means he’s a foreigner. This foreigner not one of God’s people, is serving faithfully, Israel’s king is not serving at all. David sends for Uriah in hopes he’ll go lie with his wife and think the baby is his, just born a little early. But Uriah won’t go (2 Sam. 11:11).
The ark and Israel and Judah remain in booths, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field; shall I then go to my house to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife? As you live and as your soul lives, I will not do such a thing.
David tries again, gets Uriah drunk this time, but Uriah drunk is more faithful than David is sober, he won’t go home. So, David sends him to the front with an order for the army to attack with Uriah exposed, then pull back so he’ll be killed. He sends the death order by Uriah’s own hand, knowing he’ll be faithful and not read it. When Uriah dies, David says, (2 Sam 11:25): “Do not let this matter trouble you, for the sword devours now one and now another; press your attack on the city and overthrow it.”
The king promptly marries Bathsheba, and figures all’s well that ends well. And it would have been. If only there were no judgment from God, who sees all, and will make all things right.
For those of you keeping score at home, David has now coveted another’s spouse and committed adultery, that’s two of the big ten, he’s lied to cover it up, a third broken commandment, then committed murder, commandment number four broken. David figures he’s above the law. The law is for little people and not for him. Sound like anybody else we know? Don’t answer that.
Perhaps this story doesn’t apply to us over much. Not too many kings in here who wield this kind of power. But I think we can see how sinning one way begets sinning another. You tell one lie, then another, then you can’t remember which lie you told to whom. So sure, none of us is foolish enough to think we have absolute power, but all of us have some power. How do we wield it? David was once ready to anything for God’s glory. Now he murders to protect his own reputation.
Then his prophet Nathan visits with what seems like a legal case for the king to rule on. David trusts Nathan. And he hears a parable. There’s a rich man with countless sheep. And a poor neighbour with one little lamb. The lamb sleeps in the poor man’s bed, eats from his table, it’s like a daughter. When a guest comes, the rich man doesn’t slaughter one of his countless animals, he takes the poor man’s one lamb and prepares it. David roars with outrage, this man should die! (2 Sam 12:7) And Nathan responds, “You are the man.” ... And David does what? He could kill Nathan. Ignore him. Throw him out of court. Instead, David repents. Goes another way. (2 Sam 12:13) “I have sinned against the Lord.” And how. The one who had been a champion in war, in ruling, now becomes a champion in repentance. And a model for the rest of us.
I have talked to people who think their sins are too much for God. Just look at what I’ve done, there’s no repairing that. That’s why we have stories like this: about coveting, adultery, lying, and murder. King David himself is forgiven. Not without cost—the child with Bathsheba dies, David’s household is convulsed with violence. Sin is never private; it has costs beyond oneself. But David’s life is spared. His son Solomon still becomes king. There is mercy baked into judgment here. We remember David mostly positively, maybe too positively in our faith. So, unless you’ve out-sinned King David, don’t talk to me of your sin being too much for God. God is in the forgiveness business. That’s the church’s whole reason for existing, to make that truth known: God loves to forgive sins.
But two, I think more of us are like a certain president south of the border. Asked any sins he’s guilty of, Trump couldn’t think of any. Easy to make fun of. But if I have to think about my own sins, too, I come up a little short. Don’t ask those close to me, they’ll have a long list ready. We tend to grade ourselves on the curve but throw the book at others. That’s why Nathan’s parable is so effective. David falls right into the prophet’s trap. Old Testament law had said a thief has to make restitution four-fold; David insists on that. But David adds that the perpetrator deserves to die. He’s used his power for his own gratification and to abuse a weaker person. So too, Nathan charges, have you done. Uriah was a good servant of God and the king, and you took his one treasure, his beautiful wife, and killed him. God has given you the throne, all of Israel, and if you wanted more all you had to do was ask, but instead you wanted to seize whatever caught your eye. The Hebrew verbs in this story are variants on “take,” or “seize.” In other words, David is portrayed as a rapist. That’s probably a harsher word in English than even “murderer,” isn’t it?
One of you asked in Bible study, okay, don’t we call David “a man after God’s own heart” (1 Sam 13:14). That was early David, scrappy, out of power, reliant-on-God David. This is older lazy ruling King David. Power has corrupted, as it does.
Couple of lessons here: one, don’t be surprised at anyone’s sins. If King David is capable of this, who is incapable of evil? Our first parents, Adam and Eve, disobeyed right out of the gate, one son murdered another, and we human beings have not covered ourselves in glory since. David is the first king over a united Israel. There’ll only be one more, Solomon, before the kingdom is divided, and then both north and south are defeated and carried off, 10 tribes to disappear, two go into exile. When these stories are written down, these events are long in the past. Israel is pondering the sins of its founding fathers. David was great, but he had blood on his hands. A lot of it. That’s why God doesn’t let him build the temple.
We in the west have just come through a moment of cultural reckoning with the sins of our past honoured leaders. Taking down statues, changing names of institutions. I’m from the US south where we had thousands of statues honouring Confederate soldiers, put up not after the Civil War, but in the 1950s and 60s, in opposition to Civil Rights. I get the impulse for some or all of those to come down. But John A. Macdonald, Egerton Ryerson, Henry Dundas? Tougher call. A friend of mine suggests we could have covered those memorials up. A step short of destroying them, more of a pause, so we can consider their legacy at leisure. Egerton Ryerson, great Methodist leader, had an Ojibwe name, Cheechalk, learned some of the language, was loved like a brother by Peter Jones, the great Welsh and Ojibwe Methodist preacher. Ryerson also designed Canada’s school system, based on Sunday School, that ultimately yielded the residential schools. But it also yielded the public schools we’re proud of today. Here’s the problem: we have acted like those we honour should be above reproach. We’ll find no one to honour that way. All sin and fall short of the glory of God. Today we have few public resources with which to talk about forgiveness, restoration, reconciliation. You can only name so many things after Gandhi or Mandela. And beloved as anyone is, no one is without fault. One indigenous Christian friend says they didn’t destroy the John A. Macdonald sculpture in one instance; they just put Macdonald in timeout for a moment. I like the image. But do we, as a culture, have the capacity to judge well and decide when or if he comes out of timeout? Who could ever be above reproach and worthy of honour? And couldn’t these decisions be better made in the light of day, rather than by mobs at night?
It seems I have your attention now.
Three things this story says, Lent says, repentance says. One, never be surprised by the depth of human sin. Those who claim to be most innocent are usually hiding something. This is true of preachers like me, civic leaders, business and entertainment ones, the works. If our beloved King David is a rapist and murderer, why would we be surprised when others turn out rotten too?
But two, this is harder. We’re cynical so we get the first point, this one is more dangerous. Never be surprised by the depths of God’s mercy. If God can make something out of a sinner like David, what can God make out of you or me? If our sin and rottenness are deep, God’s grace is deeper still.
Where I used to teach, we had lots of students from other religions, and my Christian colleague and I were riffing on this theme. Lots of our best friends are murderers. King David. Moses killed that Egyptian soldier. Paul of Tarsus killed all those Christians. And a Buddhist student stopped us: are you guys serious right now? Well, we’re being playful about it, but yes, God’s forgiveness is scandalous. She said, ‘you Christians need to tell people that, it’s good news!’ That’s evangelism: this news is too good to keep to ourselves. I got to know a church in Newcastle England that ministered among prisoners, ex-offenders. The pastor told me the chair of his board did time for murder, the treasurer was locked up for embezzlement—he had a keen eye for anyone else trying to cook the books. Church can get weird, can’t it? It’s because God’s mercy is so weird. Would that Christians be known as the mercy people again.
And three, Lent, how to repent. This is a season when we focus on our sins, and we seek to live in another way, a good way. Lent’s not a diet, breaking a diet one day in seven won’t work. Lent is when we align our lives with Christ’s. So, if there’s something painful in your life, see it as Christ’s cross: heavy, but carrying it makes you more like him. If there’s not something painful, well, I invite you to take on a cross. Not just avoiding sweets, though that might be good for some of us. But serving the poor. Getting to know a prisoner or ex-offender. Telling the truth even when it’s painful. At Yom Kippur our Jewish elder siblings ponder what they’ve done in the past year and ask forgiveness. An editor of a book I wrote apologized that he’d taken so long to get back to me. Great, I forgive you. Then he said right, this book is unacceptable at present... ouch. It got better under his tutelage. Remember when I forgave you? Can I take that back?
I’ve been taking to quoting Anne Tyler novels lately in sermons. In her book Saint Maybe a character has passed a rumour on to his brother that led to his brother taking his own life. Turns out the rumour is false, and he’s committed fratricide, not legally but morally. He seeks out a storefront Pentecostal preacher to ask if he’s forgiven. Oh, heavens no. It’s not as easy as that. Didn’t you say there are orphans now? Perhaps offer to raise those children who would otherwise be parentless. But what about my freedom? Freedom is doing the right thing young man. Forgiveness is free, not cheap. Mercy is severe. For Jesus it requires his cross. For David it’s an earthquake that reverberates in Israel for centuries. But there is life at the other end of it. I promise.
To conclude let me invite you to pray with me David’s words: one of our worst sinners, and so one of our most scandalously forgiven saints.
Have mercy on us, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out our transgressions. Wash us thoroughly from our iniquity and cleanse us from our sin! For we know our transgressions, and our sin is ever before us. Against you, you only, have we sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Hide your face from our sins and blot out all our iniquities.
Create in us a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within us.
Cast us not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from us.
Restore to us the joy of your salvation, and uphold us with a willing spirit.
For you will not delight in sacrifice, or we would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
Our sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.