2 Samuel 7:1-16 | Göttinger Predigten im Internet

The Fourth Sunday in Advent, 24 December 2023 | 2 Samuel 7:1-16 | Samuel D. Zumwalt, STS |

Now when the king lived in his house and the LORD had given him rest from all his surrounding enemies, 2 the king said to Nathan the prophet, “See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent.” 3 And Nathan said to the king, “Go, do all that is in your heart, for the LORD is with you.” 4 But that same night the word of the LORD came to Nathan, 5 “Go and tell my servant David, ‘Thus says the LORD: Would you build me a house to dwell in? 6 I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling. 7 In all places where I have moved with all the people of Israel, did I speak a word with any of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?”’ 8 Now, therefore, thus you shall say to my servant David, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel. 9 And I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. 10 And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall afflict them no more, as formerly, 11 from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. And I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the LORD declares to you that the LORD will make you a house. 12 When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, 15 but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. 16 And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.’”

HOLY KEYS: BUILT

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our Plans

King David was feeling very good about himself. He had united the 12 tribes of Israel and captured the Jebusite city of Jerusalem making it his capital. He had conquered all his enemies and built for himself a marvelous palace. With all of his successes, the king was feeling very magnanimous. Here, he had a nice place, but poor old God only had a lousy tent for a dwelling place, a curtained tent for the Ark of the Covenant, whose lid was called the mercy seat. So, David decided he would give God a proper house made of cedar. Wouldn’t that make a nice addition to the royal palace? Wouldn’t God like to have the king for his next door neighbor?

When the king told Nathan the prophet his plans for God, Nathan gave him the thumbs up: “Go, do all that is in your heart, for the LORD is with you.” Who knows whether Nathan thought it was a splendid idea or if the prophet just wanted to stay on the king’s good side? Perhaps Nathan even thought to himself, “Well, he is the LORD’s king. It’s high time he acted like it by sinking some serious money into a building for God. After all, we aren’t nomads anymore.” The key observation is Nathan spoke before the word of the LORD came to him. Then, it surely did.

God told Nathan to go back to the king with a different word than he had given. “So, ask David, ‘Would you build me a house to dwell in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling.’” In short, “Have I ever asked any of my previous shepherds to build me a house?” Then, God told Nathan to remind the king all that he had done by making David a prince over his people. Note the word choice. God is the real King. David is only a prince. Every success that David was enjoying was God’s doing, and the LORD was still the King.

Isn’t David like one of us at the most basic level? Sure, he’s a king with a resume to match any of the great ones living today. But, don’t the people of God often make plans we’re sure God would like? Oh, we make fun of the TV preacher that said God wanted him to have a Gulfstream jet or of those megachurch stars with their grandiose TV studio rooms. We cluck our tongues at those who have gone bankrupt from plans that exceeded their wallets. And we shake our heads at the arrogance of wider church leaders who decide to make plans for a congregation’s future based upon coveting assets that are God’s, not theirs. We can see the godless planning of others, including David, but do we dream big dreams for God as if we had a Nathan in our own pocket?

Wouldn’t it be great if we only had to be humbled once in life? Think instead of Isaiah 55:9, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Man proposes, but God deposes. Like David, we learn through failure, whether public or private, that God will be God. He doesn’t need our plans. He has His own.

God’s Plan

From the beginning, God’s plan was that His people would serve Him by serving each other. Everything was perfect in Paradise. Work was good as they tended God’s garden. His peoples’ relationship with each other was egalitarian. God was their maker and owner. They were His creatures. There was no sickness, no sin, and no death They knew no evil. Then, they rebelled against God, lost Paradise, lost intimacy with each other, and sin, death, and evil was their lot.

Everything went to hell in a hurry after that, and God decided to start over with Noah and his family and (take note of the science) a male and female of each species. But the human heart was curved in upon itself, and soon people were planning again to make a name for themselves by climbing up to God. Our plans failed. So, God called Abraham and Sarah, made of them a great nation, blessed them, and promised them the land. But they failed, as did their descendants.

Reading the Bible with ourselves at the center, we chop it up into bite-sized pieces, so we can figure out what we’re supposed to be doing. We come up with slogans like “God’s work. Our hands,” which, again, is mostly about our plans that, like David, we’re sure God endorses. It all becomes a morality play in which we ask, “How can I be more like Abraham and Sarah? How am I supposed to be more like King David at his best and not at his worst?” It’s not God’s plan.

God’s plan from before the foundation of the world was not unknown to God. As Paul writes today, the preaching of Jesus Christ is the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages” (Romans 16:25). Today’s philosophers who imagine that God doesn’t know what He is going to do until He does it have created a god in their own frail image, a god malleable to their plans, a god who is the clay and over which they are the potter. NO! God had a plan to send His Son, because the only way to free His rebellious creatures from sin, death, and the devil was to be the Child promised to Abraham and Sarah and, more to the point today, to be the forever Messiah from David’s family. The LORD Jesus’ biological connection to David was through the Virgin Mary. His legal connection to David and Abraham was through her husband Joseph.

God’s plan to restore His creatures to Paradise could only be accomplished by His Son Jesus, the Word of God made flesh. Without sharing our humanity, He could not save us by taking our death sentence upon Himself and by being the blood sacrifice for our sins. Without sharing divinity with His Father and the Holy Spirit, the LORD Jesus could not restore us by our Baptism into His saving death and His glorious resurrection from the dead. But God’s victory has already been won on the cross by the saving death of His Son Jesus Christ. Baptized into His death and resurrection, we have the promise that we will be raised bodily to live in imperishable bodies in a new heaven and a new earth. God’s plan is that everyone might live in Paradise. The Bible begins and ends with His people living in Paradise serving Him by serving each other.

God’s Building Work

God didn’t need David’s plan. God didn’t want to be God in the box at David’s beck and call. Rather, God the Shepherd King chose a shepherd boy to be His prince. God would do the leading even when to others it might look as if David were in charge. God promised to build David a house, an everlasting dynasty, but God would remain the everlasting King over His people. The LORD Jesus is the forever Messiah born of the Virgin Mary, born in the humblest of dwellings.

On this 4^th Sunday in Advent, the LORD Jesus comes to the baptized people in the earthly stuff of bread and wine, which becomes for us His true Body and most precious Blood. He enters us in the humblest of ways like all the other things we consume and expel, except the LORD Jesus comes to inhabit us, to be the cornerstone of our lives, to build us into His house, the Body of Christ in the world and extending forever into eternity. Think again of the children’s Advent prayer of which Pastor Hoyer reminds us annually: “Come into my heart, Lord Jesus. There’s room in my heart for you.” But let’s expand upon that. “Come into my head, Lord Jesus. There’s room in my head for you.” And, “Come into my hands, my feet, my wallet, my calendar, my plans, into every fiber of my being, Lord Jesus. There’s room in all of me for you.” Our hands are empty, waiting to be filled with God Himself, the Word made flesh for us and our salvation.

As you go from the LORD’s table today, baptized people, don’t forget that you haven’t just remembered Jesus and what He once did. You will have received Jesus, who goes with you and me to live as ones to whom He has spoken forgiveness and as ones whom He has claimed to be built up as His dwelling place. There is no greater Gift than Jesus Christ. Having received Him, you are an integral part of God’s plan. Don’t give your loved ones anything less. You need Jesus. They need Jesus. Pray for them. Invite them. God’s plan is for the whole world. Give them Jesus.

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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szumwalt@bellsouth.net

St. Matthew’s Evangelical Lutheran Church

Wilmington, North Carolina USA