Paul Tournier once told about a man who walked through the streets of his city in Europe, saying, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” We can live life apologetically. What was the biggest mistake of your life? How often do you rehearse it? Can you ever atone for it?
Looking at David’s life, we might consider his sin with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah as his worst mistake. Certainly, that mistake wreaked havoc in his own family. Still, counting the armies of Israel cost more lives. David wanted to take pride in the armies he had assembled. His own men warned him not to do it. Pride goes before a fall. God struck the country with a plague.
When David saw the ensuing plague which was destroying his people, he went up to make an offering at the threshing floor of Araunah. Araunah said, “I’ll give you the land.” David said, “I won’t give God an offering that costs me nothing.” When David offered a costly sacrifice the plague stopped. Later his son Solomon would build the temple on that very spot. The wailing wall and the temple mount are on that same piece of property today.
Sin always takes us farther than we want to go, keeps us longer than we want to stay and costs us more than we want to pay. Our sin not only costs us, but it cost God everything. When our sin was out of control, he sent his only Son who died on another hill in that same range of mountains. Jesus climbed Golgotha carrying his cross and paid the supreme price to atone for our sins. He gave God the sacrifice that cost him everything to propitiate his Father. This means we can be forgiven the worst mistakes of our lives, because Jesus was forsaken on that cross.
