Uriah, a better man than the King.

    Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.   This morning's devotion was the classic tale of David and Bathsheba.  Every time I re-read this story, my mind goes back to Hebrew class at Seward with Dr. Meehl.  We know how the story goes.  King David sleeps with Bathsheba because she is beautiful and simply because he wants to.  Then when she comes up pregnant, King David scrambles to try to cover his own mistake.  He has Uriah brought home from the battlefield and David's hope is that he will sleep with his wife and then nobody will ever be the wiser that the kid really belongs to David not Uriah.  However, as Dr. Meehl pointed out to us, Uriah is a better man than David.  Uriah will not go sleep with his wife because his fellow men are not allowed to come home and sleep with their wives.  Uriah, even though he is given the opportunity, will not treat himself to any special treatment while the rest of his brothers in arms sleep in the mud on the battle field.  So of course then we know King David has him killed and brings Bathsheba into his home as his own wife.
     Uriah, who did the right thing and would not consider himself as better or more important than the least of his army, gets killed for doing the right thing.  King David, who not only stayed behind as the armies went out to do battle, but slept with another man's wife because as King he regarded himself as more important than his soldiers.  In retrospect, if King David would have considered himself the same as his soldiers, he would have been out in the tents on the battlefield with his men and none of this would have ever happened.  If he would have considered Uriah, one of his own soldiers, as more important than himself, he would not have slept with his wife.  But King David let his authority go to his head and led him into sin and an innocent man who was actually a more moral man than David is killed because of it.
     When we look at Jesus as the one who would establish King David's throne forever, we can be sure He never let the authority go to His head.  Jesus never once regarded Himself as more important than anyone, and in fact came to serve and wash the feet of those who by the world's standards were much lower than Him.  He never let His pride or authority lead Him astray like David did.  And yet, an innocent man is still killed.  However, unlike David who had an innocent man killed to cover his sin, Jesus allows Himself, an innocent man, to be killed to cover the sins of all mankind.  Jesus was willing to go to the cross to pay for the sins of David, the sins of all human kings, and actually the sins of all humans.  Uriah may have been a better man than David and paid the price for it, but Jesus was an even better man than Uriah and He paid the ultimate price for us all.  Thanks be to God that in the name of His Son, the innocent King, we all find forgiveness of sins, salvation, and eternal life.  Amen.