Room for sacrifice

Jock Stein December 05, 2025 2 0

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2 Samuel 24: 18-25 (NIVUK)

18 On that day Gad went to David and said to him, ‘Go up and build an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.’ 19 So David went up, as the Lord had commanded through Gad. 20 When Araunah looked and saw the king and his officials coming towards him, he went out and bowed down before the king with his face to the ground.

21 Araunah said, ‘Why has my lord the king come to his servant?’

‘To buy your threshing-floor,’ David answered, ‘so that I can build an altar to the Lord, that the plague on the people may be stopped.’

22 Araunah said to David, ‘Let my lord the king take whatever he wishes and offer it up. Here are oxen for the burnt offering, and here are threshing-sledges and ox yokes for the wood. 23 Your Majesty, Araunah gives all this to the king.’ Araunah also said to him, ‘May the Lord your God accept you.’

24 But the king replied to Araunah, ‘No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.’

So David bought the threshing-floor and the oxen and paid fifty shekels of silver for them. 25 David built an altar to the Lord there and sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. Then the Lord answered his prayer on behalf of the land, and the plague on Israel was stopped.

David, like all human leaders, has his flaws – and this story follows a plague which broke out in response to his pride. The king has recognized his sin, and catches sight of God’s angel carrying out God’s judgment. He says to God, ‘I’m the one who sinned, not these people who are now suffering; let your hand fall on me, not them.’ Well, the stories of Samuel and Kings tell us how all that worked out in David’s own family, but the first Book of Kings ends with today’s passage, telling us how David showed his repentance by offering a sacrifice, a sacrifice which he paid for himself and did not demand from the local farmer.

There are many reasons why we may find ourselves called to make a sacrifice. One of the lessons of this story is that any sacrifice has a cost, and we should not expect our service of God to be cost free, even if we say, rightly, that the sacrifice which matters above all is the sacrifice of Christ for us. Paul brought the matter to a focus in Romans 12: 1, ‘Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.’

Pray:

Lord, you call your followers to take up a cross, you invite us to lay our lives on your table. Show us what we need to see, set it in the context of your love, and help us to make our offering with a glad heart, even as you gave yourself for the sake of the joy set before you. Amen.