Week 8

Psalm: Psalm 89:20-37 

Old Testament : 2 Samuel 7:1-14
Gospel : Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
Epistle : Ephesians 2:11-22

Welcome to another Sunday.  The story of David continues this week as well as a great message from Paul in Ephesians and a weird assortment of readings from Mark.  

This week we again have a high point in David’s life and a little bit of a low point.  First, the low point: the Lord has given him victory over his enemies and he is able to finally rest and focus on other matters.  David recognizes where his victories came from and so wants to honor God by building God a house, a temple, to dwell in.  David feels guilty that he has a grand palace while the Lord is still moving about in a tent.  But the Lord tells David that he will not be able to build the temple.  In this account in Samuel, a reason really isn’t given, but one can try and read through the lines.  It seems to me like the Lord wants to ensure that David’s son has something to do and is honored by God.  By letting this honor fall to him, the Lord shows his blessing to David’s descendants.  This actually brings us to the high point in this passage, but first a word from 1 Chronicles 22.   

The reason David is not able to build the temple is because he has shed too much blood.  The blood might have been warranted, in that he was fighting the Lord’s battles to clear the land, but still there was something wrong with the blood on his hands.  This is an interesting note in 1 Chr.  For starters, we often assume the Old Testament is always ok with war and killing if it is justified.  This passage reveals that there is more than one voice in the Old Testament and at least one is uncomfortable with killing on the scale of David.  This also brings up the issue more in the Christian tradition of violence and just war.  The early church was very uncomfortable with killing and being in the military.  They weren’t all opposed to it, but at least they all recognized the inherent difficulties of killing someone while being a follower of Christ.  In some sense, we have lost that moral conundrum.  Now, a Christian joining the U.S. military is applauded and we think justified.  We fail to realize that this isn’t a black and white issue.  If even King David suffered consequences because of his life of war, then we are bit naïve to think that our soldiers won’t also.  I want to make sure here that no one thinks  I’m advocating pacifism, I would be happy do that in another venue, but I am pointing out the fact that our Christian culture today, in general, has lost the sense that we even have to wrestle with the morals of justified killing or war.

Ok, quickly back to the high point of David’s life in this passage.  He won’t be able to build the Lord’s temple, but the Lord does promise him first that his son will, and second, that David’s descendants will be on the throne of Israel forever.  This passage is known as the Davidic Covenant.  Unlike Saul, who was taken off the throne by God, David’s line would always be kings over Israel.  This is a very significant promise and similar to the one offered to Abraham.  In both cases, neither of them deserve God’s blessing, yet are promised the Lord’s eternal blessing and presence.  No doubt David had his doubts before this.  Would he also be kicked off the throne like Saul?  At his death, would his sons be murdered and another take the throne, like what happened to Saul and his sons?  All of these fears and doubts are squelched with the Lord’s promise.  This is exactly what Psalm 89 sings.  David is king and the Lord will be faithful to his promises forever!

We have to quickly move on to the words of Paul this week and they fit so well with the covenants of Abraham and David.  You might wonder why we even read the Old Testament or care about King David, but the early church knew and Paul explains it here in Eph 2.  We, (and by “we” I mean Gentiles), have been grafted onto the tree of Israel, to use a metaphor from Romans 11.  Ephesians says we were once far off, but have been brought near in Jesus Christ.  Israel’s history is our history and Israel’s founder and King are our founder and King.  We read the Old Testament because it is our story.  We worship the God of the Old Testament revealed to us in his son Jesus Christ…a descendent of David.

Space is too short to really discuss the readings from Mark this week.  But I couldn’t imagine being Jesus or a disciple.  I hope I can say that without being too sacrilegious.  They need a break and even Jesus recognizes that.  But even as they try to escape to a secluded place, the crowd follows them.  Jesus and the disciples had a whirlwind of a few years.  I definitely don’t think they could have done it without feeling a real sense of calling and God’s help. 

Grace and peace. May we grow closer to the Lord this week.