In which Christianity misunderstands King David for
millenia, to our detriment
Lessons on kingship from 2 Samuel 23-24
Shepherd, King…Writer?
Reading the Psalms, it’s easy to see why someone would want
to emulate David. He poured out his heart to God, pleaded for mercy, longed for
Your friendship. Side by side with 2 Samuel, however, the tension of his life
comes into sharp relief:
He could not be what he wanted to be.
I understand David’s dilemma; Paul captured it so well in Romans 7:
“...I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want,
but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with
the law, that it is good…for I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in
my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to
carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is
what I keep on doing.” (Romans 7:15-16, 18-19)
The difference is, whereas Paul could add, as he does in
verses 17 and 20, “Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it,
but sin that dwells within me” because he lived secure under the new covenant,
after the death and resurrection of Jesus, David had no such confidence. He
lived in the age of the perpetual slaughtering of animal sacrifices for sin.
There was not, yet, that better sacrifice that the author of the Book of
Hebrews writes about so beautifully in chapter 10, in such tight logic it is
difficult to quote a fragment without laying out the entire passage:
"For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to
come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same
sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw
near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the
worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness
of sins? But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it
is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said,
"Sacrifices and
offerings you have not desired,
but a body have you prepared for me;
in burnt
offerings and sin offerings
you have taken no pleasure.
Then I said, 'Behold,
I have come to do your will, O God,
as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.' "
When he said above, 'You have neither desired nor taken
pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings' (these are offered according to the law), then he added, 'Behold, I have come
to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second.
And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of
Jesus Christ once for all.
And every priest stands daily at his service, offering
repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ
had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right
hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a
footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time
those who are being sanctified." (Hebrews 10:1-13)
*
We writers are our best selves - often imagined, idealized -
when we are writing. Many times, this is to the detriment of our lives off the
page. We can see where we want to be, how we want to live, what we know will
honor God and bring Him glory…so clearly, there on the page. But the moment we
stand up and set down the pen, it’s all gone.
I remember, early on, asking the Lord to give me a heart like David’s. Now I can see the shadow of the double-edged sword I was demanding that He hang over my head. I can also see that before I asked, before I understood that I wanted a heart that would always pursue Him, He also had this similarity between us in mind: a compulsion to write, to think and pray things out on the page to my audience of One.
Our writing is how and where we make sense of these
tensions, of our lives, of scripture, of God. If we did not write, we would not grow, and He would not use us, however unwittingly we serve.
I wonder when David started writing psalms. Was it during his shepherd days, filling the long hours of listening to sheep bleating and
steering them out of marshes and lions’ teeth with songs of praise? Or was it
in King Saul’s court, desperately composing pleas for help alongside songs to
amuse the tortured king?
Whenever it was, it must have been early: this sort of writing habit is only established once it becomes clear to the writer that not to write would be to die.
It must have hurt him, thinking about the passion he poured
out for the musicians to play before the people, knowing that his life did not
reflect the holy intentions of his writing. I wonder if he was surprised to
learn, when he entered eternity, that he had been hearing Your voice and doing
Your will, that again and again, he had penned words that the Messiah Himself
would take as His own - were His own all along - even some of the precious few
words He uttered while hanging on the cross, as He completed His most sacred,
precious task, the one that David could not complete: self-sacrificial death
for His people.
After all the battles he fought, his
greatest achievement in life came out of those lonely, desperate, dark hours
spent in doubt, shame, and repentance, as he penned his thoughts, confessions, desires and praise to his Shepherd and his King.
