II Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10; Mark 6:1-13
“He ordered them to take nothing for their journey…”
On July 4, 1776, King George III of Great Britain made an entry in his daily journal: “Nothing of importance happened today.”
What people of the king’s time thought of him sometimes mattered which side of the “pond” they were on. The patriots in the Revolutionary War would make effigies of him and burn them. They would throw rocks at pictures of the monarch and burn down the houses of known loyalists in the colonies. To all those people in the colonies, he was not a hero, but an evil tyrant.
The Loyalists in the Revolutionary War loved the King. They would hang pictures of him on their walls and would salute the flag of Great Britain every day. They would hold tea parties for King George III. For most Loyalists, he was a hero, almost a god.
So which kind of king was he? An evil tyrant or an idolized hero? I think he was probably both, depending upon which side of the “pond” one swam in. Most of us have had the experience of perceiving someone one way and then hearing someone else describe that same person as the exact opposite. Who is right? Is anybody wrong? Humanity is complex; we can be both depending on which side of the relationship we’re on.
Two of today’s lessons focus on kings. As I studied the passages this week, I began to sense similarities and differences, so I lined up qualities of King David in one column and Jesus in another, each as inferred or stated in just the scripture we read today.
First, I wrote down general knowledge or background information that we know about them.
They were both related (remember the lineage chart at the beginning of Matthew); they were 30 years old at the beginning their official work; they were both identified as shepherds—David of sheep and Jesus of people; and they were both kings. Yet, the kind of kings they were, were quite different, depending on which side of the Galilean Lake one lived.
Let’s look at the two passages again for noting dissimilarities. What do you see in David’s story that is oppositional to what happens in the story about Jesus?
In David’s story, the 12 tribes come to David at Mount Hebron, the fourth holiest place in Judea (Abraham Isaac, Jacob, Rebecca, etc all buried in a cave there), and proclaim, “Look, we are your bone and flesh” (v 1b). David’s reputation of being a great warrior was known far and wide. His flesh and bone wanted to be in covenant with him.
In Jesus’ story, Jesus returned to Nazareth, where he grew up and where a lot of his relatives still lived, and they said, “Is not this the carpenter, the Son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas (Jude) and Simon and are not his sisters here with us?”
His flesh and bone rejected this hometown boy; he was no hero to them. Instead, they thought he was either crazy or arrogant or both and they took offense at him (v 3c).
The tribes made a covenant with David. “So all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron; and King David made a covenant with them at Hebron before the Lord, and they anointed David king over Israel.
When Nazareth rejected Jesus, he was heard to say, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house” (v 4).
David built a city for himself and named it, “City of David.”
Jesus, on the other hand, was chased out of more cities and towns than one could count; people were always plotting against him, trying to kill him, to get rid of him. His rejection in his own hometown made it impossible for him to reach and teach the people about the kingdom of God coming near. He was too familiar to them.
What he was teaching and claiming just didn’t jive with how they remembered the carpenter’s son. Mark writes that, “He could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them” (v 5).
Finally, in verse 5:10, these words are written, “And David became greater, for the Lord, the God of hosts, was with him.”
When Jesus went to the cross, he was heard to say, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And when Jesus was hung on that tree to die, they hung a sign over his head. Do you remember what it said? “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.”
The scribes and the Pharisees despised Jesus, Jesus was too radical; he was disloyal; he would not answer to any earthly king, let alone the keepers of the law.
And the people felt betrayed: He was not the military Messiah they were expecting to conquer the world and set it at their feet. I wouldn’t doubt it if somebody went home that Friday night and said to their family, “Nothing of importance happened today.”
There’s one more important difference between King David and King Jesus. David became greater because the “Lord was with him.” Jesus on the other hand, is the Lord. And that’s the good news today, friends: Jesus is the living Lord who reigns in heaven and walks with us everyday.
Is it not good to know not only that the republic for which our flag stands survives 233 years after our declaration of independence from Ol’ King George, and also that our Lord and King, Jesus the Christ, stands and reigns to this day, 2000 years later.
He is alive and because he is alive we can worship him and put our trust in him, but he needs to see that we’re alive with our faith and our loyalty and commitment to the very mission for which he came to earth, for which he sent out the twelve disciples two by two: to save all people from their sins that they may one day live with him in paradise.
The mission may be filled with discomfort and rejection, but we need to take nothing for the journey—no bread, no bag, no money in our belts—except the staff of faith for protection and direction, and a tunic of hope for endurance and assurance. Let’s take this journey, friends; let’s live for the Lord, and let something of great importance happen today, Confess that Jesus is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, forever and ever, Hallelujah! Amen.
