Allegiance to Jesus
Commentary
America has an identity crisis. Ever since 1947, when the Supreme Court ruled on Everson v. Board of Education, the doctrine of the separation of church and state has been developed to curtail the role of religion in the public life of America. In the last fifty years especially, we have moved from a nation that clearly recognized itself as "under God," to a nation that relegates any notion of God to the private sphere, radicalizing the secularization of our culture. Steven L. Carter, of Yale Law School, in his book The Culture of Disbelief, comments on the sensible notion to keep religion from dominating politics, that in our zeal, "we have created a political and legal culture that presses the religiously faithful to be other than themselves, to act publicly, and sometimes privately as well, as though faith does not matter to them." As a nation, we need to rediscover ourselves under the providential eye of God, or we may find ourselves on trial before the One who will not wash his hands of us, but deal with us with dispatch.
As we conclude the liturgical church year with the celebration of Christ the King Sunday, we must deal with the biblical witness for prudent government and the claim that there is One who governs the cosmos in a way that defies our expectations. His rule emerges out of suffering and death; it has a spiritual and eternal dimension to it that supercedes the material and temporal qualities of life.
2 Samuel 23:1-7
These "last words of David" are not literally his last words on earth. They are, however, his last words, in the sense of final perspective, on how to be a ruler on earth. Although his conclusion is rather simple, it is not easily attained. His own life is a testimony to that. David does not rise up as some mysterious wonder-lord, who stands as a stellar example of righteous rule from the beginning until the end. David's history is marked by the faults and fears of any person who walks the earth. David's honor is that through it all he learned how to walk in the ways of the Lord, such that he became known as "a man after God's own heart." The attributions given him in verse 1 are testimony to the collective memory of a people who valued his leadership.
David's kingship was given him by God. This is the meaning of his anointing. Just as Saul had been anointed, and even Solomon, the authority of office was understood as a gift, not an intrinsic right. It is interesting to note that there seems to be no record of anointing of the kings after Solomon. The right of succession, either by blood or by blade, was to be the degrading history of both the Northern and Southern Kingdoms' thrones until the Assyrians and Babylonians respectively did them in.
David ascribes the authority of his rule, not to his own natural or achieved status, but to the word of God, which establishes the foundation for good government. In creation, God speaks and the world comes into being. In human community, God speaks and government is established and blessed. Government is one of the four mandates of classical Christian reflection on the orders in life: family, work, government, church. Because government is a gift from God, God is the one who defines the character of the gift: justice and the fear of God. When these two qualities characterize the exercise of government, there are promised blessings, "like the light of morning É gleaming from the rain on the grassy land." Similar to the message of Psalm 1, the affirmation is made that the good will prosper and the godless will perish.
The everlasting covenant David acknowledges finds its messianic fulfillment in Jesus, whom the writer of Acts identifies as one anointed by God and empowered to do good (Acts 10:38). The irony of the Gospel of Jesus is that his anointing, fulfilling the everlasting covenant, is unto death (Mark 14:8). The serendipity of the Gospel of Jesus is that the resurrection establishes him as Lord of lords and King of kings, truly making the covenant eternal.
Revelation 1:4b-8
Whereas David's appellations in 2 Samuel 23 are laudable, they are somewhat self-aggrandizing. How different are the verbs that describe Jesus! They do not lift him up; they lift us up. Jesus is the one who loved us, freed us, made us. We are the objects of his work, which was not to make a name for himself, but to give us his name as our own, ensign bearers of "the ruler of kings on earth." However, his rule (the kingdom) is not political: there is no union except in Christ; there is no army except the bloodied martyrs; there is no Fatherland except the home we have in the Father's heart. His rule is spiritual, where love is the anthem and freedom the charter, and priesthood the character of citizenship.
Just as Jesus is the high priest (according to the Letter to the Hebrews), we are likewise priests, called into his service. Paul expresses this in 2 Corinthians 5:18, when he writes that God has given us "the ministry of reconciliation." The priest is one who presides over the words and actions that facilitate reconciliation between opposing parties -- God and humankind, humanity and creation, and humanity and itself. We do not ascend to this priesthood. It is not a family inheritance by blood, nor is it socially conferred upon us by a group of peers or even superiors who may spot our potentials. We are made priests by Christ himself. The Protestant Reformation principle of the priesthood of all believers is rooted in such texts as this.
Jesus' rule is verified by his faithful witness in life and his resurrection from death. His faithful witness was defined by his works which reveal his origin (John 5:36) and his servanthood activities which reveal his purpose (Mark 10:45). These are historical particularities that have a reference point in time and in geography. Yet, when he comes again, all will see him, transcending the limitations of his first coming, and time itself will collapse into his identity as the one who gathers past, present, and future into himself.
John 18:33-37
The one who stands before the throne in paradise first stood in the praetorium before Pilate. Was Jesus a usurper of Rome? Or was he only to be considered on the level of a local tetrarch like Herod? Poor Pilate! He had to deal with a good man and he did not know quite how to do so. If there had only been some clear criminal act for which he could be convicted. Roman jurisprudence was great for temporal affairs; but, when it came to eternal verities, even the well-trained in the art of law and politics are left asking the question of truth. Yet, how accessible the answer is to those who are simply willing to believe. What is the truth of this situation? Pilate could only get to the point of truth in finding no crime in him (19:4-6). Beyond this, there is the deeper truth that the kingship of Jesus, his rule, is as real as Pilate's, just on a different level.
Jesus' kingship is not of this world. Turn his statement around to find out how Jesus rules and carries out the kingdom's purpose: "Since my kingship is not of this world, my servants know that I must go to the cross to confront the real anarchist enemies of the rule of God: sin and death. Not until this is done and a victory won, can the kingdom be spoken of as having come upon you. It does not matter who sits on the temporal throne; my rule supercedes. You'll hear and understand what I'm saying, when you perceive that truth runs deeper than what you can seize with your hands and wear on your head." Here, even today, this word needs to be spoken to those who have a stunted view of reality that runs only to the shallow depths of modernism's philosophies, like empiricism (Wittgenstein), existentialism (Sartre) or pragmatism (Dewey). Fortunately, there is an openness to spirituality in our post-modern culture. Jesus' testimony provides the modern evangelist a contemporary praetorium on which to stand and delve into the question of truth, that the world may know its depth.
The issue of truth, the Bible makes clear in its totality, is not a matter of propositions that can be logged in a book and memorized and adhered to. Truth is a story, that unfolds in time and on earth (and even throughout the cosmos we will probably come to learn). This episode of Jesus before Pilate is but a single frame of an on-going video account of Jesus' passion, culminating in his death and resurrection and ascension. The passion itself is set within the context of the Passover, which history goes back 1200 years to the Exodus in Egypt, which in turn was set up by the famine in Canaan at the time of Jacob, who is the grandson of Abraham, who was called out of Ur. The truth, which Pilate was seeking, will only be known when one knows "the story, the whole story, and nothing but the story." Pilate, apparently, did not have the time for all of this; he had a full docket and a dream-troubled wife to calm. So, he swiftly dispatches the case and gets on to business, trailing off into the oblivion of historical records, save for the one question he asked for which he did not take the necessary time to learn the answer.
Application
National, state, and local elections have recently been completed. Our democratic form of government has demonstrated once again how there can be a peaceful transition of power from one administration to another. Just what new directions are ahead of us are yet to be seen; but, we can be grateful that, for now, the future of our country will be pointed out by the tip of a pen and not a sword. The churches of our country should be sounding the bells of thanksgiving, not for the idolization of the nation nor for the idealization of a national god, but for the favor that God continues to show to us at this stage in history. Although the demonic forms of government in the West, fascism and communism, rose and fell during the twentieth century and our democratic form has been blessed to continue, we should not be deluded into supposing that we have an unending covenant. That belongs to David and has been fulfilled spiritually. Earthly rules are not eternal. Every nation has its birth, ascendency, prime, and decay. We will be blessed, however, as long as there is justice and the fear of God giving shape to our government. The churches of our land have an important role to call our leaders and citizens to these standards. Remember the observation of Alexis de Tocqueville, who, in 1835 upon observing the young American democracy, commented: "Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great." The churches indeed have a word to share with the nation, and the churches should be bold in their proclamation. This does not mean that certain public policies are to be promulgated from the pulpits. It does mean that the churches do not hesitate to speak of the ultimate allegiance to which God is calling all of us.
What the church is to promulgate is allegiance to the person of Jesus, who is the Alpha and Omega and who, in his person, is the answer to truth. To paraphrase Karl Barth, "Jesus does not give answers to questions about truth as other teachers of religion do. He is himself the truth." So, any preaching, regardless of the context in which it places itself, should place the listener before Jesus, just as Pilate was. The question to pose is not the abstract, impersonal, "What is truth?" Rather, it is the personal, inescapable one that asks, "What is the truth of my relationship with Jesus?" Is this King of kings (not an out-dated metaphor as the popular television sitcom King of Queens illustrates) before whom I stand today my personal Lord to whom I pledge my allegiance above all else? This is a very radical, yet necessary note on which to end the liturgical church year.
FIRST LESSON FOCUSBy Elizabeth Achtemeier
2 Samuel 23:1-7
This is the Sunday when we celebrate the kingship of our Lord Jesus Christ, the fact that he is the Ruler over all. Both of our New Testament readings sound that note. But when we speak of Jesus Christ as king, we are at the same time saying that he is God's long-expected Messiah from the lineage of David. The word "Messiah" comes from the Hebrew mashiach, and that means "anointed." Two groups of people were anointed in Israel's time, according to the Old Testament. First, the priests were anointed for their office. But second, the davidic king was "the anointed one," the ruler chosen by God to lead and defend his people.
Saul was the first king of Israel, but he was not at all suited to be a king, and in his place, God appointed David, the son of Jesse from Bethlehem in Judea. Moreover, according to 2 Samuel 7, God made a promise to David that there would never be lacking an heir to sit upon his throne. "I will be (the heir's) father," God said, "and he shall be my son" (2 Samuel 7:14). If the heir sinned, God would punish him, "but I will not take my steadfast love from him" (2 Samuel 7:15). Such a davidic king gathered up in his person all of Israel -- he was the "corporate personality" of the people. Therefore, if the king was righteous, ruling justly, all of the people were considered also to be righteous in the eyes of God and were looked upon with favor. What the king was, the people were. The davidic king was the guarantor of the welfare of his people.
Not only did a good king bring peace and justice to his realm, but because he caused the people to be favored in the eyes of the Lord, he also ensured their material welfare. As our text for the morning says, "When one rules justly É ruling in the fear [that is, in obedience] of God, he dawns on [his people] like the morning light, like the sun shining forth É like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth" (2 Samuel 23:3-4). The royal Psalm 72 says that a just king who delivered the needy, who helped the poor, and saved his people from oppression and violence, not only made peace abound, but he also brought an abundance of food to the land and the blessing of God to all his people. He defeated all of Israel's foes. He ruled in the strength of God. He was to Israel, as our familiar hymn says, "The shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land," which is a paraphrase of a description of the davidic king, from Isaiah 32:2.
In short, there grew up around the office of the davidic kingship a whole group of expectations of what a good and righteous king would bring to Israel. And our text for the morning mirrors those expectations. The text is said to be the last words of David, although probably it stems from a prophet in the court of David, ascribing to that first great ruler of Israel all of the qualities of an ideal king.
The passage does make some connection with the actual life of King David. He is described as "the sweet psalmist of Israel," and we know that David played the lyre for Saul, to soothe Saul's fits of depression. The text also describes David as "the man who was raised on high," and that is consistent with the view of kingship in Israel. In the countries surrounding Israel -- Mesopotamia and Egypt -- the king was considered to be divine. But that was never the thought in Israel. The king was a human being, elevated to his office by God.
The passage is rather ironic, however, because it describes David as an ideal ruler, which he never was. As we learn from 1-2 Samuel, David was an adulterer, a murderer, often cruel to his wife and warriors, and a terrible father who could never control his sons. David was a shrewd politician, but an ideal king he was not.
Indeed, all of the kings who followed David on his throne were sinful human beings, as the Books of Kings reveal, and the kingship was frequently attacked by Israel's prophets. In fact, there was always a tension in Israel about the necessity of a king, because the Lord was the real king of the covenant people, and some of the prophets considered the appointment of a human king to be a sinful rejection of the rule of the Lord. That stands in contrast with the statement in our text that David's kingship is founded on an "everlasting covenant" with God, "ordered in all things and secure." The davidic throne was never secure after the time of David, and at the end of the history of Israel's monarchy, the davidic king languished with his people in Babylonian exile.
Yet, God made a promise, didn't he? He promised that there would never be lacking a davidic heir to sit upon the throne. And God always keeps his promises, as Israel knew he would keep them. And so there grew up in Israel the expectation of a new David, a new anointed one, a new Messiah, sent from God, who would in fact rule in justice and righteousness and bring God's blessing on the people. No historical king in Israel ever lived up to that. But of every new occupant of the throne, Israel asked, "Are you the one to come, or should we look for another?"
That king did come. In the fullness of time, a davidic Ruler was sent by God to be "the king of the Jews" and of all people. Born in the city of David, of the lineage of David, Jesus Christ was God's promised Messiah -- the one whose kingship even Pontius Pilate had finally to acknowledge. He alone is the one who brings justice and righteousness to the world. By his work, he alone can make us righteous in the eyes of our God. Crucified as the King of his people, he was raised even from the dead, and he now is the one before whom finally every knee shall bow, as every tongue confesses his lordship. Jesus Christ reigns. He is our King. He is your King, and he is mine.
Lutheran Option -- Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14
As is well known, the Book of Daniel is an apocalypse, assembled sometime between 167 and 164 B.C. and designed to encourage the faith of those Jews who were suffering persecution under the Hellenic reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. It is not a prediction of future history or of events in our time, but an encouragement for faithful Jews in its own time.
In chapter 7 of the book and preceding our text, Daniel has a vision of four beasts, who represent the Babylonian, Median, Persian, and Hellenic empires. Arising from the latter is the "little horn" (7:8) which represents Antiochus, that tyrant who desecrated the Temple by erecting a pagan altar and slaughtering a pig upon it.
Our text concerns the judgment that Daniel envisions God will bring upon the empires and, particularly, upon Antiochus. God, "the Ancient of Days," that is, the everlasting God, takes his place upon his fiery throne-chariot, which resembles that described in Ezekiel 1. Surrounding him are the thousands upon thousands of the heavenly hosts and saints who serve and worship him constantly (cf. Revelation 19:1-8). He opens the book that records the deeds of human beings. As a result of God's judgment, the beast representing Antiochus is slain, although the Hellenic kingdom is foretold to continue for some time.
Then, as climax of the scene, there comes one like a son of man with the clouds, and to him is given dominion forever over all the earth. The question of course is: Who is this son of man? In what follows our passage, the answer is clear. This son of man represents the saints of the Most High, those Jews who have been faithful to God during their persecution (see 7:18, 27). The reward of their faithfulness will be their universal rule in the future.
We do know that in the apocryphal books of 1 Enoch and 2 Esdras there is also the expectation of a heavenly son of man, who will come on the clouds as the judge at the end of history. Some scholars believe that Jesus is speaking of such a heavenly figure, distinct from himself, in Matthew 10:23; 16:27-28; Mark 8:38 and 13:26. Certainly, however, in many other texts, Jesus calls himself the Son of Man (Mark 2:10; 8:31; John 6:53, and so on) and whatever the origin of the term, Christian faith affirms that "his is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed" (Daniel 7:14). Christ has defeated the power of evil, sin, and death. He rules, and in life or in death, we and our world are in very good hands.
As we conclude the liturgical church year with the celebration of Christ the King Sunday, we must deal with the biblical witness for prudent government and the claim that there is One who governs the cosmos in a way that defies our expectations. His rule emerges out of suffering and death; it has a spiritual and eternal dimension to it that supercedes the material and temporal qualities of life.
2 Samuel 23:1-7
These "last words of David" are not literally his last words on earth. They are, however, his last words, in the sense of final perspective, on how to be a ruler on earth. Although his conclusion is rather simple, it is not easily attained. His own life is a testimony to that. David does not rise up as some mysterious wonder-lord, who stands as a stellar example of righteous rule from the beginning until the end. David's history is marked by the faults and fears of any person who walks the earth. David's honor is that through it all he learned how to walk in the ways of the Lord, such that he became known as "a man after God's own heart." The attributions given him in verse 1 are testimony to the collective memory of a people who valued his leadership.
David's kingship was given him by God. This is the meaning of his anointing. Just as Saul had been anointed, and even Solomon, the authority of office was understood as a gift, not an intrinsic right. It is interesting to note that there seems to be no record of anointing of the kings after Solomon. The right of succession, either by blood or by blade, was to be the degrading history of both the Northern and Southern Kingdoms' thrones until the Assyrians and Babylonians respectively did them in.
David ascribes the authority of his rule, not to his own natural or achieved status, but to the word of God, which establishes the foundation for good government. In creation, God speaks and the world comes into being. In human community, God speaks and government is established and blessed. Government is one of the four mandates of classical Christian reflection on the orders in life: family, work, government, church. Because government is a gift from God, God is the one who defines the character of the gift: justice and the fear of God. When these two qualities characterize the exercise of government, there are promised blessings, "like the light of morning É gleaming from the rain on the grassy land." Similar to the message of Psalm 1, the affirmation is made that the good will prosper and the godless will perish.
The everlasting covenant David acknowledges finds its messianic fulfillment in Jesus, whom the writer of Acts identifies as one anointed by God and empowered to do good (Acts 10:38). The irony of the Gospel of Jesus is that his anointing, fulfilling the everlasting covenant, is unto death (Mark 14:8). The serendipity of the Gospel of Jesus is that the resurrection establishes him as Lord of lords and King of kings, truly making the covenant eternal.
Revelation 1:4b-8
Whereas David's appellations in 2 Samuel 23 are laudable, they are somewhat self-aggrandizing. How different are the verbs that describe Jesus! They do not lift him up; they lift us up. Jesus is the one who loved us, freed us, made us. We are the objects of his work, which was not to make a name for himself, but to give us his name as our own, ensign bearers of "the ruler of kings on earth." However, his rule (the kingdom) is not political: there is no union except in Christ; there is no army except the bloodied martyrs; there is no Fatherland except the home we have in the Father's heart. His rule is spiritual, where love is the anthem and freedom the charter, and priesthood the character of citizenship.
Just as Jesus is the high priest (according to the Letter to the Hebrews), we are likewise priests, called into his service. Paul expresses this in 2 Corinthians 5:18, when he writes that God has given us "the ministry of reconciliation." The priest is one who presides over the words and actions that facilitate reconciliation between opposing parties -- God and humankind, humanity and creation, and humanity and itself. We do not ascend to this priesthood. It is not a family inheritance by blood, nor is it socially conferred upon us by a group of peers or even superiors who may spot our potentials. We are made priests by Christ himself. The Protestant Reformation principle of the priesthood of all believers is rooted in such texts as this.
Jesus' rule is verified by his faithful witness in life and his resurrection from death. His faithful witness was defined by his works which reveal his origin (John 5:36) and his servanthood activities which reveal his purpose (Mark 10:45). These are historical particularities that have a reference point in time and in geography. Yet, when he comes again, all will see him, transcending the limitations of his first coming, and time itself will collapse into his identity as the one who gathers past, present, and future into himself.
John 18:33-37
The one who stands before the throne in paradise first stood in the praetorium before Pilate. Was Jesus a usurper of Rome? Or was he only to be considered on the level of a local tetrarch like Herod? Poor Pilate! He had to deal with a good man and he did not know quite how to do so. If there had only been some clear criminal act for which he could be convicted. Roman jurisprudence was great for temporal affairs; but, when it came to eternal verities, even the well-trained in the art of law and politics are left asking the question of truth. Yet, how accessible the answer is to those who are simply willing to believe. What is the truth of this situation? Pilate could only get to the point of truth in finding no crime in him (19:4-6). Beyond this, there is the deeper truth that the kingship of Jesus, his rule, is as real as Pilate's, just on a different level.
Jesus' kingship is not of this world. Turn his statement around to find out how Jesus rules and carries out the kingdom's purpose: "Since my kingship is not of this world, my servants know that I must go to the cross to confront the real anarchist enemies of the rule of God: sin and death. Not until this is done and a victory won, can the kingdom be spoken of as having come upon you. It does not matter who sits on the temporal throne; my rule supercedes. You'll hear and understand what I'm saying, when you perceive that truth runs deeper than what you can seize with your hands and wear on your head." Here, even today, this word needs to be spoken to those who have a stunted view of reality that runs only to the shallow depths of modernism's philosophies, like empiricism (Wittgenstein), existentialism (Sartre) or pragmatism (Dewey). Fortunately, there is an openness to spirituality in our post-modern culture. Jesus' testimony provides the modern evangelist a contemporary praetorium on which to stand and delve into the question of truth, that the world may know its depth.
The issue of truth, the Bible makes clear in its totality, is not a matter of propositions that can be logged in a book and memorized and adhered to. Truth is a story, that unfolds in time and on earth (and even throughout the cosmos we will probably come to learn). This episode of Jesus before Pilate is but a single frame of an on-going video account of Jesus' passion, culminating in his death and resurrection and ascension. The passion itself is set within the context of the Passover, which history goes back 1200 years to the Exodus in Egypt, which in turn was set up by the famine in Canaan at the time of Jacob, who is the grandson of Abraham, who was called out of Ur. The truth, which Pilate was seeking, will only be known when one knows "the story, the whole story, and nothing but the story." Pilate, apparently, did not have the time for all of this; he had a full docket and a dream-troubled wife to calm. So, he swiftly dispatches the case and gets on to business, trailing off into the oblivion of historical records, save for the one question he asked for which he did not take the necessary time to learn the answer.
Application
National, state, and local elections have recently been completed. Our democratic form of government has demonstrated once again how there can be a peaceful transition of power from one administration to another. Just what new directions are ahead of us are yet to be seen; but, we can be grateful that, for now, the future of our country will be pointed out by the tip of a pen and not a sword. The churches of our country should be sounding the bells of thanksgiving, not for the idolization of the nation nor for the idealization of a national god, but for the favor that God continues to show to us at this stage in history. Although the demonic forms of government in the West, fascism and communism, rose and fell during the twentieth century and our democratic form has been blessed to continue, we should not be deluded into supposing that we have an unending covenant. That belongs to David and has been fulfilled spiritually. Earthly rules are not eternal. Every nation has its birth, ascendency, prime, and decay. We will be blessed, however, as long as there is justice and the fear of God giving shape to our government. The churches of our land have an important role to call our leaders and citizens to these standards. Remember the observation of Alexis de Tocqueville, who, in 1835 upon observing the young American democracy, commented: "Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great." The churches indeed have a word to share with the nation, and the churches should be bold in their proclamation. This does not mean that certain public policies are to be promulgated from the pulpits. It does mean that the churches do not hesitate to speak of the ultimate allegiance to which God is calling all of us.
What the church is to promulgate is allegiance to the person of Jesus, who is the Alpha and Omega and who, in his person, is the answer to truth. To paraphrase Karl Barth, "Jesus does not give answers to questions about truth as other teachers of religion do. He is himself the truth." So, any preaching, regardless of the context in which it places itself, should place the listener before Jesus, just as Pilate was. The question to pose is not the abstract, impersonal, "What is truth?" Rather, it is the personal, inescapable one that asks, "What is the truth of my relationship with Jesus?" Is this King of kings (not an out-dated metaphor as the popular television sitcom King of Queens illustrates) before whom I stand today my personal Lord to whom I pledge my allegiance above all else? This is a very radical, yet necessary note on which to end the liturgical church year.
FIRST LESSON FOCUSBy Elizabeth Achtemeier
2 Samuel 23:1-7
This is the Sunday when we celebrate the kingship of our Lord Jesus Christ, the fact that he is the Ruler over all. Both of our New Testament readings sound that note. But when we speak of Jesus Christ as king, we are at the same time saying that he is God's long-expected Messiah from the lineage of David. The word "Messiah" comes from the Hebrew mashiach, and that means "anointed." Two groups of people were anointed in Israel's time, according to the Old Testament. First, the priests were anointed for their office. But second, the davidic king was "the anointed one," the ruler chosen by God to lead and defend his people.
Saul was the first king of Israel, but he was not at all suited to be a king, and in his place, God appointed David, the son of Jesse from Bethlehem in Judea. Moreover, according to 2 Samuel 7, God made a promise to David that there would never be lacking an heir to sit upon his throne. "I will be (the heir's) father," God said, "and he shall be my son" (2 Samuel 7:14). If the heir sinned, God would punish him, "but I will not take my steadfast love from him" (2 Samuel 7:15). Such a davidic king gathered up in his person all of Israel -- he was the "corporate personality" of the people. Therefore, if the king was righteous, ruling justly, all of the people were considered also to be righteous in the eyes of God and were looked upon with favor. What the king was, the people were. The davidic king was the guarantor of the welfare of his people.
Not only did a good king bring peace and justice to his realm, but because he caused the people to be favored in the eyes of the Lord, he also ensured their material welfare. As our text for the morning says, "When one rules justly É ruling in the fear [that is, in obedience] of God, he dawns on [his people] like the morning light, like the sun shining forth É like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth" (2 Samuel 23:3-4). The royal Psalm 72 says that a just king who delivered the needy, who helped the poor, and saved his people from oppression and violence, not only made peace abound, but he also brought an abundance of food to the land and the blessing of God to all his people. He defeated all of Israel's foes. He ruled in the strength of God. He was to Israel, as our familiar hymn says, "The shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land," which is a paraphrase of a description of the davidic king, from Isaiah 32:2.
In short, there grew up around the office of the davidic kingship a whole group of expectations of what a good and righteous king would bring to Israel. And our text for the morning mirrors those expectations. The text is said to be the last words of David, although probably it stems from a prophet in the court of David, ascribing to that first great ruler of Israel all of the qualities of an ideal king.
The passage does make some connection with the actual life of King David. He is described as "the sweet psalmist of Israel," and we know that David played the lyre for Saul, to soothe Saul's fits of depression. The text also describes David as "the man who was raised on high," and that is consistent with the view of kingship in Israel. In the countries surrounding Israel -- Mesopotamia and Egypt -- the king was considered to be divine. But that was never the thought in Israel. The king was a human being, elevated to his office by God.
The passage is rather ironic, however, because it describes David as an ideal ruler, which he never was. As we learn from 1-2 Samuel, David was an adulterer, a murderer, often cruel to his wife and warriors, and a terrible father who could never control his sons. David was a shrewd politician, but an ideal king he was not.
Indeed, all of the kings who followed David on his throne were sinful human beings, as the Books of Kings reveal, and the kingship was frequently attacked by Israel's prophets. In fact, there was always a tension in Israel about the necessity of a king, because the Lord was the real king of the covenant people, and some of the prophets considered the appointment of a human king to be a sinful rejection of the rule of the Lord. That stands in contrast with the statement in our text that David's kingship is founded on an "everlasting covenant" with God, "ordered in all things and secure." The davidic throne was never secure after the time of David, and at the end of the history of Israel's monarchy, the davidic king languished with his people in Babylonian exile.
Yet, God made a promise, didn't he? He promised that there would never be lacking a davidic heir to sit upon the throne. And God always keeps his promises, as Israel knew he would keep them. And so there grew up in Israel the expectation of a new David, a new anointed one, a new Messiah, sent from God, who would in fact rule in justice and righteousness and bring God's blessing on the people. No historical king in Israel ever lived up to that. But of every new occupant of the throne, Israel asked, "Are you the one to come, or should we look for another?"
That king did come. In the fullness of time, a davidic Ruler was sent by God to be "the king of the Jews" and of all people. Born in the city of David, of the lineage of David, Jesus Christ was God's promised Messiah -- the one whose kingship even Pontius Pilate had finally to acknowledge. He alone is the one who brings justice and righteousness to the world. By his work, he alone can make us righteous in the eyes of our God. Crucified as the King of his people, he was raised even from the dead, and he now is the one before whom finally every knee shall bow, as every tongue confesses his lordship. Jesus Christ reigns. He is our King. He is your King, and he is mine.
Lutheran Option -- Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14
As is well known, the Book of Daniel is an apocalypse, assembled sometime between 167 and 164 B.C. and designed to encourage the faith of those Jews who were suffering persecution under the Hellenic reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. It is not a prediction of future history or of events in our time, but an encouragement for faithful Jews in its own time.
In chapter 7 of the book and preceding our text, Daniel has a vision of four beasts, who represent the Babylonian, Median, Persian, and Hellenic empires. Arising from the latter is the "little horn" (7:8) which represents Antiochus, that tyrant who desecrated the Temple by erecting a pagan altar and slaughtering a pig upon it.
Our text concerns the judgment that Daniel envisions God will bring upon the empires and, particularly, upon Antiochus. God, "the Ancient of Days," that is, the everlasting God, takes his place upon his fiery throne-chariot, which resembles that described in Ezekiel 1. Surrounding him are the thousands upon thousands of the heavenly hosts and saints who serve and worship him constantly (cf. Revelation 19:1-8). He opens the book that records the deeds of human beings. As a result of God's judgment, the beast representing Antiochus is slain, although the Hellenic kingdom is foretold to continue for some time.
Then, as climax of the scene, there comes one like a son of man with the clouds, and to him is given dominion forever over all the earth. The question of course is: Who is this son of man? In what follows our passage, the answer is clear. This son of man represents the saints of the Most High, those Jews who have been faithful to God during their persecution (see 7:18, 27). The reward of their faithfulness will be their universal rule in the future.
We do know that in the apocryphal books of 1 Enoch and 2 Esdras there is also the expectation of a heavenly son of man, who will come on the clouds as the judge at the end of history. Some scholars believe that Jesus is speaking of such a heavenly figure, distinct from himself, in Matthew 10:23; 16:27-28; Mark 8:38 and 13:26. Certainly, however, in many other texts, Jesus calls himself the Son of Man (Mark 2:10; 8:31; John 6:53, and so on) and whatever the origin of the term, Christian faith affirms that "his is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed" (Daniel 7:14). Christ has defeated the power of evil, sin, and death. He rules, and in life or in death, we and our world are in very good hands.
