"Flesh and Blood"
2 Samuel 5:1-5
John 18:33-37
Christ the King Weekend
Todd Buegler
November 22-23, 2008
Lord of Life
Grace and peace to you from God our Creator, and from Jesus, the Son of God, and the King of Kings! Amen.
In this, the “Year of the Word” at Lord of Life, we continue working our way through the Old Testament. Today, we are going to spend a little time looking at King David, one of the most well-know characters of the Old Testament.
There are lots of great stories about David, many of which are very familiar. But on a weekend when the Christian church celebrates “Christ the King” weekend/Sunday, I thought it might be appropriate for us to focus on David as the King of Israel.
First, a little background: After David defeated the giant Goliath as a boy, a story which can be found in the book of 1st Samuel, David continued to serve Saul, the Jewish King. David had become something of a golden boy in Saul’s army. Quite simply, he could do no wrong. In 1st Samuel 18 it says that “Whatever mission Saul sent him on, David was so successful that Saul gave him a high rank in the army. This pleased all the troops and Saul’s officers as well.” David was a successful military officer, and his popularity continued to increase; so much so, that Saul eventually began to feel threatened by David’s success and popularity. Much of the books of 1st and 2nd Samuel are about David’s rise in power, and the intrigue, deception and conflict that took place between Saul and David. It’s a great soap-opera type of story. And finally, after the death of Saul, David is made King.
That’s where I’d like to pick up the story. I’d invite you to open your Bibles and to turn with me to 2nd Samuel 5:1-5. (If you’re using the pew Bible, you can find it on page 276.) The opening reads: “All the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron and said, "We are your bone and flesh.. For some time, while Saul was king over us it was you who led out Israel and brought it in. The LORD said to you, ‘It is you who shall be shepherd of my people Israel, you shall be ruler over Israel.' "
This is the story of David being chosen as King. There was no deliberation, it was acclimation. Thankfully, there were no campaign ads. There were no primaries. There was no election, and there was no recount. This was a “draft David as King” movement, plain and simple. In verse 1 it says that “All the tribes of Israel came to David and said ‘We are literally your flesh and blood.’” Two observations: First, it says that all the tribes of Israel came to David. Not a few…not some…but all. All the tribes. All the people. There was unanimous agreement and they all came. David’s approval rating sat at 100%. Can you imagine the thousands…the tens of thousands of people who must have gathered together for this moment?
But second, and I think most important, are the very first words that were spoken. At the end of verse 1, all of the gathered tribes said to David: “We are your own flesh and blood.” We are your own flesh and blood.
This statement is puzzling, until we understand that people during the time of David understood themselves in a fundamentally different way than we understand ourselves. In our culture, we tend to look at our identity as being what we do. We are defined by our actions, our accomplishments, our jobs and our productivity. An example: Almost universally, if you are in a group of people and everyone is introducing themselves, one of the first things people will tell you is their occupation: “I am Stephanie. I am a teacher. I am Jay, I work as a software engineer”. Greg the accountant. Todd the Pastor. In our culture, we define ourselves by what we do. This is different from how people in Biblical times looked at themselves and others. They identified themselves by their family, lineage and history.
Looking back over this fall’s sermon series through the Old Testament, we have read many stories that referred to family relationships, and to the blessing, or the inheritance that came from generation to generation. Think of Cain and Abel; of Jacob and Esau; of Joseph and his brothers; these stories were all about the passing of a blessing, an inheritance from one generation to another. Understand that in the Hebrew culture, lineage and family were everything. The Israelite people did not define themselves by what they did. They defined themselves by who their ancestors were…by where they came from; by the blessings they received.
So before they elected him King…before they told him their intentions…before anything, the Jewish told David “we are your flesh and blood.” It was an important statement about his identity, and theirs. Before naming him as King, they wanted to name him as family; as flesh and blood.
You’ll see this frequently in scripture; people were referred to not by what they did, but to who their parents were. It wasn’t James and John the fishermen, it was “James and John, the sons of Zebedee who he called the ‘sons of thunder’”, and it was James, the son of Alphaeus, and so on.
Can you imagine if our culture operated this way? I would not be “Pastor Todd”. Instead, I would be “Todd, son of Jerry, son of Elmer.” (Ok, well maybe it lacks a little of the drama of “son of Zebedee, son of thunder!”, but you get the point.) There was a time in my life when I was younger when I would have resisted almost anything that tied or connected me to something my father would have done. Then I reached a point in life where I found myself saying things and thinking to myself “Wow. Did I just say that? That sounds just like something my Dad would have said.”
Now that I am older, and Lori and I have 2 boys of our own, there are parts of my life that I try to model after my father’s. I consider it an honor to be Todd, son of Jerry, son of Elmer. I am their flesh and blood, and my hope is that my life honors theirs.
And my deepest hope is that Nathan and Samuel, sons of Todd and Lori, can follow their lineage, and can live the lives of faith and integrity that Elmer, Jerry and hopefully their parents lived. We want them to know from where they came. Their ancestors have helped shape them. They are our flesh and blood.
For the Jewish people during Biblical times, lineage was everything. So we can’t begin to think about Jesus Christ as King of creation without understanding his lineage.
In your Bibles, please turn with me to Matthew 1. In the pew Bibles, it can be found on page 877. In this Gospel, Matthew begins with the ancestory of Jesus. In verse 1 he says “An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” And then beginning in verse 2, he takes the reader generation by generation from Abraham through David, all the way to Jesus. To be honest, whenever I’ve read the Gospel of Matthew, I’ve always ignored this chapter. I always figured: “It’s just a list of names. It can’t be very important.”
But in the Jewish culture, this would be critically important. This chapter would tell the reader much about Jesus. Take a look at some of the names here. The genealogy begins with Abraham. We know that Abraham was called the “Father of nations”. Through him, all would be blessed. There are other familiar names: Isaac, Jacob, Ruth, and then we come to King David. And from David, we are 27 generations to Jesus, the son of Mary and Joseph, who is called “The Messiah.”
Matthew was writing for an audience of Jewish readers, who would have paid very close attention to this. In this chapter, Matthew is planting his flag, and is telling them: “Here he is! This is him! This is the Messiah! The one you’ve been waiting for! Straight from David, he is the King. Straight from Abraham, he is the covenant, live and in person.” 2000 years ago, people who heard or read this would have been stunned. They would have understood: “Jesus fulfills the promises…he fulfills the prophecies…he is the King!” He is David’s flesh and blood.
They would realize that the lineage of Abraham, of King David points us directly at Jesus Christ, the Messiah and the King of all creation.
For 2000 years, people have been struggling to understand the identity of Jesus. Human? God? Both? How does it work? It is the question at the heart of our Gospel for this morning. Pontius Pilate is questioning Jesus. Pilate directly asks him “Are you a King?” You see, Pilate didn’t know. He didn’t know Jesus’ lineage. He didn’t know what Jesus had done, and was going to do. So he washed his hands of Jesus.
2000 years later we do know. We know who Jesus was and where he came from. And we know what Jesus did. We know that he died and was resurrected. We know that this King carried the sin and the punishment of His people. We know that this is no ordinary King. We know there is more to the story.
And we know that the lineage of Abraham, of David and of Jesus does not end at the resurrection. In 2nd Peter, 2:9-10, the author, writing to the early Christians…and to us… describes where the lineage of Jesus goes: He says “…you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not God’s people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
My friends, the lineage, from Abraham to King David to Jesus Christ tells the story: you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession. This scripture promises to us that we are inheritors of the promise of Jesus Christ. Through Christ, the blessing that used to be passed down from generation to generation is now given freely to all of God’s people. We all receive that blessing, that grace. Not because of what we do, but because it is Jesus Christ who shapes our lives. We are the children of God. We are all Kings and Queens, princes and princesses. As inheritors of the promise, we are in the lineage. We are the family of God. And that gift of mercy and grace, that blessing, it is for you, his flesh and blood.
Amen.
