The following Christmas message is excerpted and adapted from my book, Royal Mistakes: Life Lessons from Some Seriously Messed Up Judean Kings.
‘The people refused to listen to Samuel’s warning. ‘Even so, we still want a king,’ they said. ‘We want to be like the nations around us. Our king will judge us and lead us into battle.’ So Samuel repeated what the people had said, and the Lord replied, ‘Do as they say, and give them a king.’ – 1 Samuel 8:19-22(a)
Back in the days before Rehoboam, before Solomon, David or even Saul, Israel was one nation under one King, and that King was God. God appointed Judges to lead and impart guidance to the people, but these men and women were not monarchs in their own right. They were merely representatives, ambassadors if you will, of the One True King. God was Israel’s King. It was as simple as that.
At least it was supposed to be. The people, fallen and fickle as they were, tended to forget who their king was. Whenever they did, it got them into trouble. The Book of Judges tells of the trouble they got themselves into in those days. The people would forget who their king was, turn their back on him, worship idols and wind up conquered by their enemies. Then they would cry out to God for help and God would send a Judge to help them. The people would then turn back to God for a while, but before long they would forget him again, and the whole cycle would repeat itself. You know, lather, rinse, repeat. It was a troubling time in which to live. The final verse of Judges sums up the problem: ‘In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes’ (Judges 21:25).
Now you must understand, Israel did have a king. God was the King. Israel just had a hard time following a king they could not see. What they lacked, they figured, was an earthly king, someone they could see, someone who would stand tall and strong and mighty at the head of a great army carrying a sword and shield, someone who would wave a flag and rally the troops, someone who would make them great like the nations that surrounded them. True enough, God had gone before them once in a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night (See, Exodus 13:21). But that had been a long time ago. And truer still, God still went before them in battle through the means of the Ark of the Covenant. But doggone it, it just wasn’t the same thing. What they needed was a true king!
And so, on a day that would live in infamy, the people of Israel approached the man God had chosen to be the current Judge of Israel, Samuel. ‘Look,’ they said, ‘we want you to give us a king like the ones in all the other nations’ (See, 1 Samuel 8:5). They felt that if they only had that, all their problems (you know, the problems they had because they refused to acknowledge God as their One True King) would be solved. All they needed was a tangible, earthly king. One they could see. One they could hear. All they needed was to hear the voice of this true king, and everything would be wonderful.
Samuel was heartbroken. He immediately turned to God, whom Samuel at least acknowledged as King, and asked what he should do. God told him to go ahead and grant the request.
‘Do everything they say to you,’ the Lord replied, ‘for they are rejecting me, not you. They don’t want me to be their king any longer…Do as they ask, but solemnly warn them about the way a king will reign over them.’ (1 Samuel 8:7-9).
Samuel warned the people. He told them that if they had a king like the nations, he would take their sons off to war, turn them into slaves, confiscate their property, tax them to death and otherwise make life miserable for them (sound familiar?). ‘If you put your trust in a human king rather than God,’ Samuel told them, ‘you will live to regret it.’ (See, 1 Samuel 8:10-18).
But the people would not be dissuaded. ‘Yeah, yeah, we still want a king. We want to be like the nations around us. We want a king who will lead us into battle. We want a king we can see and hear.’ And so Samuel checked with God again, and God again told him to go ahead and give them their ‘ideal’ king.
The First King of Israel
Samuel did as instructed. He found a king for Israel. His name was Saul, and at first glance, he seemed perfect for the job. He had the bearing of king. Tall and handsome, he stood head and shoulders above every other man in Israel (1 Samuel 9:2). He hailed from a wealthy and influential family (1 Samuel 9:1). He was skilled in battle. Early in his reign, he led Israel to many victories. But for all that, there were problems.
For one thing he was a bit of a fraidy-cat. On the day Samuel went to anoint him King of Israel, he hid behind a pile of luggage (1 Samuel 10:22). And then there was his behavior during the whole David and Goliath thing. Goliath, the Philistine champion, taunted Israel’s army for forty days, challenging them to send out the best man to fight. That man, of course, was Saul. But Saul never went, ultimately leaving the task of felling the giant to a shepherd boy who may have been no more than ten years old (See, 1 Samuel 17).
Saul was also a jealous man. As the years rolled by, and the young shepherd boy David grew to be a man, he led Israel’s armies in battle with great distinction, winning many battles over Israel’s enemies. But as the people began to sing David’s praises, Saul became jealous (1 Samuel 18:7-9). In fact, before long he became a paranoid, homicidal lunatic, hurling spears at David and chasing him all over the wilderness in an attempt to kill him (See, 1 Samuel 19-26). When all was said and done, God was so disgusted with Saul that he stripped him of his kingdom. Saul himself met with a dreadful end, falling on his own sword in battle (1 Samuel 31:4). It turned out that Saul had not been the king Israel had been looking for. His voice was not the voice of the True King.
Israel’s ‘Best’ King
So Israel moved on to David, who was a much better leader. David was no coward. He was strong and courageous. He was a Warrior-Poet, a man from whose heart sprang forth the beautiful songs we call the Psalms. Best of all, he was a man after God’s own heart (1 Samuel 13:14). That is, he cared about what God cared about (at least on his best days). But even so, he was only human, and being human, he had problems. His biggest problem was his weakness for the ladies. His first six sons came from six different wives. The most infamous of his relationships was the one he had with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11). Alone one day, walking about on his royal parapet, he looked down and noticed a beautiful woman taking a bath. And he kept looking (it’s the second look that gets you in trouble). He soon invited her to the palace, offered her a drink, and well, one thing led to another, and even though she was married, he slept with her. Things became complicated when she announced she was pregnant (just imagine that conversation), and that her husband, Uriah, had been away at battle for some time, thus eliminating the possibility that he was the father. What did David do? He arranged the murder of her husband. David was not only a peeping Tom, he was a murderer. And this was but one of the moves by which David, the best earthly king Israel ever had, sowed the seeds of destruction for his own kingdom. No, not even David was the king Israel needed. Once again, his was not the voice of the True King.
Worldly Wisdom Personified
But third time’s a charm right? After David came his son, Solomon. Talk about a man who had what it takes to be king! Solomon was the wisest man on earth. As we noted in chapter one, people came from all over the world to listen to the pearls of wisdom that dropped from his lips (1 Kings 4:34). He was an administrative genius who created the most efficient government Israel had ever seen, and a master builder to boot (See, generally, 1 Kings 4). Moreover, he was amazingly wealthy; the Bible describes him as the richest king on earth (1 Kings 10:23). But even he wasn’t the king Israel needed. Because if David had a weakness for the ladies, Solomon was weaker still. He had 700 wives and 300 concubines (1 Kings 11:3), many of whom led him into idolatry and the worship of false gods. Yes, the wisest man who ever lived turned out to be a fool and set up the scenario that would divide his kingdom during the reign of his son Rehoboam. Not even Solomon’s was the voice of the True King.
After Solomon
And after Solomon? Years of royal screw-ups. A Divided Kingdom. War. Idolatry. Social Injustice. Defeat and exile. The northern kingdom of Israel defeated, her ten tribes led away by the Assyrians, erased from the pages of history. The southern kingdom of Judah defeated by Nebuchadnezzar, her tribes taken to Babylon for 70 years before being allowed to return under Persian rule. Then came the Greeks, a brief period of independence, and finally Rome. Eventually Rome gave Israel a king. His name was Herod, a brutal megalomaniac who murdered members of his own family to stay in power. No one in Israel ever made the mistake of thinking that his was the voice of the True King.
The dream for a king like the nations had proven to be a nightmare.
The Return of the True King
But God never gave up on his people. He never gave up on his dream of a people who would know him, and him alone, as their True King. A people who would be his own and show the world how he wanted people to live. And so, throughout this sordid history of earthly kings and empires, God sent the people reminders of his dream. Perhaps the best examples of these reminders are the ones that came from the mouth of God’s prophet Isaiah. Isaiah spoke of tough times, but also offered hope:
‘Nevertheless, that time of darkness and despair will not go on forever…there will be a time in the future when Galilee of the Gentiles, which lies along the road that runs between Jordan and the sea, will be filled with glory. The people who walk in darkness will see a great light. For those who live in a land of deep darkness a light will shine. You will enlarge the nation of Israel, and its people will rejoice. They will rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest and like warriors dividing plunder. For you will break the yoke of their slavery and lift the heavy burden from their shoulders. You will break the oppressor’s rod, just as you did when you destroyed the army of Midian. The boots of the warrior and the uniforms bloodstained by war will all be burned. They will be fuel for the fire. For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. The government will rest on his shoulders. And he will be called, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His government and its peace will never end. He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor David for all eternity. The passionate commitment of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will make this happen!’ (Isaiah 9:1-7).
‘Out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot – yes, a new Branch bearing fruit from the old root. And the Spirit of the Lord will rest on him – the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. He will delight in obeying the Lord…He will give justice to the poor and make fair decisions for the exploited. The earth will shake at the force of his word, and one breath from his mouth will destroy the wicked. He will wear righteousness like a belt and truth like an undergarment. In that day the wolf and the lamb will live together; the leopard will lie down with the baby goat. The calf and the yearling will be safe with the lion, and a little child will lead them all…nothing will hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, for as the waters fill the sea, so the earth will be filled with people who know the Lord. In that day the heir to David’s throne will be a banner of salvation to all the world. The nations will rally to him, and the land where he lives will be a glorious place’ (Isaiah 11:1-10).
In other words, God would bring beauty out of the tragedy that occurred on the day Israel asked for a king like the nations. The God who was Israel’s True King would reveal to them and to the world what their hearts had truly been longing for all along. It was as if God, through Isaiah, was saying: ‘Hear O Israel! Your True King is coming, and when he comes, when you follow him, when you hail him as your True King, then you will know peace. Then you will know joy. Then you will know salvation. And this peace, this joy, this salvation, will be not just for you, but for the whole world! It is coming Israel! You shall one day hear the voice of your True King!’
The centuries slipped by in the wake of Isaiah’s words, and the people longed to hear that voice. They longed for the arrival of its owner. And for a long time, it must have seemed as if it would never happen. But then, at the dawn of what we now call the first century, an angel named Gabriel showed up. And he told an old man named Zechariah that the True King was coming. And he told a young girl named Mary that she would conceive by the Holy Spirit, and that her child would be the True King. And he told her carpenter fiancé Joseph, a descendant of David, that he should go ahead and marry her and raise the child as his own. And in the fullness of time, the angels broke forth in glorious song outside the little town of Bethlehem, the birthplace of David, as they announced that the True King had come. The King Israel should have wanted all along. God himself. God in the flesh. God as one of us. God as our king.
And so it came to pass that as Mary brought forth her child into the world on that still, not so silent night, a newborn baby’s cry pierced the darkness of the Judean countryside, and Israel finally heard the voice of the True King.
The True King’s Kingdom
The voice, of course, belonged to Jesus, whose kingdom was and is unlike anything else the world has ever seen. Jesus never had a kingdom like Saul, David, Solomon, or any of the nincompoops we’ve studied in this book. He never wielded a sword. Never carried a shield. Never waved a flag. Never exercised power in the conventional sense. Never had a palace. No, Jesus’ kingdom was different. It was a peaceful kingdom, a kingdom whose power was based on the idea of just coming alongside of people and loving them. Even if they were enemies. He traveled up and down the land of Israel, teaching about the Kingdom of God, showing the world his way, revealing to the world the way of the True King.
Jesus died on a Roman cross for the sins of the world, and I suppose when that happened, it must have seemed as if once again, Israel had not found her True King. But then came Easter, and the glorious news that Jesus had risen from the dead! And then, forty days later, he ascended to heaven, from whence he rules and reigns now and forever, and from whence he shall one day come again to make earth and heaven one.
Until that day, his Kingdom expands. It expands one life at a time. It expands through those who dedicate themselves to living and loving in his name. It expands, as through the words and deeds of his followers, the world continues to hear the voice of its True King.
And, as Isaiah said so long ago, it will never stop expanding. The kings and kingdoms of the world will always fall. But the Kingdom of God and the Christ will endure forever.
Under Christ’s Mercy,
Brent