The Commemoration of David, King of Israel, 29 December

 

David, the greatest of Israel’s kings, ruled from about 1010 to 970 BC. The events of his life are found in 1 Samuel 16 through 1 Kings 2 and in 1 Chronicles 10-29. David was also gifted musically. He was skilled in playing the lyre and the author of no fewer than seventy-three psalms, including the beloved Psalm 23. His public and private character displayed a mixture of good (for example, his defeat of the giant Goliath [1 Samuel 17]) and evil (as in his adultery with Uriah’s wife, followed by his murder of Uriah [2 Samuel 11]). David’s greatness lay in his fierce loyalty to God as Israel’s military and political leader, coupled with his willingness to acknowledge his sins and ask for God’s forgiveness (2 Samuel 12; see also Psalm 51). It was under David’s leadership that the people of Israel were united into a single nation with Jerusalem as its capital city. (The Treasury of Daily Prayer, CPH)

Reflection:  David was born in Bethlehem. Beth-le-hem means “house of bread”.   The Lord promised David that the throne of Israel would never lack a descendant of David upon it….and the Lord told Israel through the prophets that the house of David and Jerusalem would be desolate because of desolation of their idolatry and immorality;  then in 587 B.C. the Babylonian Empire captured Israel and brought her into exile and destroyed the Temple.  The Lord is true to His promise that a royal Davidide would sit on the throne forever.  Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the Bread of Life born in the House of Bread. The genealogies in Luke and Matthew’s Gospels testify to His lineage.  Joseph, the Lord’s Stepfather was of the house of David.  

The first multi-part mini-series that was a mega hit was “Roots”, the story of Kunta Kinte and his family from West Africa.  They were captured by slavers and Kinte became a slave in the United States.  The mini-series was about his family and his descendants.  Commentators at the time noted that the “Roots” popularity had to do with rootless American society.  Few grow up and stay in the place they were born.  We forget who we are. Genealogical studies and websites are very popular.  Baseball’s whole goal is to go home.  Worse, we forget Who’s we are.  Christ Jesus has roots deep into in Israel and creation as the genealogies in Matthew and Luke testify.  Unto us a Son is born.  He made us part of the genealogy of Israel, adopted as the Lord’s sons and daughters, grafted into the olive tree of Israel (cf. Romans 11:  16-18). Here is an excellent article on St. Matthew’s Genealogy at Brothers of John the Steadfast.  

The true King rooted Himself in Israel and His creation for us wandering and lost.  Jesus is King David’s Lord and Jesus was so before He was born. When Jesus’ ancestor according to the flesh was hungry,  the priests gave David holy bread, the Bread of the Presence.  Jesus is the Lord of life.  He gives us our daily bread and gives us the Bread of His Presence.  We come as sinners in repentance and in need of His forgiveness so to receive worthily.  Come into His Presence  every First Day of the Week to receive the Bread  of Life, His Body and whenever the Sacrament is offered.The Church is Bethlehem, the House of Bread. 

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Lenten Encouragement

Psalm 51 is a psalm of King David and he prayed the psalm, “after he went into Bathsheba”.   The King of Israel committed adultery with Bathsheba and then he planned her husband Uriah’s death in battle. David was found out by God’s Word spoken through the prophet Nathan. As David prayed, “a broken and contrite heart”. Like a deer caught in the headlights, David was frozen in the bright light of God’s Law. He was crushed.  God’s Law did not blind him, through His Law He showed David his blindness and hardness of heart.   The Lord through His Law found David out and by His grace found David to save him from himself, his deadly wrong.  All the cleansing on the outside won’t do.  “Create in me a clean heart O God” is every sinners’ prayer in the grace of Jesus Christ.

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Quote of the Day

In our neck of the woods, near the Blue Ridge Mountains, we just had over a foot of snow, and in many necks of the woods!  Even though we live near mountains, snow of that quantity is rare in the Old Dominion. The following quote is from the website The Federalist.  It’s from an article entitled, The Six Best Bible Verses on Snow by Mollie Hemingway (Baptized member of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and frequent contributor to the WSJ and other magazines and websites).  

Psalm 51:6-7:

Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts,
And in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom.

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

For context, David had spied Bathsheba bathing on the rooftop. Even though she was the wife of one of his senior advisors, he seduced her and impregnated her. And then he killed her husband Uriah to cover it all up. God sent the Prophet Nathan to David to confront him with his sin and this is part of the beautiful psalm he wrote after confessing his sin. If you’ve stopped pretending you’re not a sinner, it’s a great passage to read.

P.S.  It’s also great to pray when you have no pretense that you are not a sinner, as we will pray the Psalm in it’s entirety on Ash Wednesday, March 5th.–Pr. Schroeder

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Sermon for the 4th Sunday after Pentecost, Concordia Lutheran Mission, 16 June 2,013

⁷Nathan said to David, “You are the man!

Nathan said this after a story of adultery, murder, lies, deception and betrayal by King David, God’s man.  David saw a beautiful woman while he strolled on the roof of his palace.  He sent for her and they lay together.  So seemingly harmless, a little midafternoon enjoyment, except both David and Bathsheba were already married but not to each other.  What could it hurt?  Like a certain fruit in Eden, “…it was a delight to the eyes”.   Eventually Bathsheba sends word, I’m pregnant.  Her husband Uriah the Hittite is fighting for the armies of the Lord under King David.  David concocts a simple scheme:  he gives a gives a furlough to Uriah to go home to his wife in the middle of battle, so he can make love to his wife.  The scheme is transparent:  Uriah will think he is the father.  Uriah refuses because as an honorable soldier he tells the King he cannot leave his men, and so sleeps outside the palace, and does not go home.  Then David invites Uriah to the palace, let him party and drink, get drunk so he goes down to make love with his wife.  But he refuses again because of solidarity with his men.  When Uriah refused the second time, David has another simple, but this time deadly scheme.  David tells one of his generals to put Uriah on the front lines where the fighting is the heaviest.  It works:  Uriah is killed in battle. Now that solves the problem…maybe for David, for the moment, as men and women will think, but it does not solve the problem. The Lord’s solution is David’s salvation. 

 The Lord sends one of his prophets to bring the Word of God.  This where the Old Testament reading begins when Nathan the prophet tells King David  the story of the poor man with the ewe lamb that he and his family loved dearly.  A traveler comes to a rich man’s home and the rich man wants to give him the best:  lamb. He does not want to kill one of his herd. The rich man takes the poor man’s lamb and slaughters it. David is enraged, stating that the rich man should die because he showed no pity, no love.  Nathan:  You are that man.  The Lord’s accusing Word of Law screams into David’s ears and heart.  The hammer of God’ Law thunders as it did on Sinai when the Lord finds out sinners in their trespasses.  More than when Saul threw his spear at the shepherd boy David and nailed his cloak to the wall, David escaped.  Here David could not escape.  There is no exit under the Law of God.  David knew this well when he wrote, Psalm 32, today’s Psalm:

³For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
⁴For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.

 

 ⁵I acknowledged my sin to you,
and I did not cover my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,”
and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. 

David groaned under the weight of what he did. The Lord’s hand was heavy upon him.  I think the cover-up is as worse as the trespass because one trespass is compounded with lies.  David could not cover up any longer.  He confessed. He knew he did wrong before Nathan ever came. Everyone does but in the preaching of God’s word of Law and Promise, David could get it out, into the open:  confess. There is a suffocating selfishness in man that only the Holy Spirit can ventilate.  The rich man slaughtered the poor man’s lamb for his appetite and his table, as David slaughtered the poor man for his bed.  The Lamb of God, the best,  was slaughtered for our appetites for what is not ours, for what cannot fill the heart, for what we covet and cannot nor should not have.  You are that man.  We are that man. He is the God who bore our weight of wrong upon His body and soul, the sinless one in the sinners’ stead.

The woman who came washing Jesus’ feet was declared a sinner by Jesus’ host the Pharisee, Simon.  “If you knew what kind of woman is touching you…” Jesus knew and so did the woman. Simon was not telling them anything they did not know: Jesus knew as He is true God, the woman knew by God’s true law. She knew for a long time.  But now she confessed it with her love for Jesus as He fully and freely forgave  her.  She knew the hammer of the Law and in Christ Jesus she had heard the depth of God’s forgiveness in Christ.  Still to be heard in the future at this time was the hammer of  the nails into His hands. Simon was telling them something about himself: he looked down on her. He was not like her…but he was. He did not welcome Jesus.  He gave Him no kiss. He did not wash His feet.  He was above it all, he loved little because maybe Simon thought he was without sin. When we think we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us, but when we confess our sins, God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1).   Jesus physically looked down on her but He did not look down upon her.  He came to lift her up out of her transgression, freed.   You are that woman. We are that woman, His bride the Church.   Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,²⁶that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word…He takes care us His bride.  He has, He will.  The woman washing His feet with her hair is rather extravagant, out there, extreme, but so is His forgiveness, as extravagant, out there, extreme is the Cross to cover sin and death in His blood;  because sin is extreme and out there. He made us His saints, faith holding Christ from head to toe.  We have no land but until the Day our souls are His holy land to protect with His Word as He covers us in His Sacraments and Word. 

 The Bible is not the record of heroes and good people.  Rev. William Tchividjian, pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, in Florida  and grandson of Billy and Mrs. Graham gets it:

“…the Bible is not a record of the blessed good, but rather the blessed bad. That’s not a typo. The Bible is a record of the blessed bad. The Bible is not a witness to the best people making it up to God; it’s a witness to God making it down to the worst people. Far from being a book full of moral heroes to emulate, what we discover is that the so-called heroes in the Bible are not really heroes at all. They fall and fail, they make huge mistakes, they get afraid, their selfish, deceptive, egotistical, and unreliable. The Bible is one long story of God meeting our rebellion with his rescue; our sin with his salvation; our failure with his favor; our guilt with his grace; our badness with his goodness.

 As we heard in the lessons today:  the woman at the feet of Jesus, King David, Paul…all crucified in Christ, raised to be with Him, dwell in Him.  Confession and absolution is key, the office of the keys of His reign, to free those in imprisoned, to lock out transgression in confession and absolution. His absolution, forgiveness is absolute.  It comes in two forms:  public rite and private rite.  With one another as His saints who sin we can confess and forgive.  Here in the penitential rite and sometimes with a pastor.  The Lord has given us this key. And when temptation comes a calling, don’t answer? No answer with prayer, Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.  You are the man.  You are the woman.  In Christ Jesus all that changes.  You are His man.  You are His woman. Faith holds Him head to toe, crucified and lifted us up in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 

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The Commemoration of David, King of Israel and Psalmist, 29 December, anno Domini 2,015

David, the greatest of Israel’s kings, ruled from about 1010 to 970 BC. The events of his life are found in 1 Samuel 16 through 1 Kings 2 and in 1 Chronicles 10-29. David was also gifted musically. He was skilled in playing the lyre and the author of no fewer than seventy-three psalms, including the beloved Psalm 23. His public and private character displayed a mixture of good (for example, his defeat of the giant Goliath [1 Samuel 17]) and evil (as in his adultery with Uriah’s wife, followed by his murder of Uriah [2 Samuel 11]). David’s greatness lay in his fierce loyalty to God as Israel’s military and political leader, coupled with his willingness to acknowledge his sins and ask for God’s forgiveness (2 Samuel 12; see also Psalm 51). It was under David’s leadership that the people of Israel were united into a single nation with Jerusalem as its capital city. (The Treasury of Daily Prayer, CPH)

Reflection:  David was born in Bethlehem. Beth-le-hem means “house of bread”.   The Lord promised that the throne of Israel would never lack a descendant of David upon it.  The Lord told Israel through the prophets that the house of David and Jerusalem would be desolate because of desolation of their idolatry and immorality;  then in 587 B.C. the Babylonian Empire captured Israel and brought her into exile and destroyed the Temple.  The Lord is true to His promise that a son of David would sit on the throne forever.  Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the Bread of Life born in the House of Bread. The genealogies in Luke and Matthew’s Gospels testify to His lineage.  Joseph, the Lord’s Stepfather was of the house of David.  

The first multi-part mini-series that was a mega hit was “Roots”, the story of Kunta Kinte and his family from West Africa.  They were captured by slavers and Kinte became a slave in the United States.  The mini-series was about his family and his descendants.  Commentators at the time noted that the “Roots” popularity had to do with rootless American society.  Few grow up and stay in the place they were born.  We forget who we are. Genealogical studies and websites are very popular.  Baseball’s whole goal is to go home.  Worse, we forget Who’s we are.  Christ Jesus has roots deep into in Israel and creation as the genealogies in Matthew and Luke testify.  Unto us a Son is born.  He made us part of the genealogy of Israel, adopted as the Lord’s sons and daughters, grafted into the olive tree of Israel (cf. Romans 11:  16-18).  The true King rooted Himself in Israel and His creation for us wandering and lost.  Jesus is King David’s Lord and Jesus was so before He was born. Here is an excellent article on St. Matthew’s Genealogy at Brothers of John the Steadfast.When Jesus’ ancestor according to the flesh was hungry,  the priests gave David holy bread, the Bread of the Presence.  Jesus is the Lord of life, of bread and gives us the Bread of His Presence.  We come as sinners in repentance and in need of His forgiveness so to receive worthily.  Come into His Presence tomorrow and every First Day of the Week to receive the Bread  of Life, His Body.  

 

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A Study of Psalm 23, verse 1b

We live in an age when  our wants are confused with our needs.  We ask each other, “What do you want out of life?” as if we could take anything with us “out of life”. This firm statement of the inspired David is so clearly and plainly  speaks to that conversational question:  I shall not want.  Why?  The Lord is my shepherd. The “I shall not want” speaks to us, sinners redeemed in the Good Shepherd, both body and soul, for the next verse fleshes out the 1st theme verse:  He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. The LORD our Shepherd gives us both food and drink.  I shall not want. I shall not be in want.  I will want for nothing. It will not be a Mercedes-Benz and for that prayer He probably will not answer:

Luther knows from God’s Word and from life in faith in Jesus Christ, the Lord will provide:

The First Article.

Of Creation.

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.

What does this mean?–Answer.

I believe that God has made me and all creatures; that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my limbs, my reason, and all my senses, and still preserves them; in addition thereto, clothing and shoes, meat and drink, house and homestead, wife and children, fields, cattle, and all my goods; that He provides me richly and daily with all that I need to support this body and life, protects me from all danger, and guards me and preserves me from all evil; and all this out of pure, fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me; for all which I owe it to Him to thank, praise, serve, and obey Him. This is most certainly true.

Luther preached that Psalm 23: 1b, I shall not want, speaks even more about our spiritual life, our life of faith in Jesus Christ.  The food and drink and washing are in His Word to us.  As sinners, we think that when we have all that we want, we will not be in want but instead we only want even more.  The heart is so vast and empty thing without the Lord that even a 1,000 worlds can not fill it. The Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy:  “But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.” This can not be said by us on our own without the Lord.  In the phrase “body and soul”, “and” is a connective (Hermann Sasse).  Sin divorces body from soul and vice versa…or tries to do so.  The only way this schism is healed is by God’s Word in which and in Whom we do not want. Again,  the next verse:  “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.”  Our Lord, our Shepherd does so to us His sheep so prone to wander, prone to leave the One I love:  Keep my heart and seal it for Thy courts above.

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A Study of Psalm 23, verse 1a

The LORD is my Shepherd, I shall not want, He maketh me to lie down in green pastures

Intro:  This coming Sunday is Good Shepherd Sunday, the 4th Sunday of Pascha (Easter).  The Gospel lesson is always selected from St. John 10: 1-18 and the Psalm is always the 23rd.  The 23rd Psalm is easily the most memorized, cited and beloved in the Psalter.   Next to the Our Father (the Lord’s Prayer) which is prayed in the English speaking world almost exclusively from the King James Version, so also the 23rd Psalm is most recognizable from the 1611 Version of  Holy Writ.  I think it is good to take a closer look at the 23rd Psalm and this is what I intend to do.  So first the entire 23rd Psalm from the King James Bible:

¹The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

 ²He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

 ³He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

 ⁴Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

 ⁵Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil;  my cup runneth over.

 ⁶Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

Verse 1a, “The LORD is my Shepherd”:  Before we even read verse 1 in a Bible, as most of the Psalms, there is for the 23rd an inscription:  “A Psalm of David”.  This already is an interpretative key.

Who was David? He was the greatest king of Israel in the history of monarchy.  But before that his first vocation was a shepherd. (1 Samuel 16: 10-11;  17: 15, 40).  Then David was chosen. David was a conqueror.  He was a musician and his music would calm the ravings of King Saul.  In fact, the founding date of Jerusalem is when he brought the Ark of the Covenant into the city.  In this Psalm, in this first verse he knows “The Lord is my shepherd” which means the great and  powerful  king knew he was  a sheep who could be lost, misguided, in danger without his good Shepherd leading  him as he knew he was prone to wander, to leave the one he loved and loved him:  forsaking the good Shepherd.   David found this out “big time”:  2 Samuel 11.  “I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek thy servant; for I do not forget thy commandments.”-Psalm 119: 176, the last verse

The first sentence of the Psalm is a metaphor and it is an absolute  equivalency:  The LORD = my Shepherd. This is the theme sentence of the entire Psalm, “…these words are brief but impressive and apt. The world glories  and trusts in honor, power, riches, and the favor of men. Our psalm, however, glories in none of these, for they are all uncertain and perishable. It says briefly, “The LORD is my shepherd.” (Luther’s Works, Volume 12, selected Psalms I)

Please note that when in a translation, LORD is so capitalized, this means that the Hebrew word is the Tetragrammaton, the 4 letters, YHWH , or Yahweh.  Rev. Professor James Luther Mays comments on this verse and meaning of Shepherd (emphases my own):

“In the ancient Near East the role and title of shepherd were used for leaders as a designation of their relation to the people in their charge. As a title, “shepherd” came to have specific royal connotation. Gods and kings were called the shepherd of their people. Both are described and portrayed with mace (rod) and shepherd’s crook (staff) as siglia of office. (see my photo above and verse 4-Pr. S.) In narrative, song, and prophecy the LORD is called the shepherd of Israel, his flock (Gen. 49:24; Pss. 28:9; 74:1; 95:7; 100:3; Jer. 31:10; Micah7:14). The LORD made David his undershepherd (Ps. 78:70-72), and the kings of Israel were judged as shepherds (Jer. 23:1-4; 49:20; Micah 5:4). The title had special associations with the LORD’S leading and protecting in the wilderness (Pss. 77:20; 78:52-53; 80:1) and in the return from the exile (Isa. 40:11; 49:9-10).

To say “The LORD is my shepherd” invokes all the richness of this theological and political background as well as the pastoral. The metaphor is not restricted to associations with what actual shepherds did; it is informed by what the LORD has done and what kings were supposed to do. One does not have to shift to images of guide and host to account for the whole poem. “Shepherd” understood against its usage in Israel accounts for the whole. The statement is a confession.  It declares commitment and trust. I t also has a polemical thrust againt human rulers and divine powers. the psalm entrusts the support, guidance, and protection of live only and alone to the one whose name is LORD.” (Interpretation:  Psalms/John Knox Press)”

So when the LORD became flesh and dwelt amongst us  full of grace and truth, He alone could say:  “I am the good Shepherd.” ” If Christ, your Shepherd, did not seek you and bring you back, you would simply have to fall prey to the wolf.  but now He comes, seeks, and find you.  He takes you into His flock, that is into Christendom, through the Word and Sacraments.”  (Luther, ibid)

Almighty God, merciful Father,  since You have wakened from death the Shepherd of Your sheep, grant us Your Holy Spirit that when we hear the voice of our Shepherd we may know Him who calls us each by name and follow where He leads; through the same Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

(Collect for the 4th Sunday of Easter)

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