David Spares Saul, Again

1 Samuel 26

            Today’s reading seems like an almost exact repeat of Monday’s reading: Saul pursues David; David has a chance to assassinate him; but David spares him instead. I find myself pondering two things. First, this is the second time that the Ziphites have told Saul where to find David. It seems like David is being regularly betrayed by the people who should protect him. Of course, as far as Israel is concerned, Saul is the king, not David. No one even knows that Samuel anointed David. So, no matter what their personal opinions of David, their first loyalty is to the king, who has declared David an outlaw. I see a Jesus connection here. The religious leaders of Israel basically declared Jesus a danger to the true faith. Jesus had done an awful lot of good for the people, especially with His healings, but the people cast their loyalty with their leaders. I think this explains how the crowds could turn on Jesus so quickly between Palm Sunday and Good Friday. It’s so easy to judge those crowds and ask, “Why would they do that?” and imply, “I would never do that!” But the fact is, we very well might have, not realizing that sometimes what seems right is actually wrong. The good news in both cases—David and Jesus—is that the Lord saw things through and worked all things for good: the good of Israel in the first place, the good of all humanity in the second.

            The other thing I notice in this reading, which I didn’t comment on on Monday, is David’s insistence that he would not raise a hand against the Lord’s anointed. There is also a significant Jesus connection here. Jesus bears the title Christ, and Christ literally means “the anointed One.” With that in mind, don’t David’s words, “Who can lay a hand on the Lord’s anointed and remain guiltless,” take on a different meaning? No wonder that in his famous Pentecost speech Peter says, “Fellow Israelites, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.” The guilt must be insane! They laid hands on the Lord’s ultimate anointed one and killed Him! Yet, in an act of divine judo, the Lord uses the weight and momentum of human sin to destroy that very sin! The Lord turns humanity’s assassination of their true King into salvation for humanity. “But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.” The merciful ways of God are astounding!