THE PROTAGONIST 5: DAVID
March 29, 2015
We are deep in the throes of March Madness. All we have left now are eight teams who will vie for the national championship. If you are unfamiliar with any of the words I just used in my last sentence, I am referring to the college basketball tournament currently being played. A field of 64 teams is chosen from the NCAA competitors and those 64 teams are broken down into 4 regions/brackets, each region has 16 teams, seeded from 1 through 16.
The great thing about March Madness are the upsets. It is so hard to pick who will win each of the games (the odds are over 1 in a billion to pick every game correctly) because there are always upsets. Small teams from small schools knock off the hulking powerhouses like Duke, North Carolina and Connecticut. We hear March Madness and immediately it is exciting because people don’t know how things will turn out. I think America really loves March Madness because the giants don’t always win. March Madness seems to encourage and remind us that underdogs still win, unlikely heroes emerge and sometimes giants get slayed.
We love stories of underdogs coming out on top and that is why we love March Madness. The problem is, the giants almost always win. If you look back at the last three decades of basketball,the final four are almost always populated by 1, 2 and 3 seeds. Occasionally a 5 seed sneaks in, or even a couple of 11 seeds. The lowest seeded team to win a national championship is an 8 seed. No one in the lower half of the field has ever won. Especially glaring is the first round game between the 1 seed and the 16 seed, the smallest against the greatest. No 16 seed has ever won.
In the real world, giants almost always win. Underdogs rarely do. Atticus Finch knew that full well when talking to his kids earlier in the book, he says,“Courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.” This quote is a foreshadowing of the trial that Atticus Finch will soon take on. Atticus will defend Tom Robinson in a court of law against a heinous allegation of what this African American man did to a white woman. This is an uphill battle in the Deep South in the 1930’s. The crime is visceral, the town is angry and there is seemingly no justice to be found, but Atticus stands up for him anyway. He stands tall against the giant of racism and prejudice and he loses.
Tom Robinson is convicted (wrongly so) and eventually is killed trying to escape from prison. Stories like that bug us. When the giants prevail. When evil wins. When the little guy and justice loses. I think we all know that is usually the case. As much as we like movies like Rocky where the scrappy underdog claws his way to a championship and a small Luke Skywalker takes on the Empire, in the real world, the giants almost always win.
That is why so many people love the story of David and Goliath, the archetype of facing a giant. We love this story and it has been preached, written about and allegorized millions of times. It resonates with us and stands the test of time because we all have giants in our lives, things that loom tall in our lives. Be they crumbling finances, strained relationships, abusive coworkers or crippling disease, we love to read the story of David and Goliath because we are reminded that giants do fall and that underdogs do win.
What if that wasn’t the point of David and Goliath? What if that wasn’t the reason why it’s in the Bible? What if David wasn’t the hero of that story? Some of you have probably wondered about the dissonance between this story and your life. You have probably heard a sermon about David and Goliath. Maybe the preacher brought a life-sized cutout of Goliath on the stage so you could appreciate the scale of this particular giant. After hearing about David’s victory, you were encouraged to keep fighting. I am guessing a disconnect came when the giant still won. When you prayed, when you fasted, when you begged, pleaded and stepped out in faith and the giant still won. The disease still prevailed. The relationship didn’t recover. The promotion never came. What do you do when the giants win? The answer can be found in a fresh reading of David and Goliath.
1 Samuel 17:45-50
If you are new with us or haven’t been here in awhile, we are close to finishing our series,The Protagonist. We have been searching for the big story of God-the metanarrative. On the road to Emmaus, after his resurrection, Jesus told the men with him that the Old Testament was littered with references to himself, that all of these things were written about him. This was an eye-opening moment for these two men. They realized that God was telling one big story and that Jesus was the hero of it. Old Testament characters prophesied about him, foreshadowed him or were a type of him. In all of these stories, God is preparing humanity for the messiah.
The entire book of Hebrews goes on to elaborate on this point. The book starts out by proclaiming the supremacy of Jesus, and then keeps playing that note. Jesus is better than the angels. Jesus is better than Moses. The author of Hebrews goes out of his way to find Jesus in the Old Testament and explains the obscure story about a man named Melchizedek, aking and a priest who would foreshadow the coming of Jesus.
If this is how we should read the Old Testament, then what do we do with the story of David, the giant-slayer? Most sermons on this passage end up personalizing this passage and encouraging listeners to face the giants in their life and through faith conquer those giants. What if that isn’t the point of this story? What if this story isn’t about you but instead about Jesus? Then what?
This story takes place around 1,000 BC. The people of God have come into the Promised Land but there are ongoing skirmishes. One of the main antagonists for the Old Testament is the Philistines. Egypt’s power has waned, Assyria and Babylon have not yet risen to power and in the vacuum a lot of small countries vie for power with one another. In this moment, the Philistines are warring with the Israelites and a winner-takes-all battle has been proposed: let’s limit further bloodshed and have our champion take on your champion. Bring your best and we will bring our best. The winner lives and takes all. The loser dies and gives up everything.
The champion for the Philistines was Goliath. A name that is now synonymous with giants. He is said to be six cubits in height. There is some discussion about how tall that really made him based on interpretations, measurement differences and textual variants. The point being made was clear-the opponent was huge, overwhelmingly huge. David was small and a youth. He was the youngest of the sons of Jesse. He was a shepherd and not a warrior. A lowly shepherd, a lowly son of the house of Jesse comes to confront the giant.
That brings us back to our passage today because the lowly son from the house of Jesse slays the giant. Here is what we cannot miss, this was not a battle about two men, it was the battle of two gods.
1 Samuel 17: 45-46
David’s point is crystal clear. God will win today. Several of the great stories in the Bible are not about man’s victory but God’s. The entire narrative of Moses versus Pharaoh is not about two men, but two gods. If you’ll remember when the ten plagues are cast upon Egypt, Pharaoh has his sorcerers, the priests of the Egyptian Gods, produce similar plagues. The game elevates into “anything you can do, I can do better,” but the final plague cannot be matched, and it cannot be stopped. The death that sweeps through Egypt is unstoppable. In that moment, Passover lambs were slain and their blood protected them from the final plague of death.
You can find this theme over and over again when Elijah faces off against the priests of Baal; it’s not the battle of two men. When Daniel is living life in Babylon, the miracles point to the supremacy of God. In all of these stories, you are forced to question, who is fighting this battle? What does this fight really mean?
In the winter Olympics of 1980, a hockey game was played. It was a game during the Olympics but still a game…where grown men chase a small piece of rubber and slap it into a net with a stick. In the grand scheme of things, this game was not that important until you realized who was playing. This was the gold medal game between the USA and the USSR. These two countries had been locked in a cold war for over 40 years. The USSR was the giant, the USA the underdog. The USSR was full of professional players who also were soldiers in the Red Army. The USA team was full of amateurs and college-aged kids. Just a game, but it wasn’t just a game.
The USA won that game against the giants in what is now fondly remembered as the “Miracle on Ice.” It wasn’t just a game. For many, it was the tipping point for the last decade of the USSR. A defeat to national pride in a game they had always dominated. The first major crack in what would become a decade of unraveling for the USSR. It wasn’t just a hockey game.
David and Goliath wasn’t about two men squaring off, nor was it about two nations facing off. It was God facing off against counterfeit gods. It was about God conquering the day. It was about a giant kneeling before a god, and God used a shepherd, a lowly son from the house of Jesse to make his point.
That is why, one thousand years later, when we meet another man who calls himself a shepherd, another man who is a lowly son from the house and lineage of David, we realize his fight was about something so much bigger. This is Palm Sunday, which in many aspects was the highest of highs before the lowest of lows. Jesus walked through town and people stood up to honor his passing. Mothers and fathers rattled their kids and said, “Stand up, the Messiah is passing. Hosanna, stand up, the Messiah is passing.”
He was their champion marching to face the giant. This weekend would be a strange combination of victory and loss all intertwined. The problem was he had a different giant in mind and a different victory in mind. The people expected that Jesus, the lowly shepherd from the house of Jesse, would eventually slay the giant of Rome. Rome had conquered Israel and oppressed them for years. They had overtaken God’s promised land and subdued God’s chosen people. This meant high taxes, harassment and strained relationships, and the pagan Romans enforced all of that with brutal treatment.
This wasn’t about the Israelites versus the Romans. It wasn’t about Jesus versus Pilate. It was about Jesus versus sin/death. At the end of the day, that is the giant we must all face. Jesus could kick out the Romans, but there would always be someone else to take their place and there was. Before Rome, there were Assyrians, then Babylonians, then Persians then Greeks...then…. then. After the Romans, came the Byzantines then…then…then. There is always another oppressive regime. Their greatest need was not the temporary alleviation of physical issues because that vacuum always fills. What we need is the ultimate deliverance, not from temporary concerns or physical conflict, but the redemption of our souls and the promise of eternal life.
The same is true for us. While God is deeply concerned with whatever giants are currently confronting you, he sent his champion to defeat the biggest giant of all, sin and death. While I believe God hates disease and many times chooses to cure us, getting rid of cancer isn’t our biggest need. Before there was cancer, there was polio. Before that was tuberculosis. God willing one day, cancer will be cured, but there will most likely be another giant disease that follows it. Whether we get 35 years, 55 years, 85 years or more. We still have one big problem, death and what lies beyond.
Jesus came to slay that giant for us. Because of sin, we are separated from God, but faith in the work of Jesus can bring us back. Because of sin, we are all destined for death but faith in the work of Jesus can give us life eternal. There are so many benefits of knowing Jesus. He cares for the lilies of the field and the birds in the sky, and so he definitely cares for you. His biggest and best work is not temporarily delaying the inevitable of the trajectory for your mortal coil.
The saving you need is from sin and death. The cross was not about Israel versus Rome or Pilate versus Jesus. The cross was about our savior conquering death. I asked you in the beginning what you should do with the giants in your life. Work to vanquish them. Pray that God slays them, but ultimately don’t forget your biggest giant has been defeated. If you know that today, it should give you a whole new bit of freedom. If death is conquered, all fear is gone. If sin is conquered, you can freely approach your maker. If death is conquered, then you don’t have to live simply for what you can squeeze out of this world. If sin is conquered, all shame and guilt are gone. Your giant has been slayed. You are free to serve and free to worship. Free from worry. Free from angst. Free from sadness.
The story of David and Goliath is not a promise and foreshadowing that if you are a Christian, you can slay every giant in your life. It is a snapshot of the shepherd, the lowly son of Jesse slaying the giant. Jesus is that lowly shepherd and the giant is sin and death. That means you and I are the quivering bystanders watching our hero fight for us. Watching our champion win the battle over their champion. Because he fights for us, we have been set free. Because he died for us, we can truly live. The battle is over. The war is won.
At the end of To Kill AMockingbird there is a strange and beautiful moment. Atticus Finch has lost his trial. The goliath of racism has seemingly won. The white jury has delivered a guilty verdict for this African American man. The courtroom is segregated with the white people in the gallery and the black people in the balcony. The white people have left, and Atticus is collecting his things. Then we see this moment:
This moment of loss is intertwined with victory. The battle was lost but the war wasn’t over. The giant of racism would fall with every Tom Robinson and Atticus Finch that stood up for justice.
Palm Sunday is a strange and beautiful picture. Jesus walks among the people of God and they seemingly love and adore him. Stand up. The Messiah is passing by. Hosanna, the Messiah is passing by. That moment of victory is intertwined with seeming defeat. After the Messiah passes by, our protagonist will soon be betrayed and slain. Join us next week for the perfect introduction to our protagonist.