David and Goliath

With a primal scream, Goliath blurred into motion.

David and Goliath by Michelangelo,
on the Sistine Chapel ceiling
(public domain)

The point of his spear never wavered from its intended victim. He could already feel the soft jolt he knew was coming, he could fell the heavy point gouging through skin, muscle and then punching out through David’s back.  The Philistine army let out a monstrous roar and the Israelite army was soundless. Everyone knew what was coming. Everyone knew how this ended, with Goliath screaming in triumph while holding David aloft on the end of his spear.

This is how we should visualize the story of David and Goliath. Because this is what should have happened. This is how the story should have ended. 

But it didn’t. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

I’ve always been fascinated by David and how he is referred to and treated by the biblical writers. He is the centerpiece of Sunday School lessons and VBS sermons, but beyond those two things, in general, we don’t really study David very much. He’s really not a part of the rotation of things we study in Adult Sunday School classes or Wednesday night Bible studies.
   
There are a few reasons why this doesn’t make much sense.

The first is that David is defined as a “man after God’s own heart.” This is a powerful statement, full of meaning that I don’t really want to get into for this meditation. It’s enough to say that as a man after God’s own heart, David wanted the same exact things that God wanted. I don’t think I can say that with complete sincerity about myself. Yes, for the most part, it is true, but of course, in my life there are qualifiers. But there are no qualifiers about David.

The second reason why we should study David is that he took responsibility for his sins. If it wasn’t so serious, the way David seems to make every bad decision he could during his days as a king would make for a good black comedy. (I was surprised to figure out recently that the bad stories about David almost always took place after he became king—Bathsheba, his sons, the census.) Every time David has a moral or ethical choice to make as king, he makes the wrong choice. Every time it seems. But then a pattern imposes itself on the rest of the narrative--David sins, a prophet shows up and directly shows him what he did wrong and then David confesses his sin. There isn’t any finger pointing or blame sharing. David confesses his sin and accepts the consequences. He doesn’t always like them, but he accepts them. But the key concept here is, David always confesses.

In reality, David was a normal person like we are, (OK he was a king but look past that part), he was someone trying to live in a fallen world surrounded by sin and opportunities to sin. But unlike me, maybe unlike you, David knew his God well and had the same heart as his God. And he confessed his sins.

But that is not the part of the David story I want to look at today. I want to return to a very familiar Bible story and try and find something new in it. Here is a link to 1 Sam 17, you might want to read the text before continuing. (If you aren't reading this on carreraliving.blogspot.com there is no link, you'll have to look it up on your own.)

Let’s begin by looking at the details provided at the beginning of the story. There is a lot the Bible doesn’t tell us and most importantly we don’t know how old David was. The fact that he wasn’t called or conscripted into King Saul’s army could mean he was young, maybe late teens. Yet soon after this David is being extolled in song as a great warrior. I’ve been taught that if the Bible doesn’t mention it, it isn’t important. But I think it is safe to assume David is somewhere between 17 and 25 years old.

On the other hand, the details about Goliath are staggering. Modern translations try to translate the ancient measurements into contemporary measurements and even if they are off by more than a little, they are still amazing. Goliath was 9 feet, 9 inches tall. His armor weighed 125 pounds, and the point, just the point of his spear weighed 15 pounds. The shaft of the spear was compared to a weaver’s rod. Without going into much detail, some sources suggest that his spear was over 8 feet long. This guy was really a giant.

Keeping those things in mind, let’s look at the rest of the story. The story opens with the two armies on two hills, separated by a plain. This would be fairly normal, the idea being that you wanted the enemy to advance on your hill, so you could charge downhill at them. Eventually, most battles ended up taking place on the open fields between the hills. 

But before that happened, the champions would appear. Historical records show that kings and armies had champions. These were great warriors who had displayed exceptional ability and courage and who would walk out and challenge the other army to send out their champion for a one on one fight. Often, the winner would take the armor and weapons of the loser. If you read the story of the Trojan War, before the final battle the champions on each side fought each other, in attempts to discourage and demoralize the other side.

So what Goliath is doing here is nothing unique. Every day he marches out and roars for someone to come out and fight him. He even changes the rules a little and says the people of the loser will have to serve the people of the winner. But no one steps out to fight him. Saul’s army, Israel’s army is too scared and too afraid to face him.

This is the scene when David arrives with food for his brothers. He brings the food, decides to stick around for a while and he hears the challenge from the giant. Needless to say, it doesn’t go over too well with him. He reacts with outrage and eventually ends up before King Saul where David declares his desire to go out and confront the giant in the name of the Lord.

Of course, King Saul doesn’t think this is a good plan and in David’s response, we see something.

David, replying to Saul, states God rescued him from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear. Yet in the verse right before that one, David also maintains he went after the lion and the bear and grabbing them by their hair, he killed them and saved his sheep. So what was going on? It’s this, David knowing that God would rescue him, showed the courage and conviction of his faith and turned his faith into action. He knew God would deliver him from the lion and from the bear, so he went after them.

When you study the Old Testament stories you learn to see two things. First of all, God is the main character in every story and secondly, every story hinges on God’s intervention or his direction, either directly or indirectly. We see this clearly as David talks to Saul.

It applies to us because today, the main character in our story is not ourselves, it is God. It is his direction and his intervention in our lives that has brought us to where we are today. As we recognize this, and I admit that I still have a ways to go as I work this into my life, we can step forward in the courage and the conviction of our faith.

So let’s go back to our story. Saul tries to outfit David in his armor but David realizes this isn't going to work and he goes out to meet Goliath in his street clothes. He takes his staff and as he goes out to the battlefield he picks up five smooth stones for his sling from a brook running through the field.

Goliath explodes in anger at the sight of David coming toward him. Of course, he does. He is a champion, the biggest, baddest warrior in well everywhere. And who comes out to meet him? A boy, a teen—and as far as Goliath can tell, armed with just a stick. He curses David and David answers.

“Today, the Lord you defied will give you into my hands and I will strike you down and cut off your head.”

To get to the second and last point of the message, we need to repicture the scene. I believe that it is permissible to use our imaginations to fill in details that the Bible record leaves out as long as we don’t go overboard. So here it is…

Goliath roars in anger at David’s words and begins running forward. He is holding a giant spear and without mincing words, he is going to jam that spear through David’s body. It’s something he has undoubtedly done before. He’s a warrior, he knows his strength, his weapons and he is anticipating what is going to happen next. He knows what is about to happen, his friends know what is about to happen, King Saul knows what is about to happen, everyone knows what is about to happen. Everyone is holding their breath for different reasons. No one can look away. Everyone is expecting this “fight” to end pretty quickly.

But David calmly runs toward him, reaches into his bag, places a stone in his sling and launches it at the giant. Everyone sees this; it’s just that no one believes it’s going to change the outcome.

But God takes that stone and hits Goliath right in the forehead with it.

This is the second thing we can take away from the story and apply it to our lives. When we step forward in the courage and conviction of our faith God can do the unexpected. It happened every single time. David doesn’t know it but Elisha, Elijah, Hezekiah, Daniel, Shadrack, Meshack and Abednigo and many, many others will do the same thing. They allow God to do the unexpected.

So that stone flew through the air. Goliath has been in many battles and won many fights. We must remember he is a champion. He’s seen, heard and felt arrows fly past and maybe even hit him. He’s had stones from slings (which were common weapons in those days) thrown at him before. He has been there and done that. But this time, God does the unexpected. The stone hits him right in the middle of his forehead and he falls down. Why? Because God knocked him down. (Some people need to understand the physics here, but for me, the miracle is ruined by the attempt to explain it. If I define a miracle as God acting against the rules of the universe, then God knocked Goliath down, not a rock thrown by a seventeen-year-old teen, no matter how good he is with a sling.) David rushes over, seizes Goliath’s sword and ends the contest. The rest of the chapter tells how Saul’s army then defeats a completely demoralized Philistine army.

So what just happened? David, by putting his faith in action, allowed God to do the unexpected. I’m not saying God is limited by my actions or by your actions. I’m stating that acting in faith results in the consequences of God doing the unexpected. It’s not an if-then type thing, it’s not a cause and effect, it’s not step one and then step two. It’s just a person with faith in action and God doing the unexpected.

I think the Bible is clear here and in other passages that when we act, God acts. And God always acts unexpectedly, even when nothing exceptional happens. In my life, when I said that I would follow his leading, God moved me to Brazil and then Peru. This was only exceptional to me, God has acted on thousands of people before me and moved them around the world according to his will, but to me, God did the unexpected in my life. I’m sure that many of us can point to similar events in our lives.

But why does God acting and doing the unexpected have to be a singular event? David goes on from this field and experiences God doing the unexpected many more times in his life. And we can have the same experience. It just takes that one first step, leading out in faith and letting God do the unexpected.

Hosea

By 18 century icon painter [Public domain],
via Wikimedia Commons

When I was younger I read the Bible looking for gold. But I don’t do that anymore.

Maybe I should explain. One of my favorite Bible teachers at Moody Bible Institute was Dr. Sims. Among the things he tried to teach me was attention to detail in my scholarship (this did not take root) and clarity of thought in my communication (this also did not take root.) During a class on the Psalms, after the background work on Hebrew poetry and the authorship, Dr. Sims selected various Psalms for deeper study and discussion. During this part of the class, he would analyze a phrase or even a word and pull out what someone called nuggets of gold. For example, perhaps by showing the meaning of a phrase in its ancient Middle Eastern culture, a verse was clarified or a thought became deeper. He never implied you needed an advanced theological degree or knowledge of an ancient Biblical language to find these nuggets. These nuggets could be uncovered through hard work and he would give us clues and point us toward commentaries and journals to find our own which we were encouraged to share in class.

(As an aside, Dr. Sims liked to start class by signing a hymn and literally every classroom at Moody seemed to have a piano in it. Naturally, someone told him I played the piano, so almost every class I took with him on Psalms and Romans began with…”Brother Carrera, could you pick a hymn for us to sing?” I was and remain a very reluctant piano player, which surprises some people but really what choice did I have in that situation.  Luckily for me, I was still in the piano rotation at my church so I could replay the hymns I had learned for Sunday past.)

Anyway, after I left Moody and moved into my post-college life, I still read and studied the Bible looking for the nuggets. It was a worthwhile pursuit and I learned many things I could use to add interest or insight to a devotional or sermon. But I don’t do that anymore.

It’s not that I don’t have the time. I have all the time I need, especially after I check my email, facebook sports news, political news, and then the sports news again just to make sure that nothing new was written in the ten minutes since I last checked the Chicago Bears forum I belong to. It has nothing to do with time.

It’s just that now I’m looking for something different.

These days, in my older years, I’m more interested in the people. I read and reread looking for clues about who Abraham really was and what he was like. I hold my breath during the David stories hoping he makes better decisions this time, but he doesn’t, and I’m amazed that the Kings of Israel and Judah don’t get it. Why can’t they see!

Well, that was all the introduction. Recently while I was teaching an abbreviated Old Testament survey class to my junior-highers, I found myself talking more about the people than the nuggets. I retold the stories trying to use modern concepts and words. I needed my kids to understand the people, to understand why they made the choices they made, and that choices have consequences, and that Jesus and God were/are in all the stories.

So we were all together, me teaching and them learning (cross my fingers) when we arrived at the book of Hosea and I had to explain Hosea. Here is what I told them. Hosea was a prophet, and prophets did what God told them to do (well Jonah didn’t, but that’s something for a different day) and God told Hosea to do something strange. God told Hosea to marry a woman who was going to be unfaithful to him. She would sell herself to men and have children whose father was not Hosea. Of course, Hosea did this. Hosea loved her, and he brought her home, and he went after her when she left. And the junior highers wondered why he did this.

“Well,” I said, “It is because we are the wife and God is Hosea. And we spent all of our time trying to have a relationship with God but also with all the other things we want to have a relationship with. And all those other things pull us away from God and God comes and pulls us back.”

Of course, they looked at me like I was crazy because after all they are only twelve years old and I’m fifty and sometimes we just don’t connect on any kind of level because I’m trying to share a deep truth and they want to make latex gloves out of white glue during class.

But every now and then during class I think of something out of the blue and I stun myself with the clarity of my thought (thank you Dr. Sims.) And here is what I thought.

I know why Hosea didn’t give up but why didn’t the wife give up? Just move out, it’s obvious she didn’t want to be there. But then I realized she was trying to do exactly that, but Hosea wouldn’t let her and I almost wept in front of the class. I try really hard not to do that too often because they are junior highers and well, you remember junior highers.

I almost wept because of the picture. The Bible only mentions God telling Hosea to go get his wife once, but I like this was a daily thing. Every morning Hosea would roll over and reach for his wife and she wouldn’t be there. So he would get up and go looking for her and bring her home. She was disheveled and drunk, and the neighbors would shake their heads. He’d make coffee and breakfast, clean her up, put her to bed, and spend the day taking care of kids that were not his. Then the next day he would do it again. And the neighbors never realized they were the ones he was doing this for. Because the lesson was for them.

They never realized, or maybe they did, that God never gives up. Every day he chases us down, brings us home, wipes off the world, feeds us, and puts us to bed. This is the picture. I’m not trying to say that we are terrible people, sinners running from God every chance we get and generally raising havoc around us. Because most of us aren’t. But sometimes, we just want to get away and flirt a little with something else and God does his Hosea act and brings us back. And in the end, the wife turned and she loved Hosea back and everything was right in the world. The neighbors had Hosea and his family over for bbq and they told him how their marriage relationship had changed because of his example and now they loved each other like Hosea loved his wife. And that was actually the whole point anyway.

This is what I need these days, to know and to see that God won’t give up, even when I want something else. The junior highers? They want to hear about when that one guy was chasing that other guy on foot and the guy in front told the guy chasing him to stop or else, and then he jammed the butt of his spear through the guy’s stomach and out his back. I hope they never grow old.

Worst King Ever!

Usually, the story goes something like this….

Once there was a good king named Hezekiah who tried his best to follow and do what God wanted him to do. Hezekiah listened to God's prophets and he followed the law. He trusted God to save Jerusalem, his people and himself, and God listened to his prayers and did a great miracle in defense of the city.

One day the prophet Isaiah appeared and told Hezekiah that his days were now numbered and Hezekiah was going to die. Hezekiah did not take to this announcement very well and pleaded with God to grant him more life. God in his mercy did. In fact, God gave him fifteen more years. Later Hezekiah had a son. This son, named Manasseh, turned out to be the worst king Judah ever had. He worshipped idols, sacrificed his own son, and well…was a bad king. Manasseh was twelve when he became king. So, the worst king Judah had was born during the extra time God gave Hezekiah in answer to Hezekiah's prayers.

Obviously, the moral of the story is that God's plans are better than ours, and are beyond our understanding. Too often when we meddle with God's plans the perfect result God had planned is ruined because of the choices we make.

Ok. But that’s…..you….ummm…you missed the best part!!!!

Ok, we need to go back to the beginning. After the death of King Solomon, the Kingdom of Judah split in two, a ten tribe (Judah)and a two tribe (Israel) split. When you read through the history of the two kingdoms (found in 1st and 2nd Kings and Chronicles among other places) two things stand out. The first is that the kingdom in the north, the Kingdom of Israel, never had a good king. Not a single head who wore the crown in the north followed God and his commandments. The second is that the kings of the south,  direct descendants of King David, were not as good of a group as you might have thought.

One of the good ones was Hezekiah, Manasseh's father. Hezekiah did almost everything right. But right there at the end, is this funny little story about asking for his life to be extended and God granting his request. 

But this is not about Hezekiah, it's about Manasseh. How one of the best kings of Judah produces a son who gets called the worst king of Judah I don't know. What I do know is that 2 Kings 21 gives us a list of what Manasseh did wrong.

Where should we start…He abandoned the practices of his father and copied what the people Joshua drove out did. He rebuilt the high places, shrines to false gods and idols located on the high ridges of the hills and mountains. He built altars to Baal and put up an Asherah pole. In this, he followed what King Ahaz did in the north, and Ahaz might be the worst king the north ever had. Right in the temple, he built altars to the stars. He sacrificed his own son by casting him alive into a furnace built to honor another idol. He practiced what we would call black magic, consulting mediums and people who said they could communicate with the spirits.  He then took the Asherah pole he had carved and put it into the temple. 

At this point, God had enough. He sent prophets and warned the nation that Jerusalem and Judah were going to be punished so severely that everyone who heard about it would have tingling ears. In other words, they were going to serve as God's example of what happens when you do the wrong thing. The people did not listen, and the Bible records they did more evil than the nations God had destroyed to give them the promised land.

Like I have written before, this is where the story ends when we tell it in Sunday School. It’s a straight morality play, designed to let everyone know what happens when you try to change God's plan or when you persist in doing wrong. But God does not always like to end his stories the way we like to teach them. 

There is another part to this story that I am embarrassed to say I did not know until about ten years ago. 

In 2 Chron 33, we read that God did exactly what he said he was going to do. The Assyrians came and they captured Manasseh. Putting a hook in his nose, they chained him up and took him back to Babylon. The king was now a captive. Yet still, the story does not end.

Here, we read something incredible. "He sought the favor of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly." What? No way! The idol worshipping, child sacrificing pagan king turned to God? Really? And still the story does not end.

"And when he prayed to him, the Lord was moved by his entreaty and listened to his plea." And…" he brought him back to Jerusalem and so his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord is God…he got rid of the foreign gods and removed the image from the temple…he restored the altar and sacrificed fellowship offerings and thank offerings on it and told Judah to serve the Lord."

Words fail at this point. Anything we want to say, anything words of explanation or expansion simply subtract from the story. Of course, we still have to try. 

No one is past redemption. No one. As someone who is keenly aware of his sins and his failings, as someone who most of the time errs on the side of focusing too much on how I see myself rather than how God sees me, this is a powerful story. Manasseh had to know, had to hear the words of his father every time he walked through the palace or entered the temple. He knew who his father had been and he knew what his father had done. He surely knew what he was doing was not what his father had taught him. But he did these things anyway and then paid the price. 

And then God reached down and did that thing God does. Praise God. We know the lesson here, this is not a story about sin. It's not a story about a sinner. It’s a story about grace and mercy and God.

**It is also a reminder that God's plans are not always as obvious as we think they are. Do you think God knew Manasseh was going to be a horrible person? Do you think God knew  Manasseh would one day turn to him? Do you think this was God's plan all along? To have yet another example of grace and mercy we can point to? I do.

Psalm 121

Let me give a little background to Psalm 121. It’s named one of the 15 Psalms/Songs of Ascent as noted in the introduction to the psalm itself and no one really knows what that means. In fact the interpretations are really all over the place. Some note that the 15 Psalms relate to the 15 steps that were on the porch in Solomon's Temple. As the priests would climb the steps they would sing, chant or recite the Songs of Ascent. There is a rabbinic tradition that David sang these songs to calm the rising waters as he was building the foundation for what would become Solomon's temple. Some think the Psalms were meant to be sung in different keys, starting low and ending higher. But the most traditional interpretation is these songs were song by pilgrims travelling to Jerusalem  for the holy days. So, I think we will stick with that. The other minor problem is that the writer of the Psalm is unknown and we don’t know the date it was written either. So basically we don’t know who wrote the song, when they wrote it or why they wrote but, we won’t let that bother us today.

Before we begin we need to understand three things.

Like most pre-modern cultures, the Jews were an oral culture. Not everyone could read or write, in fact, almost no one was completely literate. The priests, professional scribes, military leaders, some rich people, maybe a king or two, and the odd merchant who kept his own records—these were the literate people. Everyone else read or wrote as much as they needed.   The schools Jewish boys attended relied on learning by rote, kind of a "repeat after me" type of learning. Everything was memorized. Even the songs and stories were passed down from generation to generation, from the older to the younger by rote. In some cultures today, the story teller is a much respected person in his or her community.

The collection of prayers or songs we call the Psalms wasn’t completed until after the exile. The introductions place them at various times in Jewish history, and there are many authors. Most likely an editor compiled the 150 psalms from different collections and at some point these 150 became the “standard.” Before this, each psalm was passed down from generation to generation orally.

The last thing you need to know is that the land of Israel was not flat. The land starts at sea level on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, and then climbs into the hills, where Jerusalem is located. From Jerusalem the land slopes down to the Jordan River valley. Basically, right in the middle of the land was this range of high ground. So you literally went up to Jerusalem, you climbed the hills. This is what the gospel writers meant when they wrote that Jesus went up to Jerusalem, even though he was travelling south.

Well, enough background, let me tell you a story.

The group had been walking for a few days now. The size of the group never really stayed the same, but there was a core of about 10 families who were slowly working their way together toward the higher hills that signified they were getting closer to Jerusalem. Other groups joined them at night to camp, safety in numbers you know, and then moved off in the morning. With the large numbers of children and elderly they were traveling with, they hadn’t expected to make very good time.

Everyone was walking, well there were a few donkeys that the old people took turns using, and the really little children could only walk for an hour or so in the morning before a parent or older sibling picked them up and carried them on their back. So you can understand why they moved slowly. The teenaged boys lagged behind, nothing moves slower than a pack of teens walking through a semi-arid landscape together. In front were the pre-teen boys, acting as scouts for the army they were pretending was behind them. Girls walked with their families. Benjamin was 10 years old and he was having the time of his life. This was the first time his family was making the trip. His older sister and his parents were behind him somewhere, and from his spot on the rock he was standing on, he thought he could see them. It was time for lunch, and he was trying to wave his family toward the shade he had found.

His mom had made lunch the night before, carefully rewrapping up the roasted meat and the toasted flat bread she had prepared before the trip started. Tonight they would eat the last of the roasted lamb, nothing but bread and dried vegetables for tomorrow. Benjamin really hoped they would make it to Jerusalem the day after that. As exciting as the trip had been, he was ready to stop walking. A quick stop in the shade, a hasty meal, and back on the road until dusk.

By the time the sun started going down, everyone was tired. A camp site was picked out in a grove of scraggily trees, and soon a dozen or more fires were burning. After dinner everyone settled down for the evening. Benjamin’s dad stood up and with Benjamin behind him walked over to a nearby fire where they sat down in a crowd that had gathered.

Two old men sat on a rock positioned a little higher than everyone gathered around them. Eli and Joshua had been appointed the story tellers and teachers for the trip, and the men and boys gathered each night to listen. From the first night of the trip Eli and Joshua had been reviewing the history of the nation, using landmarks they passed to retell the old stories. When they had passed by the city of Jericho the two old men had acted out the march around the wall, and told the story of Achan. They also sang the old songs, the ones that David wrote, the ones where David called upon God to hear his voice and rescue him.

Tonight Eli started.

“Jehovah is the name we use for God, because his name is sacred.”

He continued.

“It’s the name he gave to Moses-I AM. This was the day Moses saw the burning bush. Did you ever stop to think about the burning bush? Jehovah called himself the I AM, the always existing one from a bush that didn’t burn up.”

Joshua jumped in.

“Don’t you see? The flame that always existed, inexhaustible, never burning itself out. The flame that always was. The I AM. He can always provide, he never burns up. He always has enough for us, and he never runs out.”

Benjamin’s dad turned and grinned at him. "I AM" he mouthed toward his son.

Joshua continued.

“This is our God. The one who made heaven and earth. Look up at the stars, and at the sky tomorrow. Everything was made by God, and everyone who sees the stars, and walks under the sky tomorrow as well. This is the God who watches over us. This is the God who never runs out. Remember the prophet Elisha and the jar of oil that never ran out? God provided and it was never empty. The full sky at night can be a promise of this.”

Benjamin couldn’t help himself, he looked up and gasped at the uncountable twinkles of light in the sky above him. He turned back toward the old men and settled back to rest against his dad.

It was Eli’s turn.

“Tomorrow, Jehovah will not let you slip as you climb. In fact he watches over us tonight, he never sleeps.”

A voice from the crowd interrupted. “So Jehovah will make sure we get there safely?”

Eli slowly shook his head. “No, it means that as we seek to serve him, as we become true followers, as we climb toward being more like he wants us to be, if we do this in sincerity and with our whole hearts, he won’t cause us to slip. He won’t let us down. Things might not go well for us, my cousin fell off a mountain once, but I’ve served Jehovah my whole life, and he has never let me down.”

A mummer of agreement rustled through the crowd.

Joshua held up both his arms and the noise tailed off.

“Elijah was a prophet in the old days. In the days where people forgot about Jehovah. They worshiped idols and demons on these very hills, at the high points and the hill tops. This was where they thought their help came from. From a false god who lived on a mountain. In times of trouble they looked to the mountains instead of toward Jehovah. They built alters and shrines and worshipped idols made of rocks and wood.”

Eli shook his head from side to side while Joshua continued.

“One day Elijah battled with the idol worshipping priests of Baal on a mountain top. The Baal priests built an alter and called for their god all day to send fire. All day. They danced, sang, chanted and yelled. Can you imagine? They yelled at their god!”

Eli stood up and mimed shaking his hands at the heavens. Joshua mentioned him to sit down.

“My old friend likes this story, can you tell? Anyway, Elijah just couldn’t help himself, and he started mocking them. Maybe your god is sleeping. Maybe he went on a trip and didn’t tell you.”

Eli jumped to his feet again and yelled at the top of his lungs.

“Maybe he’s going to the bathroom! Ha ha ha”

Joshua grinned.

“Finally it was Elijah’s turn and he carefully built a new alter, dug a ditch around it and soaked everything with water to the point of filling the ditch. And when he prayed—Jehovah let everyone know you are God—fire fell from heaven and burned up the sacrifice, the stones in the alter, the ground, and the water in the ditch.  Our God never sleeps. This is our God!”

Benjamin clapped with everyone else. He knew the story of course, but told under a starry sky by firelight it gave him goose bumps. God never sleeps!

Eli spoke next.

“ Jehovah watches over us! The sun and the moon can’t even harm us. God can keep us from all harm. Our lives are watched over by him. All those gods that aren’t even gods, the moon, stars and sun that the heathen worship, nothing they do can harm us if God is on our side.”

Getting excited Eli stood up and holding his arms out in worship he sang an old hymn that Benjamin had heard before.

“You have searched me, LORD,

and you know me.

You know when I sit and when I rise;

   you perceive my thoughts from afar.

You discern my going out and my lying down;

   you are familiar with all my ways. ..

 Where can I go from your Spirit?

   Where can I flee from your presence?”

Joshua got to his feet and stood next to Eli. Together the two men raised their hands to give a blessing. The group of men and boys stood and gathered as close as they could to the two old men.

“Listen to this new song,” Joshua said and the two men sang together. They repeated the song until all the men and boys knew the song by memory.

“Go back to your families and teach them the song, teach them what it means.”

Holding his father’s hand in the dark, Benjamin sang the song to himself as they walked back to where his mother and sister were sitting. Together Benjamin and his dad taught the song to the rest of the family. As he fell asleep that night Benjamin thought about everything Eli and Joshua had taught them. About Jehovah being the one who is, who never runs out, who never sleeps and who watches over them. He pictured Elijah praying for the fire, and the flash and the hiss of the steam. He imagined Jehovah holding his feet in place as he raced up a mountain. Finally he fell asleep listening to his father and mother singing the new song softly in the dark.

The next morning there was not a cloud in the sky. In the distance, through the clear morning air they could see the last mountain they would have to walk up. More and more travelers joined the party until the road was packed with travelers. His dad told Benjamin to stay close to the family today, he didn’t want to get lost in the crowd. His dad had gotten the family in line right behind Eli and Joshua and Benjamin heard Eli tell Joshua that this would be his last trip to Jerusalem. The two old men walked arm in arm up the mountain side, helping each other over the ruts and holes

Half way up the mountain the road came to a flat spot where suddenly you could see into the city. There was the palace, the houses, and the markets. And there, shining in the distance, gleaming, was the temple.

Benjamin bumped into the person in front of him and looking up from his view of Jerusalem we saw that everyone had stopped. The young men in the group had surrounded Eli and Joshua and were holding them up where everyone could see them.

“Quiet! Listen!” People were shouting for everyone to be quiet, and slowly the crowd quieted. "Sing! Sing the new song!"

Eli and Joshua started singing, and motioned for everyone to join in.

1 I lift up my eyes to the mountains—

   where does my help come from?

2 My help comes from the LORD,

   the Maker of heaven and earth.

 3 He will not let your foot slip—

   he who watches over you will not slumber;

4 indeed, he who watches over Israel

   will neither slumber nor sleep.

 5 The LORD watches over you—

   the LORD is your shade at your right hand;

6 the sun will not harm you by day,

   nor the moon by night.

 7 The LORD will keep you from all harm—

   he will watch over your life;

8 the LORD will watch over your coming and going

   both now and forevermore. 

Every.Single.Time

Russian icon of Aaron from the 17th century.

I'll hug him, he'll hug me back and we'll both shout "Every single time!" Then most likely, we'll cry. But let me back up a little bit.

I can't be the only person in this world who plans their interactions with the people they will meet when they get to heaven. Everyone jokes that they will ask Noah why he didn't smack those two mosquitoes, what it felt like when that fish dove into the deep with Jonah inside and ask the disciples what jokes made Jesus laugh the most. I want to know the answers to those questions too. But there are others.

Besides the legends of the faith (the ones mentioned in the Hall of Fame in Hebrews) there are a few others I want to talk to. Way up at the top of my list is Aaron. Yes, Aaron, Moses' brother, you know who I'm talking about.

That was some family. With Moses the leader, Aaron the Priest and Miriam the prophetess, family dinners in the middle of the desert must have been fun, not to mention all the growing up dynamics. You know, the ones hinted at in the  Prince Of Egypt movie, where Moses doesn't know who his brother and sister are, and Aaron is Jeff Goldblum.....But I digress.

I want to meet Aaron. We all think we know about Aaron and what he did. But really the only story we know is that he built the golden calf. We forget everything else, or we fail to tie all the pieces together. To get the truest picture of Aaron it is important that you start at the beginning.

In the beginning there was a family in Egypt. Now the Bible is a little unclear on the details. I think this is important. It lets us use our imagination to try and tie these great stories onto and into our experiences. We put a little bit of our background, our experiences and emotions into the stories, making them real, making them about us so we can learn from them. It’s a little how we "picture" characters and scenes from our favorite books. It’s a tool to aid in our comprehension, and we do it when we read the Bible too.

Aaron is listed first in all the accounts of the children, so many assume he is the oldest. If Miriam was the girl who followed Moses' basket then Moses would have been the baby of the family. We know from the Biblical account that Miriam, quick thinker that she was, convinced Pharaoh's daughter to let Moses' real mother be his wet nurse. But after that, when Moses was weaned and he moved into the palace, did they know each other or were they strangers to each other? Did they wave from a distance on those occasions when Pharaoh and his family paraded through public? Did he come "home" from time to time? No one knows. How did Aaron feel about that? No one knows. Up to this point in the story, Aaron has not even been mentioned.

We do know that the first time we really meet Aaron by name, God says it. "Look, there is Aaron your brother." You see, God has a problem--Moses doesn't want to do what God wants him to do. So as a solution, God picks Aaron to solve his Moses problem. That's amazing to me, Aaron is presented as God's answer to a problem. 

Then Moses and Aaron go off and have lots of adventures. Do you know who was there when Moses confronted Pharaoh? Aaron. Do you know who was there when Moses had to keep his hands in the air during the battle with the Amelekites? Aaron, holding one of the arms up. Do you know who gets invited to the top of Mount Sini and sits down in God's presence to share a meal? Aaron. During every significant event mentioned during the Exodus and the long walk afterwards, Aaron is there.

But then we come to the golden calf. This one is harder. Aaron caves in the face of the people, and then tries to blame them for his sin. I forget why we teach this story to little kids in Sunday School. I do know that it is not to teach what I realized later and now see in Aaron's story. But let's not jump ahead.

Do you know what happened after the golden calf? Aaron is anointed High Priest in a grand ceremony in front of all the people. There are fancy clothes, sacrifices--lots of sacrifices--and then Aaron and his sons are given the prime camping location right in front of the tabernacle. Of course two of his sons die after trying to worship God the wrong way, but Aaron soldiers on. He's the high priest after all, the one chosen by God (who did not choose Moses by the way, Aaron was chosen for this role) to seek forgiveness and atonement for the sins of the people.

And then he goes and does it again, this time plotting against Moses with his own sister. Did he think the two of them were going to lead the people into the promised land themselves? Was it a big kids versus the little kid thing? Every single time it seems Aaron has the opportunity to do the wrong thing he makes a bad choice. Every single time, although this isn't what we'll be referring to when we hug.

In between all these stories, the unwritten things make a argument from silence. Aaron did his job, the role God chose him for, the role God called him to, the role God decided Aaron was the man for. He served God. Day after day, week after week, Aaron stood before God and in essence said, "Don't punish us for our sins, we need forgiveness. Please forgive us. Please forgive us."

And every time Aaron did his job he was reminded of all his failures.  But this still isn't the "every time" I'm referring to.

To get to the "every time" I want to get to, we need to understand that the central character of Aaron's life is not Aaron. Its God. In Bible school I always heard that the hero of every Bible story is God. And I must admit that it seemed a little too….Bible school-ish to say that. But in Aaron's and I guess by extension the whole Bible, it is true. God is the main hero of Aaron's story because the center of Aaron's story is not Aaron's sin. The way we teach it in Sunday school its all about Aaron's sin, but we teach it wrong. Aaron's story isn't about sin, its about grace.

Here is the "every time" I'm talking about. Every time, every stinking time Aaron did something stupid, every time he made a bad decision, every time he sinned, every time Moses looked at him and clenched his teeth and shouted "AARON WHAT DID YOU DO?"--after every one of these things God looked at Aaron and said, "Aaron, I forgive you. Now do what I picked you to do."

Every time I sin, which is really what I m saying when I use the words "make a bad decision," God looks at me, forgives and say "Now go do what I picked you to do," Every single time.

This is the every time. Every time I come back, God forgives. Every time I confess, God forgives. Every time I call out to him, God forgives. Every time I sin, God forgives. This is what Aaron and I will be shouting to each other.

Every. Single. Time.

photo credit: photo