Well, today we come to the end of the history of Saul, Israel’s first king. The question that faces us as we think about the life of Saul, is just how much of a failure was it? And what’s more, did God make a mistake in making him king? In fact, should God have refused the Israelites request for a king altogether? As we think about those questions I want us also to think about the events recorded in our gospel reading, because there too, we have the record of a king who appeared to have failed, yet in the end succeeded. There we have the record of the last in the line of kings that began with Saul.
So what I want to do today is to think about Saul in the context of the events of the first Easter. In particular I want to spend some time contrasting the end of Saul’s life on earth with the end of Jesus’ life on earth. What we’ll find as we think about it is that there are some contrasts and some similarities between the lives of these two men and that in the end, it’s actually the life of Jesus that brings some meaning into the history of Saul.
So first let’s think about the contrasts.
Well, obviously, Saul was the first king of Israel, while Jesus was the last. Saul begins a long line of kings, some of whom are failures, others are more of a success, but none fully meet the need for a king who will lead his people in complete righteousness and serve God in complete faithfulness. None, that is, until Jesus Christ who is the last and great king of Israel.
Saul ends his life as one of those failures. At the end of his reign Israel is no better off than before. In fact it’s probably worse off. The people are scattered, the Philistines are in the ascendancy and the nation is without a leader.
By contrast, Jesus is found to be the true king, the Messiah who has come to save his people. Although his life appears to end on a cross, there’s more to it than that. He rises to life again. he ascends to heaven where he is now, seated at God’s right hand on high, having done all that God asked of him.
Mind you, although Saul dies in battle, it’s still a valiant death. He never gives up, never stops trying to fulfill his role as leader of his people.
By contrast Jesus dies a death of weakness, dragged away in naked shame by Roman guards, hung on a cross, the sign of being cursed by God. When the opportunity to fight for his freedom arises, he turns it down. He rebukes Peter who would willingly have died to defend him. He kisses the cheek of Judas as he comes to betray him. Here is no valiant warrior king. Here is a king whose reign is born out of weakness. There’s no glory in the Good Friday story. It contains only shame and sadness.
I heard about a parent at a Church school recently, coming up to the Religious Education teacher and asking whether she really needed to tell the children the Good Friday story. She said "It’s such a sad story. Don’t they have enough sadness in their lives already?" And she was right. This is not the sort of story you would tell to rally the troops. This is not an Anzac Day story of courage and valour. It’s a story of weakness and shame. But I guess, in the end, the death of Saul isn’t much better. You see, along with the contrasts there are also similarities between Saul and Jesus’ deaths.
Saul is wounded by an arrow, but isn’t quite dead, so he asks his armour bearer to finish him off before the Philistines capture him and torture him to death. But the armour bearer won’t do it. He has the same sort of respect for God’s anointed king that we saw in David a few weeks ago. He won’t raise his arm against the king even in these circumstances. Or perhaps it’s just the sanctity of life that he’s concerned about. The 6th commandment was quite clear, "You shall not murder." What Saul’s asking is different to killing on the battle field where there are other ethical principles to consider. This is killing someone in cold blood.
Well, I wonder what you think about that. What Saul asks this man to do is the sort of thing that’s portrayed on our cinema or TV screens fairly regularly: the mercy killing that saves someone from torture or the prolonged agony of a long death. It’s not much different in fact from the sort of solution that Dr Nietsche and other euthanasia proponents would advocate. A quick and relatively painless end to avoid possibly worse suffering later. But, no, he refuses to do it. He won’t be the one to take another man’s life in cold blood.
So instead Saul takes his own sword and falls on it. He dies, in the end, an ignominious death. A death of defeat. He’s found by his enemies, the Philistines, who take him, cut off his head and hang his body on the wall of one of the northern cities of Israel as a sign of their victory and his humiliation.
Jesus, too, is killed by his enemies, his body hung on a cross in shame and nakedness for those who pass by to laugh at and mock, a sign to all who see him that his enemies have won and his mission is a failure; that this so-called son of God was just a man after all.
The remains of Saul’s army are scattered, the people living in the north of the country leave their homes to become refugees and the Philistines move in to their abandoned towns.
Similarly, after Jesus’ death, Matthew tells us, his disciples deserted him and fled. Just like the Israelites of Saul’s day, they’re afraid that they too might end up dead, hanging on a cross.
But that isn’t the end. As dishonourable as Saul’s death has become, there are still some in Israel who remember him with kindness. The people of Jabesh Gilead, just across the Jordan, still remember Saul as the new king who had rescued them from the cruelty of Nahash the Ammonite. So they raise a force to go and bring back his mutilated body, along with those of his sons, to give them a decent funeral, to honour their fallen king.
Likewise, one of Jesus followers, Joseph of Arimathea, arranges with Pilot to have Jesus’ body taken down from the cross and given an honourable burial. He wraps him in a clean linen cloth and lays him in a newly carved tomb.
But that’s where the similarities end.
After that there are only contrasts. As a king Saul is a total failure. As I said earlier, at the end of his reign Israel is worse off than when he started. The entire northern region of the country is now under Philistine occupation. The people are scattered, refugees without a home to return to. Once again they’re without a king, but now they don’t even have Samuel to lead them.
By contrast, Jesus’ death isn’t the end. As much as his death may have looked like failure, 3 days later it’s a different story. When the women go to the tomb to finish the task of embalming him, they’re told "He’s not here. He is risen!" And as the disciples begin to digest what all this means, Jesus comes and speaks to them, hiding behind locked doors in the upper room, and says "Peace be with you!" He shows them his hands and his sides to show that it really is him. Then he tells them two things that explain the reason he’s come and that fill out the nature of his kingly rule.
The first thing he tells them is that he’s sending them out as his ambassadors in the same way that he came as God’s spokesperson. He’d come to bring a message from God and now he’s sending them out to continue that task of spreading the gospel.
Secondly, he’s sending them out to take a message of forgiveness of sins. Here’s the other reason he’d come: to bring the possibility of forgiveness for sinful human beings. Their task is to take that message to the ends of the earth, to share with people the good news that God is offering them forgiveness. As king, Jesus brings salvation for his people, not against a physical enemy, not by force of arms, but against a spiritual enemy, against the enemy of sin and death. And he does it not by conquering his enemies, but by being conquered, by allowing his enemies to take his life. Except that their victory is only short term. Death has no power over him because the power of death is sin, as we read last week, and there is no sin in him. Death is conquered forever because he is a king who is without sin, a lamb without a blemish, who by his sacrificial death takes away the sin of the world.
And so, finally we have the greatest contrast between Saul, in fact between all other kings, and God’s anointed one, Jesus Christ. Their reigns all came to an end. His reign goes on forever. Their rule was limited to a small regional kingdom. His rule extends to the ends of the earth.
He is the one about whom Paul can write that: "God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, 10so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Phil 2:5-11 NRSV)
What we discover in this study of similarities and contrasts is that God’s decision to grant the Israelites’ request for a king was no mistake. Their motives may have been flawed. Their choices, as time went on, may have been poor, but God is the God of history. He has our times in his hand. He had a plan for the world, to be brought into effect when the time was right; a plan to bring all things in heaven and earth under one head, Jesus Christ our Lord. (Eph 1:3-10)
And finally, here is the marvelous wonder of that plan: God’s plan was that we, Christ’s church, would demonstrate to the rest of the world what it means to live in Christ’s kingdom. That we would show forth the amazing wisdom of God, who could take the flawed plans of human beings all those thousands of years ago and shape the events of history to bring about a salvation that blows our minds; that he could make it possible for us sinful human beings to be able to enter the very presence of God with confidence and assurance. How? Through our faith in Jesus Christ, our king, and through the forgiveness of sins made possible by his death on the cross. (Eph 3:10-13)
So was Saul’s reign a failure? In the short term, yes. But in the longer term God had a king in mind for Israel, who, through his death and resurrection, would bring the salvation, the leadership, the rule that the nation needed and who, in fact, would extend that rule to the whole earth; a king before whom every knee shall bow and whom every tongue will confess to be Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
This is our God, the Servant King.
He calls us now to follow him
to bring our lives as a daily offering
of worship to the Servant King.
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