Redemption for the "man of blood"

2 Samuel 16.1-23; Acts 22.17-29; Mark 1.1-11


When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the crowd greeted him by invoking the memory of David, Israel's greatest king and the one from whose line the Messiah would come. "Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!" was an acclamation reserved only for the One who would sit on David's throne and reign forever.

David was the archetype of Israel's coming king. But, as we have already seen, he was not the perfect embodiment of the character of God's kingdom. His own son, Absalom, led a rebellion against him and drove him out of Jerusalem. Israel was plunged into a bloody civil war. David was forgiven for his transgression with Bathsheba, but Absalom's rebellion was a consequence of that moral failure. David was well aware of this, and that was why he took the curses hurled at him by Shimei in stride.

"Get out, get out, you man of blood, you worthless man!" is a far cry from "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" The Messiah's great ancestor, whose name was given to the throne of his eternal kingdom, was cursed by a deadbeat hanger-on from the disgraced house of Saul. Yet David insisted that Shimei be allowed to continue cursing him, even acknowledging the possibility that God had raised him up for that purpose.

David was well aware of his own sins. He knew that much of what he had, though given to him by God, had come at the cost of many human lives. He would have wished to be a man of peace, but that was not to be. He would be remembered as Israel's greatest king, but his record would be far from spotless. His deeds would be recalled throughout history -- the good, the bad, and the downright ugly.

The true heir to David's throne, however, was to be everything David himself wished to be. The blood he would shed to inaugurate his kingdom would be his own. By so doing, he would redeem Israel's less than perfect history and extend its borders to the ends of the earth.