Someone's Running

College freshmen can sleep through anything, but that wasn’t the case on my first night with my new roommate in Marsh 414. At some point, while in the deepest well of sleep, our room started to shake. It started with a low rumble, and then a gentle window shaking, and it continued to build until I found myself gripping the side of my bed and finally hearing Patrick Fant running through the hall in his boxers yelling, “it’s coming through!” It was the closest thing to an earthquake we had ever experienced, until we realized it was the 2:00 am train slowly rolling past. Then, on the second night, we rolled over and groaned and by the fourth we slept perfectly through the nightly Great Shake.

When you hear something enough you stop noticing, which is exactly what happens when we read the story of David and Goliath (1 Samuel 17). Imagine, there’s a literal giant standing in the middle of your world, yelling to everyone, your family, your colleagues, your friends, your king, that you are pathetically impotent. Imagine him marching out every day, proclaiming publicly the things you are most ashamed of, the things that you are most afraid of being true.

Now stop reading for a moment. Make a list in your head of what those things are (I won’t ask you to write them down because that probably feels too dangerous). These are the things that you are worried about becoming a slave to, which is exactly what the Philistines and Goliath were threatening. Now hold that thought, and ask yourself, are the windows starting to rattle?

David, more than any other character in the Old Testament, is a type of Christ. He had some real problems, but many elements of his story foreshadow things that would finally be more wonderfully true in Jesus. For example, the Westminster Catechism tells us that Christ fills the role of prophet, priest and king, and as far as I know, David is the only Old Testament character that lawfully filled all of these roles. Actually, Saul tried to, but he got into a lot of trouble for it (1 Samuel 13). David, on the other hand, leans into all three of these roles in this one story alone. He is the prophet who proclaims the coming victory to God’s people (17:45-46). He’s the priest who tells the people to not lose heart (17:31, see Deut 20:3-4). And he’s the future king, having been promised the king’s daughter as a reward (17:25).

Okay, that’s all a bit complicated, but here’s why it matters. It’s not David we see going to fight Goliath. The message isn’t that we should be brave and slay our giants like David. Instead, it’s Jesus we should see running to kill the things we are most afraid of being true. Look at verse 48: “When the Philistine arose and came and drew near to meet David, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine.” David ran toward the possibility of death to save a nation. Jesus ran toward certain death to save me. David ran to an empty battlefield. Jesus ran to a much-used gallows.

Do you see the beauty of Jesus? The solution I need isn’t to muster more courage. The solution is to see more of Jesus. The question isn't how can I be saved? The question is what kind of God would save anyone this way? What kind of God would craft all history, even events in a dusty 3,500 years ago, to bring them together, like the center of an hour glass, to a dusty trash heap with a cross? What kind of God would then explode from that focused, constricted moment to call a people, to invite me, to love him. Seeing that beauty makes me want to follow him into any battle where we can stand together.

So what should we do today?

1. Write verse 48 (“and David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine”) on a post-it and put it somewhere you see every day.

2. Ask this question every day for one week. “Is there a battle where I see Jesus fighting and where I can stand beside him on the field?” because when we see him fighting we see his beauty, and beauty always changes us.