Passion

1 Samuel 13:14 NIV
But now your kingdom will not endure; the LORD has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people, because you have not kept the LORD's command."

Now, of all the compliments we find in scripture, this is perhaps one of the most extraordinary! God looked about and of all He considered in Israel, there was one person who was “after His own heart.” As far as I can tell, no one else is described in such a lofty way. There are others in scripture that are praised but none to this extent. Now as we attempt to unravel the gist behind the Lord’s accolades, the Hebrew does give us a few extra clues to best understand the comment. Before we go any further, we must point out that it is young David, the eventual second king of Israel that God is referencing. Saul, the king being addressed by the prophet Samuel, has just failed miserably in God’s eyes with his kingly vocation. As a consequence, the Lord picked out someone else to take his place as king. But not just anybody, it was an after his own heart king.

There are two key parts to this characterization. The first has to do with the seeking. There are two ways to look at this Hebrew verb. The first is that God went out on an intensive search and frantically looked high and low for someone who could replace Saul as king. The implication is that the Lord has to figure things out, sort through things…as if he went out among all the Israelites and checked each psychic resume before stumbling upon the right man for the job. The second way this verb can be read is that sought to make the right person ready for the task before him. God sought to secure the will and character of the future king and that one became a man after God’s own heart. For obvious reasons, this seems to be the better reading of this. God made David who he was. It wasn’t David’s marvelous make-up that convinced God he was the one. God secured David and got him ready to be a man after His own heart. What else were those attacking bears and lions that threatened his little flock intended to do but steel his character? And what of those “few sheep” his brother Eliab derisively characterized David’s chief vocation? Why did God saddle him with such a lowly career when David was good enough to be king? That too was God’s “sought”. The family he had, the village where he was raised, the dusty fields where he worked all became God’s seeking.

The second part of the characterization is the “after his own heart”. What does this mean? Heart is the Hebrew word for the inner parts, the part of us that we are inside…our soul, our personality, our mind, our emotions. It is us. “After His own” indicates as is. In David, God said He had someone just like Him. That David is like me! It is just as if you watch your daughter do the exact same thing you would do in a situation and you go, “Wow! That was me!” But then you might respond, “So what?” How does that change my life? Of course this doesn’t. But there is something that does. How was David just like God in who He is and what would I be like if God said the same of me? That is an intriguing question.

There are many traits of David that could qualify. He was courageous…But for courage there must be something that makes you afraid and how would God get there? Perhaps it was the cool way David wrote praise songs….of course that wouldn’t make sense other than maybe the adoration he offered God warmed the Lord’s heart to him. Was it his adultery with Bathsheba…that was a joke! Could it have been his warrior persona? Now I think we are getting somewhere. He was told that he couldn’t build the Temple he so badly wanted to construct because he had “shed much blood.” So it wasn’t that he killed lots of people in battle. But, I do believe there is something in the way David went out and conquered that made him a man whose inners were like the inners of God.

Everything about David exuded passion. Whether it was the way he was undaunted by Goliath’s height or girth and insisted he could lick the big “fella” or his ability to rally a crowd to join him when he was an “enemy of the state: David was passionate and it rubbed off on those around him. Several stories come to mind. The first is David’s response to the bravery of his soldiers who broke through enemy lines to grab some water from the well at Bethlehem. It was a foolish risk of life but done out of deep love and respect for David. When the men returned, despite his clear craving for that well water, David poured it out on the ground “to the Lord”. Embarrassed by his selfishness, he responded almost bizarrely. No one would have faulted him for drinking the water, particularly since it could have been misconstrued as disrespecting the efforts of his men to bring it to him. But the passion of David could not be swayed by his concern with propriety. Far be it from me, O LORD, to do this!" he said. "Is it not the blood of men who went at the risk of their lives?" And David would not drink it. (2 Samuel 23:17 NIV)

Of course we are well familiar with David’s near erotic dancing before the Lord as he led the procession bringing the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem. His wife Michal castigated him for his passion, calling it an embarrassment to his office. But David did not care what others thought of his behavior. He was deeply in love with God and could not stop the effervescent flow of affection bubbling up out of him. Listen to some of the Psalms he wrote. Sing to him a new song; play skillfully, and shout for joy. (Psalm 33:3 NIV) My lips will shout for joy when I sing praise to you--I, whom you have redeemed. (Psalm 71:23 NIV) Not only did he shout for God, he also shouted happily for his friends when they got it right. We will shout for joy when you are victorious and will lift up our banners in the name of our God. (Ps 20:5 NIV) Something tells me, when I reflect on David stripping down and wildly dancing in front of the Ark all the way through the streets of Jerusalem, when David said that he would shout…scream if you will with joy when you were victorious…he meant it. Passion

There is one other lesser known example of David’s passion that caught my eye. When told that he would not be allowed to build the Temple himself, David was saddened but undeterred. He gathered 3,750 tons of gold and 34,500 tons of silver for the construction of the Temple he would never live to see built. Listen to David’s detailed concern that the Temple his son would construct be precisely correct in every way. He gave him instructions for the divisions of the priests and Levites, and for all the work of serving in the temple of the LORD, as well as for all the articles to be used in its service. He designated the weight of gold for all the gold articles to be used in various kinds of service, and the weight of silver for all the silver articles to be used in various kinds of service: the weight of gold for the gold lampstands and their lamps, with the weight for each lampstand and its lamps; and the weight of silver for each silver lampstand and its lamps, according to the use of each lampstand; the weight of gold for each table for consecrated bread; the weight of silver for the silver tables; the weight of pure gold for the forks, sprinkling bowls and pitchers; the weight of gold for each gold dish; the weight of silver for each silver dish; and the weight of the refined gold for the altar of incense. He also gave him the plan for the chariot, that is, the cherubim of gold that spread their wings and shelter the ark of the covenant of the LORD. (1 Chronicles 28:13-18 NIV)

Honestly, if this was a friend of ours, who in old age made such elaborate instructions for so many almost insignificant details, we would think he was at best a bit anal. Why would David care in the least how much the serving forks in the Temple weighed? He had psalms to finish, governors to instruct, generals to manage, wives and children to correct and take on vacations. Really, what did it matter if the table was 12 pounds of solid gold or 11.8 pounds? The answer is found in the next line of 1 Chronicles 28. All this," David said, "I have in writing from the hand of the LORD upon me, and he gave me understanding in all the details of the plan." God gave David the details down to the minutia for the construction and he refused to deviate even an inch from what he was told. That, my friend, is passion.

Let us now turn to the most important person in our life, Jesus. What can we say about the passion he exhibited? Perhaps the most enlightening passage found in scripture outlining the psyche of Jesus is John 11. Three details catch my eye. The first is His devotion to the lost sheep of Israel. Jesus certainly puzzled many by His actions but perhaps the most surprising…at least from the standpoint of His friends was the way he responded to the news that His buddy Lazarus was sick. Hearing of it, He dawdled where he was an additional three days. Rather than panicking and immediately taking off in a rush to heal Lazarus or at least reassure Lazarus’ two sisters who had to have been worried sick, Jesus kept up His ministry with the people across the Jordan river. Now, John tells us it was very successful ministry as “many believed”, but did that justify Jesus’ leisurely response to the deadly illness? What is intriguing is that Jesus’ enthusiasm or should we say “passion” for the people coming to Him trumped His concern for his friend’s condition. Perhaps one day dawdling would be seen as enthusiasm for the work, three days has to be labeled extreme passion.

The “b” part to this entire account is Jesus’ response to either the weeping of His friends, the hopelessness of the crowd or some other aspect of it all not explained. Jesus, at the moment He was going to raise His friend from the dead, burst into tears. There is another word for weeping which is for more often used in the New Testament to describe the response to sorrow but the specific word chosen is a derivative of tears. Now, I ask, why did John, as he pondered what happened that day, not use the more normal term for weeping rather than the one that emphasized tears? I think it is because the Disciples were caught off guard by how many tears Jesus shed, the sheer rush of them. As John look back nearly seventy years later, he still could not shake the picture of Jesus bawling. The passion of it stunned them all.

Move now to the “c” part of Jesus’ psyche. When Jesus called Lazarus from the tomb, we are told that He “shouted”. It is the same expression used to describe the uproar of the crowd when it screamed for Jesus to be crucified. Again, it is the same phrasing to express the passion of the voice from the throne (Jesus there also) shouting the end of time as we know it and the crushing of death along with the completed reign of Christ in heaven and earth. This is the shout of the stadium when home team wins the championship of the world and the fans jump from their seat in spontaneous uproar. Jesus could, and did scream with joy.

Now, let’s consider the passion of the Father. I realize most of us think of God the Father as the austere, subdued thinker who is a bit overwhelmed with all the responsibilities of running the universe that He doesn’t get overly emotionally involved with most of us. We are there, but so are the other six billion out there. But Jesus, who should know what the Father is really like described Him as a Father who has a missing son…you and me. When that son finally comes to his senses, (and yes it feels like an eternity to the Father) repents of his sins, and comes home, God the Father rushes to the boy in a mad dash, throws himself upon him and affectionately kissed him. There is nothing austere about this description of the Father. It is embarrassingly goopy passion.

What do we make of all this? I think we are most like Jesus when we shout more about him, are openly wild in our affection for one another and when we pump fist more often even the tiniest of steps forward we fellow pilgrims make in this plodding journey of faith. If you look at the bad guys in all three stories, whether it is the account of David’s passion, the story of Jesus’ passion at the tomb and the Father’s passion for his returning son, it is always the sour puss observers who think it beneath their dignity to overlook flaws, revel in God and shout out loud about the kindness and mercy of Jesus. I have never been very comfortable expressing myself loudly…perhaps it was the way I was raised, maybe my own personality but I am completely in love with the way the Father greets us on our way home. If there is anything the Christian community can do to make us more like God, wouldn’t it be nice if we threw our arms around one another more often and made fools of ourselves. And what if, somewhere, someplace, we would every once in a while fist pump the air and shout a praise to God that was as bold and brave as David dancing before the Ark of the Covenant. .