Untitled from Kevin Powell/Lutheran Church of on Vimeo.
Text:
“Why have you not built me a house of cedar?” God asks David. It had been a long time since God was about to rest the divine feet. God's people had moving around longer than any of them could remember. And God went with them, carried in the ark of the covenant (made famous by Indiana Jones). God was tired. God's people were even more tired. It was time for Phase Two of God's Liberation Project.
“I took you from the pasture,” says the Lord, “from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel; and I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you; and I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may live in their own place, and be disturbed no more; and evildoers shall afflict them no more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies.”
If that wasn't good enough, it gets better:
“Moreover the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.”
And so it begins. Israel's glory years. The golden age of David's reign.
Israel was now a REAL kingdom. With REAL power. No longer were they a wandering group of bumbling nomads, fighting with themselves, making people laugh at the God who rescued them.
Now they were established. They had arrived. Solid. They finally got a seat at the imperial grownup's table.
But those of us who know the back story, know that this wasn't what God REALLY wanted for God's people. God didn't want...(whole thing here)
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