David & Goliath: A Battle With Death (part 4)

Seemingly un-intimidated by the imposing warrior that stood before him, young David boldly is said to have boldly declared, “This very day the Lord will deliver you into my hand!  I will strike you down and cut off your head” (1 Samuel 17:46a).  Answering Goliath’s assertion that he would feed David’s lifeless body to the birds and the beasts, David adds, “This day I will give the corpses of the Philistine army to the birds of the sky and the wild animals of the land” (17:46b). 

Jesus too, more than one thousand years later, would fling Himself headlong into battle.  With what appeared to have been a supreme trust in the faithfulness of His God, He too would confront His enemy, brushing off the multiplied attempts at intimidation from a variety of directions, and saying “The Lord will deliver you into My hand.”  Because He is shown to have trusted that He would be resurrected, with that resurrection according to that which He had most likely come to believe concerning what had come to be considered as the promises about Israel’s messiah, and that His Resurrection would signal the defeat of death and its decapitation, He could confidently insist, not unlike David, that He would strike death down and cut off its head.

David would go on to add that his defeat of Goliath would not only be a temporary victory for the covenant people of the Creator God, but that it would prove to one and all that “Israel has a God” (17:46c).  Why would that be the case?  Frankly, because it would be inconceivable to any observer that this young man, vastly inexperienced in battle and in the art of war, could actually topple this proven warrior.  Yet the report of the story is that that is exactly what happened.  Similarly, as nobody had ever been able to overcome death or gain victory over the grim reality that all life would eventually come to an end, Jesus’ defeat of death would be just as inconceivable.  Death’s track record, undoubtedly, was even better than that of Goliath.  However, that which was and is inconceivable by any reasonable standard, would be proven by a physical Resurrection. 

Then, as now, all people were more than well aware that people do not come back to life.  This was especially true of those subjected to crucifixion.  Not only was crucifixion fatal, the shaming experienced by the one crucified (as well as those close to the crucified individual) would be so great that, even if one was somehow able to survive the ordeal, the shame that would now be attached to that person would be so intense that they might as well be dead. 

So when Jesus returned to life, demonstrating death’s defeat, it was taken to be the manifestation of the Creator God’s victory over death.  It was taken to be a reversal of the honor and shame cultural paradigm, now informing one and all that the place of suffering, perhaps unjustly, on behalf of others in an act of self-sacrifice, was that which should be afforded honor.  Because Jesus’ Resurrection showed Him forth as the Son of God in power---borrowing a well-known title from the liturgy surround the Caesar and his cult of worship, with Jesus now looked upon as the Son of God and King of Israel who rules in the inaugurated kingdom of heaven on earth---all observers that were willing to be honest with themselves would know and understand, as David had said to Goliath so many centuries prior (with that statement definite for Israel’s defining narrative), that Israel has a God.