A Christmas Heirloom

There is a lot of activity when my family starts decorating for Christmas, but I always supervise the retrieval of my grandmother’s Christmas china. During her lifetime, she collected a big set of dinner plates, serving pieces, drinking glasses, and more, all stamped with the same, iconic Christmas tree in the middle and holly sprigs around the perimeter. I know they are only dishes, but I can remember using them at her house when I was growing up, and now it just doesn’t quite feel like Christmas at my own house until we have swapped our everyday ware with these special pieces. One day, I guess we’ll pass them along to our own kids. You could call it a Christmas heirloom.

Today’s reading is about another kind of heirloom, one far more precious to God’s people than any set of sentimental china, and one even more essential for Christmas. It is this monumental promise that God makes to his servant David, sometimes called “the Davidic Covenant.” A covenant is a binding agreement that God makes with his people, and this one that God makes with David provides the foundation for the rest of this book. All the “Royal Psalms” we will study together are built on this promise. In fact, the Davidic Covenant shapes the rest of the Biblical story, and the rest of history.

After a long, hard struggle, David has finally established himself as King over Israel. Godly David realizes that the Lord is responsible for establishing him, and so he wants to do something to show his appreciation. David feels a little guilty about reclining in his Vale-esque palace, while God’s presence is still slumming it in that same tattered old tabernacle Moses hauled around the wilderness a few hundred years back. So David decides that he will build God a house: a glorious temple. But, like those people in your family who are so hard to surprise at Christmas, God finds out!

God immediately sends David a message. While God appreciates the thought, he does not want David to build him a house. Instead, God will build David a house. But the house God will build for David will not be another physical palace. God will build David a dynasty. The “House of David” will be a glorious line of distinguished kings. They will not only rule for a very long time, like other dynasties. David’s line will rule… forever! God promises to look on David’s descendants with a special love; each one will be like a son to God. He won’t allow any enemy to overcome these kings. He won’t even allow the kings’ own sin to destroy them. Even if David’s sons go astray, God will remain committed to the covenant. God will never cast them away, like King Saul, but will only discipline them like one of his own children. Ultimately, God intends to re-establish his own rule on earth through the sons of David.

David is blown away by the scope of God’s promise to him, and we should be, too. God is revealing here his plan to take back his fallen world: he will do it through the kings in David’s line. But as time goes by, we find that David’s sons are nothing to write home about: they are sinful, foolish, and sometimes downright evil. As God promised, he does not destroy them, but it’s clear that this family is not going to save the world (you can read about this in an earlier Dove Press book, The True Son of David). Instead, God will raise up one, perfect King, the Ultimate Son of David, who will rule forever. That’s what Christmas, and the rest of this book, will be about.

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Article by Eric Smith
Senior Pastor, Sharon Baptist Church