Tall, dark and handsome: Credentials of the next King? (Part 1)

By Patrick Sikana

Over the course of the next five days, I will be sharing a series of lessons in choosing a leader drawn from the life of David. His life is so intriguing, so extraordinary, so compelling that we could spend the next 62 days of our run up to the elections (set for 20th January2015, I hear) learning something from the man, albeit posthumously.

From the fields of herding sheep David came to be anointed King of Israel. As a musician he could calm the savage beast and as a warrior he could slay enemies in their tens of thousands. He was a man after God’s own heart and yet he couldn’t keep his prying eyes off a beautiful woman taking a bath. He was willing to murder his own military general so he could satisfy his own lusts, and yet he could refuse to eat in order to identify with his own hungry soldiers. He was a father whose one son went on to glory and fame while another son rebelled, committed treason, and died in a freak accident.

Perhaps David holds on to our memory and imagination because he is so much like many of us. There is just something genuinely human about David with which we can identify. But even as we try to identify with him, we realize there is a yawning distance between him and us. He was a king after all, and not a boring king at any rate. And perhaps, most importantly, he was the anointed one who would provide the model for the Son of God who came to earth 1,000 years later.

Jesus was never called the Son of Moses or the Son of Abraham, but he was called “the Son of David”. In looking at David’s life, I hope we can be gripped by his greatness and repelled by his guile. As we proceed towards the polls join me in exploring the life of a man who was so imperfect, yet he sought the only thing that was perfect: The heart of God! What do we want to see in our next President? “a tall, dark and handsome” MA