Samuel calls a council of all the tribes of Israel and,
although the Lord has told him who is to be king and he has already anointed
Saul, they draw lots to see who it will be.
The people needed to own the leader and Samuel knew the sovereignty of
God, that the process would turn out exactly as it should, Saul would be
chosen. When the time came to publicly
accept him, however, Saul was hiding in the baggage, certainly a strange thing
to do, but Saul would indeed do some strange things in his life. God had chosen a king for the people because
of their sinful rejection of Him and would give them the king they asked for, a
king who was eminently human and fallible.
Most acclaim Saul but some doubted that he would be up to the job. There is an ominous tone to that final
sentence of the reading, “But some worthless fellows said, ‘How can this man
save us?’ And they despised him and brought him no present. But he held his
peace.”
Peter who had spoken so bravely about his faithfulness to
Jesus and heard Jesus prophesy that he would deny Him three times this very
night, finds himself on trial by a servant girl and a couple of men in the
courtyard of the high priest. He fails
the test of faithfulness and betrays Jesus, exactly as Jesus said he
would. The rooster crowing would have
been a painful reminder but Luke tells us something else was what reminded
Peter, “And the Lord turned and looked at Peter.” In the midst of his own trial by a tribunal
that could and would declare Jesus guilty of a capital crime, would lead to
beatings and the cross, He turned and looked at Peter. How horrible would it be to see that face and
know that He knew what had just happened, that you had failed Him utterly and
believing that there would be no chance to fix this, no way to make amends, to
confess your failure and to plead for forgiveness, no hope was left at all and
your final memory of your life together would be this moment.
Stephen moves quickly through the period post-Moses to the
building of the temple by Solomon to remind them that God’s word is clear that
He doesn’t live in a temple made by human hands in spite of the tent of witness
(tabernacle) and the temple being built according to His command and
pattern. His dwelling is in the heavens,
earth is His footstool. Stephen doesn’t
deny the validity of the temple, but points to Jesus as transcendent, the one
who was to come, and is not that one greater than any building made by human
hands? His defense is offense,
convicting them of resisting the Holy Spirit and of betraying and murdering the
Righteous One, their own Messiah. In his
death, Stephen is beatified, the glory of the Lord is on him and he prays the
prayer Jesus prayed from the cross, forgiveness for those who are killing
him. Love perseveres, even for those who
hate us, if we are in Christ.
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