David: Michelangelo Model or Christ Model?

David was the paradigm King of Israel and a type model for Christ, his greatest descendant. The great humanist artist Michelangelo depicted him as the ultimate specimen of masculinity. Certainly he was strong enough to kill a lion, a bear and Goliath. Yet David was a person who learned the life of faith on the anvil of suffering, rejection, betrayal and deprivation.

Many of the psalms teach of faith that grows, a faith that hurts, a faith that bleeds, a faith that pleads for rescue and vindication, A faith that sometimes fails (Psalm 51),a faith that praises (Psalm 150).

David was pursued in the desert caves by the man whose kingdom he had rescued. David defied the challenge of opportunity to end his own pain by killing Saul, but he “would not stretch forth his hand against the Lord’ anointed”.

Read the accounts of David’s problems with Saul in 1 Samuel 21-27. Among the psalms that speak of David’s pain are Psalms 6, 11, 13, 22, 140, 142, and 143.

“I look to the right and watch, but there is none who takes notice of me; no refuge remains to me, no man cares for me. I cry to thee, O LORD; I say, Thou art my refuge, my portion in the land of the living” (Psalm 142: 4-5). This is the cry of faith. Psalm 22: 1 brings his cry of dereliction, the cry on the lips of Jesus on the Cross, the cry of faith in pain, whose hope is fulfilled in resurrection. (Mark 15: 34)

He was born, like Jesus, in Bethlehem.

Oh Bethlehem, by name "the House of Bread",
Of Bethlehem, the city under siege.
'Twas the town of David, Israel's Shepherd King,
And yet for You, Great David's Greater Son
Was no room found at all in hotel bed.

Oh precious Jesus ascended, up on high
To eyes of faith you always have come nigh.
From bed of straw to painful crown of thorns,
For sin and grief your tears all spilt in flood,
You bore for us rejection spelt in blood.

(Full text of poem To Christ our King)

Lindsay Johnstone

Back to index