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1 Samuel 16:2-3: But Samuel said, How can I go? When Saul hears of it, he will kill me. And the Lord said, Take a heifer with you, and say, I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. And you shall invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do; and you shall anoint for Me the one whom I designate to you.
In context, this is something of a ruse. Samuel uses the sacrifice as a cover to visit Jesse and to defuse any suspicion on Saul’s part. It's not completely a ruse. He does lead a sacrifice, and no doubt a sacrificial feast: Verse 5 tells us that "He also consecrated Jesse and his sons, and invited them to the sacrifice."
In the wider biblical perspective, this setting is perfectly suited to a royal proclamation. Abimelech proclaimed himself king after the macabre sacrifice of his seventy brothers on a single stone. Absalom proclaimed himself king at a sheep-shearing festival, Adonijah, the challenger to Solomon, was anointed king at a feast, and so was Solomon. Some scholars believe that there was a regular feast of enthronement in Israel, celebrated with some of the royal Psalms of the Psalter. Whether that's true or not, it is true that kings are commonly coronated, anointed, or otherwise designated at feasts.
That is, of course, what we celebrate at this table. We have been consecrated by baptism, and invited to draw near, to celebrate the anointing and enthronement of David's greater Son. This is the coronation feast of King Jesus, a feast that proclaims that Jesus has been exalted to the right hand of the Father to reign over all things forever.
And not only that. For we are all David's brothers, and when we celebrate His enthronement we do it as brothers and sisters of the King. By this feast we not only proclaim Jesus as king, but we celebrate the fact that we, like the apostles, recline at the table and sit on thrones in the kingdom of heaven.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, July 09, 2006 at 08:46 AM
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