David
The Beauty of Holiness
He hath a daily beauty . . . that makes me ugly.
— William Shakespeare
There's a remarkable story about David in the closing chapters of 2 Samuel that tells me more about "the man after God's own heart" than any other description:
During harvest time, three of the thirty chief men came down to David at the cave of Adullam, while a band of Philistines was encamped in the Valley of Rephaim. At that time David was in the stronghold, and the Philistine garrison was at Bethlehem. David longed for water and said, "Oh, that someone would get me a drink of water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem!" So the three mighty men broke through the Philistine lines, drew water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem and carried it back to David. But he refused to drink it; instead, he poured it out before the LORD. "Far be it from me, O LORD, to do this!" he
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said, "Is it not the blood of men who went at the risk of their lives?" And David would not drink it" (2 Samuel 23:13-17).
All we know about this event is what we read here. It's placed in the text as one example of the love and loyalty of David's tough little army and the quality of David's life that drew good men around him.
The event occurred during the last stages of David's conflict with the Philistines, his mortal enemy. The main Philistine force had moved into the mountains and taken up a position near the city of Jerusalem. Their aim was to defend the city, which was then in Canaanite hands and was probably a Philistine dependency. In so doing they cut off David from the northern tribes from which he drew much of his support. His situation seemed hopeless.
In a moment of homesickness and deep yearning for a former, less complicated time, David uttered a quiet wish for a drink from a well near Bethlehem he recalled from his youth. It was just a wish, nothing more, but three of his men heard him and took him at his word.
These three men were probably the three whose exploits are supplied in the preceding context who had distinguished themselves in holy war with the Philistines (23:8-12).
There was Josheb-Basshebeth, who "raised his spear against eight hundred men, whom he killed in one encounter" (23:8).
There was Eleazar who "was with David when they taunted the Philistines gathered at Pas Dammim for battle. Then the men of Israel retreated, but he stood his ground and struck down the Philistines till his hand grew tired and froze to the sword" (23:9-10).
And finally there was Shammah who "took his stand in the middle of a field. He defended it and struck the Philistines down" (23:11-12).
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It's enough to say these were three though dudes!
Without a word these men crept out of the stronghold at Adullum, fought their way through the Philistine lines to the well on the northeast side of the city of Bethlehem, drew water, fought their way back to David and presented him with their gift.
David looked at the blood and bruises on their bodies and poured out the water as an offering to the Lord. It had cost too much; it was too precious to drink.
Alexander the Great did the same thing on his march to Persia. At one point, when offered a helmet full of water by a traveler, he poured it out because none of his weary, wind-parched men had water to drink.
Perhaps he had read the story of David. He may have been familiar with certain portions of the Bible. Tradition suggests that on Alexander's march through Judah, one of Israel's priests handed him a portion of Daniel's prophecy to read. Perhaps he gave him more than we know.
In any case, these stories speak to some intuition we have of what a good man ought to be. They describe the state of a real man's soul.
When reading about David and his mighty men with a couple of my friends one day, we fell into thinking about this extraordinary act. After some reflective discussion, one of the men in the group leaned back in his chair and muttered to himself, "What a beautiful guy."
"Beautiful" sounded odd to me at the time, especially when applied to a rugged old warrior like David, but it's exactly the right word. The Bible itself speaks of "the beauty of holiness" (Psalm 29:2; 96:9) as though true goodness is something beautiful to see. It is. Peter puts it this way:
Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your
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good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us (1 Peter 2:12).
The word twice translated "good" in this text means "beautiful." In that sense David was indeed a "beautiful guy."
Nice guys and good old boys
The best way to see the true beauty of manhood is to see it in Jesus. Those who knew him best said that he was a good man, "full of grace and truth." Everything he did was truthful, and yet he was unfailingly gracious.
There is "truth" that isn't gracious at all. It may be the antithesis of falsehood, but it's also the antithesis of beauty. It was grace linked with truth that made Jesus the man that he was.
I think of that occasion on which his disciples were arguing about who was the greatest. Who could have blamed our Lord if he had blasted them? But he did not. He rather girded himself with a towel, and began to wash their feet. He who was the greatest of all became the servant of all. Don't you think his disciples thought, "What a beautiful man?"
And then there was that leper Jesus encountered when he was teaching in one of the little villages of Galilee. Luke says the man was "full of leprosy" — a medical expression for an advanced case of the disease. He was all lesions, running sores, and grotesque stumps, discolored and disfigured, shocking in his ugliness, a gross caricature of what a man was intended to be.
Jesus, "moved with compassion," reached out and hugged him. He didn't have to touch him. He could have cured the man with a word from afar. Yet there was every need in the world to hug this ugly, awful man because no one else had done so. Don't you think that man went away thinking, "What a beautiful man?"
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There was that day Jesus was teaching in the temple, when he was interrupted by shouts and sounds of scuffling and a group of clergymen barged in and unceremoniously dumped a woman, rumpled, disheveled, and defiant at his feet. "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery," they said triumphantly. "In the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" (John 8:4-5).
"Daughter," he said, looking at the woman with his kind eyes, "I don't condemn you. Go and sin no more." Don't you think she went away thinking, "What a beautiful man?"
I think of the dirty little street urchins of that day who used to tag along behind Jesus and climb into his lap, and I remember the adage that a truly good man is one "around whose gate and garden children are unafraid to play." His disciples wanted to shoo them away. Jesus gathered them into his arms and blessed them. Don't you think they remembered him as a beautiful man?
These vignettes reflect a manly beauty that's hard to put into words. It's more than being decent, ethical, and right. It has a rugged, "more than" quality about it that Jesus summed up with the question, "What are you doing more than others?" (Matthew 5:47). It's a matter of doing things beautifully.
True goodness is not doing extraordinary things. It is doing ordinary things in an extraordinary way. Pascal said, "The strength of a man's virtue must not be measured by his efforts but by his ordinary life." It is not so much a matter of overt religious behavior as it is a gracious, winsome spirit with which we do everything.
Jesus was inclined to be very stern with those who wore their religion on their sleeves: "Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them," he warned. "If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven (Matthew 6:1). We'll never hear God's "Atta boy!" that way.
Authentic goodness is something more subtle. Howard Butt described it this way: "It is not a way of doing special
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things. It is a special way of doing everything. Can I talk to a woman as Jesus did? Or ask for a drink of water; or cook fish; or walk through my hometown; or talk to my men? It is basins and towels and washing feet. I'm not supposed to be a gilt-edged spook with wings making a holy hum. I'm supposed to be a normal, natural, down to earth human being, full of creation's practical Spirit."
It's how we play the game: how we conduct ourselves when we play a round of golf; how we behave ourselves at a business conference; how we talk to our wives and our children; how we respond to slights and injustices. It is doing everything we do with a certain elegance and style.
Rudyard Kipling has captured something of this idea in his poem "If":
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings — nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And — which is more — you'll be a Man, my son!
I'm reminded of a friend of mine, Brian Morgan, who came to Stanford University in the seventies with hopes of
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becoming an Olympic gymnast. As a young man someone had planted Paul's word in his mind, "Glorify God in your body" (1 Corinthians 6:20).
His plan was to hone his body to perfection and then, having achieved a certain measure of athletic prominence, give God all the credit for his success. But Brian was an athlete who matured early and got no better. In fact, he got worse. His senior year was a disaster.
The coup de grâce came at an NCAA meet when he fell off the high bar and landed on his head. It was hard on his head, but good for his soul, he said. That's when it came to him that what Paul actually said was, glorify God in your body, not with it. It was far more important for him to be gracious in dishonor than to win big and look good. It's that subtle shift in thought that represents the beauty of holiness.
What hath God wrought?
We cannot, by moral effort, change ourselves one iota. Everything that needs to be done in our souls can only be done by God. "All virtue is a miracle," said Augustine.
Change creeps to us. It is the fruit of our association with Jesus. As we draw close to him day by day — walking with him, talking to him, listening to his words, relying on him, asking for his help — his character begins to rub off on us. Quietly and unobtrusively his influence softens our wills, making us thirsty for his righteousness. In his quiet love he takes all that's unworthy in us and gradually turns it into something beautiful.
Howard Butt writes, "The dusty, pedestrian duties of life demand God Almighty in us. It takes as much of the power of God for me to go to my office and sit at the desk and talk on the phone (as I should), to go through my regular routine, as it does for others to preach a sermon, or write a religious book."
There may be sins within your heart that have long resisted control. Do what you may they still defy you. But if
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you hand over the conflict to God he will subdue those sins in his own time and in his own way. What you cannot do, he can. Whenever the old temptation arises, as soon as you are aware of it, lift your heart to Jesus and reckon on him to cope with it. He will fight for you if you will stand fast and wait.
God is at work in you. Call it mysticism or whatever — the name matters little. What matters is that the God of the universe has promised to live in you and reproduce his life in you. "Without him you can do nothing"; with him anything is possible. "To have Christ within is to realize your creed not as something you have to bear, but something by which you are borne; this is true Christianity" (James Stewart). This is the only goodness that can be called truly good.
Gentle persuasion
Few things are harder to put up with than a good example.
- Mark Twain
God's work is always good. It imparts an unforgettable beauty and fragrance to our lives that sticks in people's minds. There is a catchy little psalm that enshrines that truth, one verse of which reads, "The upright man shines in the darkness like a light: he is gracious, compassionate and righteous." That person, the poet goes on the say, "will be remembered forever" (Psalm 112:4, 6).
Men who put themselves in God's hand to be shaped and used have a profound effect upon others. Herman Melville in his story Billy Budd tells of the reaction of Billy's captain when the young sailor was conscripted from his boat for His Majesty's service. He objected strenuously to seaman Budd's leaving because of the impact he had on the crew: "My forecastle was a rat-pit of quarrels," he said. "But Billy came; and it was like a Catholic priest striking peace in an Irish shindy [fight]. Not that he preached to them or said or did
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anything in particular, but a virtue went out of him, sugaring the sour ones."
Those whom God is making good have an extraordinary effect on others. Paul writes, "For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life" (2 Corinthians 2:15-16).
Godliness can repel. In Billy Budd's case it led to his death. Paul points out that to some we smell like something dead. But to others we leave behind the sweet fragrance of Christ, a subtle ambience that lingers and leaves others longing for more (2 Corinthians 2:14-15).
Some years ago my wife, Carolyn, and I attended a concert in Boise that featured an alto soloist who awed us with her rich voice and astonishing range. On the way out, a young woman who had accompanied us, herself a musician, said to Carolyn, "I wish I could take lessons from her." Would that we so lived that others would want to take lessons from us.
I think of Peter's words again: "Live such good lives among the pagans that . . . they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us" (1 Peter 2:12), or, as one translation renders it, "My friends, do you want to win your unbelieving friends? Then whatever you do, do it beautifully."
George MacDonald has written, "If you try too hard to make people good you will only make them worse. The only way to make people good is to be good — remember the beam and the mote. The time for speaking comes rarely, the time for being never departs."
To be or not to be
To be or not to be? That is the question.
- William Shakespeare
Hamlet's question is probably the best known line in English literature. It had to do with the question of whether it was better
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for him to be ("to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune"), or to do ("to take up arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them"). His question is our question as well.
There is a time and place for both, but God puts a premium on being. Being always comes before doing, though we're inclined to go about our business the other way 'round.
Peter, in his second epistle, urges us to "make every effort to add to [our] faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For," Peter concludes, "if [we] possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep [us] from being ineffective and unproductive" (1:5-8).
Effectiveness and productivity stem from what we are. Though we may seem to be doing nothing worthwhile, we are doing everything worthwhile if our lives are styled by God's grace.
Set aside through sickness or seclusion we can still be fruitful. Bed-ridden or house-bound, we can be productive. We don't have to be good for anything to be useful; just good. What matters is what we are.
Will Campbell, an eccentric Yale-trained hillbilly gospel preacher who ministers in the backwoods of Tennessee, comes straight to the point:
Somebody is always winding up my [preaching] sessions by charging, "What you're saying, it seems, is just, 'Do nothing.' And when I hear that, that's when I know I'm beginning to come through. That's when I say, "Brother, just nail that one down — now you got the message. Do nothing. Instead, be something. Before you start trying to figure out what you should do about all the world's woes, just be what you are — a follower of Christ. When that happens, then you won't have to ask what to do — you'll already know."
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Campbell is right: "Be something!" Doing comes naturally if we're becoming what God has created us to be.
There comes a time
There comes a time when you better stop trying to figure out who you are and start living like the man you want to be.
- Bruce Springsteen
Springsteen is right. It's time to live like the men we want to be — not the puny, effete figment-men offered up by our culture, but authentic men who in the mess and muddle of the marketplace, in the midst of its misunderstandings and misjudgements will make visible the beauty of the invisible God.
If you want it you can have it, but God must do it. The only way to learn manliness is to put yourself in God's hands and ask him to change you into the man you long to be. "Faithful is he who has called you and he will do it" (1 Thessalonians 5:24).
Do you recognize the deformity and ugliness of your character? Ask God to change it to be like his. Do you seek the beauty of holiness? "He will be a diadem of beauty," as one of Israel's poets said.
Does evil predominate? Are you troubled by your anger, touchiness, defensiveness, irritability, and closet perversions? He is at hand, slowly but inexorably molding you into the man you want to be. Press on. You can do all things through the one who strengthens you.
Tolstoy tells a story about an old cobbler, Martin Avdyeeich, who lost his wife and his little child, Kapitoshka, and then his faith. One day an aged peasant-pilgrim came from a nearby monastery and began to talk to him about his despair.
"What then is a man to live for?" asked Avdyeeich. The old man answered: "For God, Martin! He gave thee life, and
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for Him therefore must thou live. When thou dost begin to live for Him, thou wilt grieve about nothing more, and all things will come easy to thee."
Martin then asked: "And how must one live for God?" "Christ hath shown us the way," the pilgrim answered. "Thou knowest thy letters. Buy the Gospels and read; there thou wilt find out how to live for God. There everything is explained."
Tolstoy goes on with his story: "These words made the heart of Avdyeeich burn within him, and he went the same day and bought for himself a New Testament printed in very large type, and began to read . . . And the more he read, the more clearly he understood what God wanted of him, and how it behooved him to live for God; and his heart grew lighter and lighter continually . . .
"It happened once that Martin was up reading till very late. He was reading St. Luke's Gospel. He was reading the sixth chapter, and as he read he came to the words: 'And to him that smiteth thee on the one cheek, offer also the other.' Avdyeeich read these words through and through. He took off his glasses, laid them on the book, rested his elbow on the table, and fell a-thinking. And he began to measure his own life by these words. And he thought to himself, 'O Lord, help me!'"
We cannot adorn ourselves. "In vain you make yourself beautiful," Jeremiah insists (4:30). No, with David, we can only "gaze upon the beauty of the Lord" (Psalm 27:4) and ask him to transform us into his image, from one degree of likeness to the next.
"O Lord, help me!" This is our prayer as well.
Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me
—
All his wonderful passion and purity!
O Thou Spirit divine, all my nature
refine,
Til the beauty of Jesus be seen in me.
— Tom Jones
