Then Jonathan said to David: “By the LORD, the God of
In our gospel lesson for today Jesus said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35) Francis Schaeffer referred to this as the “Mark of the Christian.” We are to be distinguished and make our mark on the world by the way in which we love each other. It is meant to say to the world, “Jesus is alive and well!”
Yet this term is so abused and misunderstood by our society that many of us are being led astray by it. The latest movies called “New Moon” are said to portray love as an obsessive and dangerously sexual attraction. So kids think that love is all about seeing or smelling someone across the room and being instantly attracted to them; overcoming the obstacles; and then finally after going behind mom and dad’s back finally being able to romantically embrace and run away together; living happily ever after.
It’s this kind of love that usually ends up hurting people. After two months of passionate love and a surprise pregnancy, the young girl suddenly finds out that the young man doesn’t love children and pregnant girls. Emotions run dry even for married couples under the stress of parenthood and work. When love is based on emotion and attraction, many file for divorce because their feelings of love run dry. “Love” becomes a risky emotion that exposes someone to lies and deceit. This kind of love is the norm of society.
The kind of love that Jesus calls for isn’t based on emotion. It is based on Jesus’ sacrificial love for us. It is a love that is driven by faith in the LORD. It is this kind of love that is reflected and illustrated in the relationship between David and Jonathan. It is
The Greatest Kind of Love
I. Is willing to take risks for loved ones
When people are burned by love they sometimes vow never to take such risks again. The hurt is too great. The risk of being manipulated is too devastating. So they close up their emotions and trust in a tight box and don’t allow anyone in. There was much risk in the friendship between Jonathan and David. David was anointed to be next king, but Jonathan would have been next in line to be king if his father Saul died. By becoming friends with David Jonathan was risking it all. But Jonathan and David were dedicated friends anyway. They didn’t care about the politics of it all.
David was quite sure that Saul was determined to kill him. Jonathan didn’t believe it because his father never conveyed such feelings about David to him. David needed to confirm his fears. So he took a risk and went to Jonathan and asked him for help. He wanted Jonathan to run a test for him. The next day David was supposed to eat a meal with Saul at a New Moon Festival. It would have normally been perfectly acceptable for David to miss such a feast in order to attend an annual sacrifice in his home town. Jonathan was to give him that excuse in order to see how Saul would react. If he reacted angrily, Jonathan would know Saul’s inner feelings towards him. When Jonathan explained David’s absence, this is what happened:
Saul’s anger flared up at Jonathan and he said to him, “You son of a perverse and rebellious woman! Don’t I know that you have sided with the son of Jesse to your own shame and to the shame of the mother who bore you? As long as the son of Jesse lives on this earth, neither you nor your kingdom will be established. Now send and bring him to me, for he must die!” “Why should he be put to death? What has he done?” Jonathan asked his father. But Saul hurled his spear at him to kill him. Then Jonathan knew that his father intended to kill David. Jonathan got up from the table in fierce anger; on that second day of the month he did not eat, because he was grieved at his father’s shameful treatment of David. (1 Samuel 20:30-34)
Jonathan may not have realized his father was going to toss a spear at him; but nonetheless he risked his life when he came to the defense of his friend.
This is
what love does. It is willing to take a
risk in order to defend the person he or she loves and stand up for him. This is what makes the picture of Jesus’ love
so great to us. Jonathan went to an
irrationally jealous and hateful king in order to find out whether he hated
David or not. Jesus went to a holy and
righteous God in defense of us. He knew
exactly how the Judge felt about us. For the LORD described Himself in Exodus 34
perfectly clear: “He does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the
children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth
generation.”(6-7) He knew that the
Judge would not leave the guilty unpunished.
He knew that if He were to approach the Father on our defense that the
Father would raise His hand against His Only Son. Jesus knew that the Father’s wrath would be
much worse than a thrown spear; it would be hell. He knew that the Father’s aim would not
miss. But Jesus went in our defense
anyway, knowing what He was about to do.
The sweat of blood from the
When Job was undergoing some awful things in his life; the loss of his children and his health; his “friends” did something awful to him. They turned on Job and told him that he deserved what he was getting; that God was punishing him for something he did. Instead of praying for him and coming to the throne in Job’s defense, they turned on him. When a fellow Christian gets a seemingly bum deal from God; through bad health or a loss of a job or something else; do not just resign his or her situation to a simple “God knows best.” Even when a fellow Christian messes up; it is at this time that God calls on you to show your love for him or her. Don’t worry about what other people think of you. Get on your knees and go to the throne in his or her defense. He or she needs your prayers; not your attacks. Instead of leaving the person alone; call them; email them; ask if there’s anything you can do to help. This is the kind of love God is seeking out of us; the willing to stick our necks out for each other; defend each other; speak up for one another; even at the risk of rejection. It’s this kind of love that stands out in this world. We don’t desert our own. We take risks for each other.
II. Is willing to tell the truth
David took a risk in trusting Jonathan. Since Jonathan was the next in line to rule he could have betrayed David and led him to his own death, like a lamb to the slaughter. Yet he took a risk and relied on Jonathan’s Intel to be able to tell if Saul would murder him or not. Should he stay or should he go? Jonathan guaranteed David that he would not mislead him.
“By the LORD, the God of
Notice what Jonathan did. He told David that they both had a tighter bond with each than he did with his father, especially because of their mutual bond with the LORD. Often times David is remembered from the Bible, but I think Jonathan is a great example for us to follow as well. He put aside his family ties and his line to the throne out of love to David and the LORD. Jonathan vowed not to betray and lie to David, because if he betrayed and lied to David it would be like betraying the LORD. If David wanted the truth, the truth he would get. His life and safety depended on it.
This may be a more minute point, but it still goes worth noting. Love tells the truth. When Jeremiah warned the Israelites that they needed to repent and that they were bound for 70 years of captivity, the Israelite leaders became angry with him and accused him of sedition. Hananiah came on the scene and told everyone that their captivity would only be a few years, and the people loved him for it. (Jeremiah 28) But who was being unloving? Hananiah was because he was lying. True love warns of danger if danger is there. It doesn’t try to sugar coat the situation to offer temporary comfort.
Consider again our appearance before the Eternal King on Judgment Day. We have the insider information on what the King says about the world. Yet there are many false prophets out there; claiming to have the insider info; telling people, “You are fine just as you are! God (if that is how you define Him) loves EVERYONE! No matter who you are, no matter what your sexual orientation, it doesn’t matter to God! If He created you, He loves you, and you will end up in heaven! Don’t worry about it.” Within Christianity people use Christ’s redemption as a springboard from which to tell people, “Jesus died for everyone, so everyone is going to heaven whether they believe it or not. In the end, God will let everyone go.” It sounds good to the world; they love to hear it, but it is false.
God calls on us to tell the truth; the raw and unpopular truth, even about ourselves. People are not fine as they are. They are born on the pathway to hell, and if they think they can just show up on God’s doorstep on Judgment Day and get entrance into heaven because they are human; they have another thing coming. God’s Word is clear on the matter.
Romans 3:10-12 says, “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”
Isaiah 64:6 All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
Throughout the Scriptures God makes it clear that we can’t get into heaven as we are. Without Christ we will be associated with the sin of Adam. He demands we confess who we are, worthless sinners deserving nothing from Him. He also wants us to confess the truth about Christ. Mark made it clear that “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.” Paul said in Romans 10:9, “if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” The world may deem it as unloving and judgmental, but telling people to repent and believe in Jesus as the only way of salvation is still the only truth that saves.
The last thing we want to do with anyone is to give them bad Intel, to give them messages from God that are not true. If they try to come waltzing into heaven without the robe of Jesus’ righteousness, they will be tossed out on their ears. True love for someone also says with Jonathan, “I am bound with my relationship with God to tell you the truth.” If a family member gets angry at you for telling them they are under God’s condemnation, it is still the loving thing to do to warn them and tell them the truth anyway. True love for God also seeks the truth, especially from trusted friends. David wanted to know how Saul felt about him, whether it was good news or not. The Bible says in Proverbs 27:6, “Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.” Don’t you want your friends to tell you the truth when you are making decisions that are unloving or cause you to lose your relationship with Jesus? Think about that next time someone gently tries to correct you.
If you study this close bond that Jonathan and David had, you will notice that Jonathan seems to do a majority of the talking throughout their friendship. Today’s text says that, “Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David, saying, “May the LORD call David’s enemies to account.” Sometimes that can happen in life, and it’s a great thing when young men find good and faithful men to follow and be their mentors. It is naturally for young men to look to men a little bit older than them to lead them. If that void is not met with a good Christian example they often end up going down the wrong road. Jonathan found a great man to look up to in David, and David welcomed the friendship and camaraderie of this faithful friend.
Like I said, Jonathan was very vocal and up front with his devotion to David. But David (at least in the Scriptures) does not seem to reciprocate it as much in speech. So this text seems to have Jonathan doubting whether David is as devoted to him as he is to David. He does something peculiar. It says that, “Jonathan had David reaffirm his oath out of love for him, because he loved him as he loved himself.” Jonathan told David to reaffirm his oath. He wanted David to publicly reaffirm to Jonathan that he wouldn’t hurt himself or his family as long as they remained faithful to David and wouldn’t become his enemies. In other words, he didn’t want David to hold him accountable for his father’s sins, if his father indeed wanted to murder David.
What seems strange is that Jonathan told David to reaffirm his oath of love. He was so bound and dedicated to David that he felt an urgency to have David reciprocate. He wanted to know and be sure that David was on the same page as him; that they were bound in friendship together under the LORD. He didn’t want to make a fool of himself by dedicating himself to someone that was not dedicated to him. Usually, you would expect that if someone loved you and was faithful to you that they would reaffirm the oath without having to be told. But here, because of his own uncertainty, Jonathan had David take his oath again. Instead of getting angry at Jonathan for demanding such a thing, David did so in order to assure Jonathan of his dedication to him also under the LORD.
The nature of human love and faithfulness makes us constantly live with suspicion and fear of being betrayed. Think about how often people are betrayed in our society. Young men will promise young ladies all sorts of things in order to sexually take advantage of them. Consumers will sign contracts which promise the company that they will pay for cars and homes. Politicians will promise you all sorts of things, but as soon as they get elected they forget all of those promises. They go back on their word; so that even with contracts and promises there is a lack of trust. When someone lies to you it makes you more and more suspicious of whether anything is really true. We are learning to live with more and more skepticism.
Even when a relationship is strong and healthy we need to be reassured of it. We need to hear it. Jonathan publicly confessed his loyalty to David and he expected David to do the same. There was no room for doubt, especially with the fact that their very lives were at stake. It is the nature of love to be publicly expressed. If you really love someone or something, you should be willing to say so and show people so.
The LORD knows how apt we are to be skeptical of love in our world. He knows our sinful nature. He knows the devil. The devil works with doubt. The very first temptation was to get Adam and Eve to doubt God’s Word and to question whether He really loved them and had given them the best. So this is the nature of unbelief. This is how Satan gets us to fall, just as he worked on Judas. He was able to get Judas to do something so awful and then also, more importantly, to convince Judas that he could never be forgiven for what he had done. So the devil works on us and gets us to question whether God really loves us. He says, “How could a loving God let you get cancer? How could a loving God allow you to suffer like this?”
The LORD knows this. He doesn’t want us to question His love. So without being asked the LORD gives us His Word. He tells us to read it regularly; to go back to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus on a regular basis. This will assure you of His love. If you wonder if God loves you, remember that in your baptism God pledged to you that you would be His child by the grace of Christ Jesus. If you start feeling weak and unloved because of a continual sin you are struggling with, then go back to the Lord’s Supper. Here Jesus promises you once again that He personally died for you. He knows what sins you come with, but He hasn’t changed His mind. He sees your sorrowful heart and He sees your faith in His body and blood; and He still loves you because of His grace and mercy. He also calls on you to surround yourself with fellow Christians who will show you His kind of love.
Love is a two way street. This means that you will reciprocate as well. When you believe in Jesus’ love you will come to the Supper. You will read His Word and come to church. God doesn’t tell you to do this for His sake; it is for yours; so that YOU can be assured of His love for you. This is what love demands; it is what love wants to do; that we be public and unashamed of our loyalty to the LORD. Paul said, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.”
Against all odds, Jonathan and David had a close bond of friendship. One was bound to be king by birth, the other was bound to be king by God. In spite of the odds, they were tighter than many brothers are; they were bound together in faith and in love towards their love. As much as Jonathan tried to hide his loyalty to David when he went to his father Saul, Saul could tell that Jonathan loved David more than he loved Saul. This angered Saul and made him want to kill his own son. This story shows us what the bonds of love will do.
Against all odds, God has established a close bond of friendship and love with us through Christ. God has bound us in love to Him by binding us to His Son Jesus Christ, and giving us His righteousness. Jesus is our brother; our friend, and our Lord. He has shown His love for us in Christ, and he wants us to show our love for Him. The greatest kind of love, the heavenly and God given love is willing to take risks, it is willing to tell the truth, and it is willing confess itself before men; so that people will know that Jesus is alive and well; working the greatest kind of love through us. Amen.