As our tour bus climbed the steep, chalky limestone hills west of Jericho, the landscape quickly changed from an arid and uninhabitable wasteland to a green (albeit rather rocky) stretch of grain fields, olives tree covered terraces, and Arab towns scattered atop sun-drenched hilltops. The Central Benjamin Plateau is an emerald set in the heartland of Israel. As the ground began to even out, I noticed the metal skeleton of a lonely building off to my right, perched atop a hill looking back towards Jordan. Dr. Wright grabbed the microphone and explained, “As you know, this was Jordanian territory prior to the six day war (1967). A few months before the fighting broke out, King Hussein of Jordan began constructing a palace atop that hill.” I later learned “that hill” is the Arab town of el-Jib, the Biblical town of Gibeah, the hometown of another former king: Saul.
King Hussein's 1967 still unfinished palace at Gibeah. From flickr: wbchan
Legacy is the essence of what remains, the infinite echo of one’s name after his beating heart has finally surrendered. Anyone can build a kingdom of brick and mortar, gold and ivory; however, most will fail to lay a single brick for the Kingdom of God.
It’s in our nature to seek a king. In his Institutes, Calvin rightly asserts, “The human heart is a perpetual factory of idols.” We frequently cling to the shiny rather than the substantive.
And so it was simply a matter of time before Israel cast aside an aging Samuel, the centuries old leadership of the judges, and began crying out for a king. After all, every other nation had one.
And the LORD said to Samuel, ‘Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them’ (1 Sam. 8:7).
God’s choice for Israel’s first king served as a divine commentary on the superficiality of the promised peoples’ craving,
There was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish, the son of Abiel, son of Zeror, son of Becorath, son of Aphiah, a Benjaminite, a man of wealth. And he had a son whose name was Saul, a handsome young man. There was not a man among the people of Israel more handsome than he. From his shoulders upward he was taller than any of the people (2 Sam. 9:1-2).
Behold: the shiny man, Saul. Tall, rich and handsome.
And Samuel said to all the people, ‘Do you see him whom the LORD has chosen? There is none like him among all the people.’ And all the people shouted, ‘Long live the king.’ (2 Sam. 10:24)
The barrel-chested Saul makes a shiny introduction, rolling over the Ammonites at Jabesh-Gilead. Samuel fades into the sunset at Gilgal immediately following Saul’s first victory, and it appears as though Israel is on the fast-track to earning the status of empire. But, as Shakespeare once wrote:
All that glisters is not gold; / Often have you heard that told. / Many a man his life hath sold / But my outside to behold. / Gilded tombs do worms enfold (The Merchant of Venice II, vii)
Saul, like King Hussein, left a half-built monstrosity standing tall above the town of Gibeah, hollow against the horizon. The first sign of the kind of legacy Saul would leave appears in 1 Samuel 13. The newly commissioned king and his relatively small army were encamped at Gilgal (near Jericho), awaiting Samuel’s arrival. Samuel was the priest, and therefore was the only one who could offer the appointed sacrifice. Saul was impatient and feared the growing angst of his trembling army–3,000 men who would soon be asked to go up against 30,000 Philistines. He thought that he could expedite the LORD’s blessing on the seemingly inevitable battle, and so he offered the sacrifice himself. Bad idea. Eventually Samuel shows up,
You have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the LORD your God, with which he commanded you. For then the LORD would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue. The LORD has sought a man after his own heart…And Samuel arose and went up from Gilgal. The rest of the people went up after Saul to meet the army; they went up from Gilgal to Gibeah of Benjamin (2 Sam. 13:13-15).
Two chapters later, after another incident proving a lack of character on Saul’s part, we are given a vivid and heartbreaking glimpse into Saul and Samuel’s final meeting,
Then Samuel went to Ramah, and Saul went up to his house in Gibeah of Saul. And Samuel did not see Saul again until the day of his death, but Samuel grieved over Saul. And the LORD regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel. (1 Sam. 15:34-35).
Ramah, Samuel's hometown
Samuel to Ramah, Saul to Gibeah. The two cities stand about three miles away, and yet, and endless gulf seems to separate the two men. From Ramah, the LORD sends Samuel about ten miles south, to Bethlehem. There, a young shepherd boy named David is anointed the future king of Israel. So much going one within such a small stretch of land: kingdoms rising and falling, idolatry, devotion, and prophetic dreams. David’s resume stands in complete contrast to Saul’s. Whereas Saul is identified as handsome, tall and rich, David’s qualifications are affirmed through God’s rebuke of Samuel,
When [David's oldest brother] came, he looked on Eliab and thought, ‘Surely the LORD’s anointed is before him. But the LORD said to Samuel, ‘Do not look o his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man see; man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart’ (2 Sam. 16:6-7).
Saul was a man after a nation’s praise, David was a man after God’s heart. Saul pointed people to himself, David pointed hungry hearts to the sovereignty of the One who had carried a nation out of slavery and into promise.
With every breath we are building something. Our seconds, minutes, hours and years are spent constructing literal or spiritual structures. We brush past each other everyday, not knowing what kind of symphony the blue lines racing across our paper hearts are composing. Legacy is an abstraction, a word that will only truly be concretely defined for each of us on the day Christ will judge.
Nevertheless, what we’re doing right now is turning into focus the image of what our legacy will be. We have a choice, two roads: one leading to Gibeah, the other to Bethlehem. Paul explains:
Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw–each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done (1 Cor. 3:12-13).
What will your legacy be?
