Proper 12 (OT)

1 Samuel 21:1-9

Then David came to Nob to Ahimelech the priest. And Ahimelech came to meet David trembling and said to him, “Why are you alone, and no one with you?” ² And David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has charged me with a matter and said to me, ‘Let no one know anything of the matter about which I send you, and with which I have charged you.’ I have made an appointment with the young men for such and such a place. ³ Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is here.” ⁴ And the priest answered David, “I have no common bread on hand, but there is holy bread—if the young men have kept themselves from women.” ⁵ And David answered the priest, “Truly women have been kept from us as always when I go on an expedition. The vessels of the young men are holy even when it is an ordinary journey. How much more today will their vessels be holy?” ⁶ So the priest gave him the holy bread, for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence, which is removed from before the Lord, to be replaced by hot bread on the day it is taken away.

⁷ Now a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before the Lord. His name was Doeg the Edomite, the chief of Saul’s herdsmen.

⁸ Then David said to Ahimelech, “Then have you not here a spear or a sword at hand? For I have brought neither my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king’s business required haste.” ⁹ And the priest said, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you struck down in the Valley of Elah, behold, it is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you will take that, take it, for there is none but that here.” And David said, “There is none like that; give it to me.”

I don’t know about you, but I remember as a child imagining how big that sword must have been. When David takes down Goliath the Giant, you picture David trying to lift his sword and barely being able to get it off the ground. But he is miraculously able to chop off Goliath’s head.

Now David is grown up. David is a Soldier, but you still think that this must be a large sword for him to carry. But David gladly takes it. He needed a weapon and he needed food. This is all that Ahimelech has to offer. David receives Holy bread and a very prestigious sword. We often have to work with what we have on hand.

David is going to set out on a journey with what the Lord has provided for him. The Lord does not always give us the best, but David got the best. David received Holy bread what could be better than that? David received a Giant’s sword what could be a better weapon than that? Each of us still has to work with what God has provided us.

But even as we fail to work with what we have been given. We fail to be thankful for what God has provided. We always want better weapons, food, drink, house, wife, children, and government. God has provided you with something else. He has provided you with the forgiveness of all your sins and selfishness. He has given you his only begotten Son as the eternal perfect sacrifice. He has also given Jesus Christ to be your bread of presence, Immanuel.