1 Samuel 19:4
And Jonathan spoke well of David to Saul his father, and said to him, “Let not the king sin against his servant David; because he has not sinned against you, and because his deeds have been of good service to you.”
Jonathan appealed to Saul, a rather large hairy brute, on the basis of something so simple that even Saul was (when not shaken by gusts of paranoid rage) able to see it: mere justice. David had been a good servant to Saul, so Saul should treat him justly, said Jonathan. In his Parable of the Unjust Judge, Jesus pointed to a judge who had no interest in simple justice as an unlikely way of making a point about his Heavenly Father. He said, in essence, that if even a yo-yo like this judge could get a clue when somebody appealed to him relentlessly on the basis of simple justice, then how much more would God, who loves us, hear our pleas. Likewise, Saul, bad though he was, was compelled by simple justice to break off his bad treatment of David. God, good as he is, wants to do us good and will do us good, if we let him. Today, remember that God wills with his own being—-all the way through death by crucifixion—-to give you not just simple justice, but heaven and earth and himself above all. Thank him for that colossal gift of sacrificial love and then ask him to give it to some Saul in your life. That’s more than simple justice. That’s love.
