The Tall Man Hiding in the Luggage

While the people of Israel waited for the king they had demanded, a farmer named Kish lost his donkeys.

He sent his son Saul to find them, and Saul was hard to miss. He was the most handsome young man in Israel, and he stood head and shoulders above everyone else. (In a crowd, Saul was the easiest person in Israel to find. Usually.)

Saul and a servant tramped over hills and through valleys for three days. No donkeys. "Let's go home," Saul said at last, "before my father starts worrying about us instead."

"Wait," said the servant. "There's a man of God in this town. Maybe he can tell us where to look."

The man of God was Samuel. The day before, God had told him, "About this time tomorrow I will send you a man from Benjamin. Pour oil on his head and make him leader of my people. He will save them from the Philistines."

So when a very tall stranger came up the road, God said to Samuel, "This is the man."

"Those donkeys you lost three days ago?" Samuel said. "They've been found. Now come and eat with me. All Israel is hoping for you."

Saul blinked. "Me? I'm from Benjamin, the smallest tribe, and my family is the least important in it!"

Samuel sat him at the head of thirty guests and had the cook bring out the best piece of meat. "I saved this for you," he said. (Saul had come looking for donkeys and found a dinner party in his honor.)

Early next morning Samuel poured a flask of oil over Saul's head and kissed him. "The LORD has anointed you to lead his people." In Israel, oil on the head marked a person God had picked to be king, priest, or prophet. The word for it is anointed. On the way home, God's Spirit came on Saul, and he joined a band of prophets praising God.

Soon Samuel called all Israel together at Mizpah. They drew lots, a bit like pulling names from a hat. First the tribe of Benjamin. Then Kish's family. Then Saul!

But where was Saul?

They looked everywhere. The tallest man in Israel had disappeared. So they asked the LORD, and the LORD said, "He has hidden himself among the baggage."

There he was, crouched behind the bags and bundles, all knees and elbows. They pulled him out, and when he stood up, he was head and shoulders above them all.

"Look at the man the LORD has chosen!" Samuel called. "There is no one like him!"

"Long live the king!" the people shouted.

A few grumbled, "How can this fellow save us?" Saul said nothing.

Oil on his head could make Saul king. It could not keep his heart listening to God, and within a few years Saul stopped listening. Kings came and went after him, and God's people kept hoping for the one God had promised, the true Anointed One.

Centuries later, a man from Nazareth said, "I came to look for the lost and to save them." Unlike Saul with the donkeys, he never gave up and went home. He did not hide from the hard job. He walked straight into it, all the way to a cross. People jeered, "He saved others, but he can't save himself!" He stayed there to save us.

Jesus finds what he goes looking for.