‘Araunah’ is a name you don’t hear very often. In fact, unless you are reading, or have read, Second Samuel 24 you probably haven’t heard it before, but Araunah is a name worth remembering.

Late in his reign King David took a census of the fighting men throughout his kingdom, but a census was considered unholy. The Lord’s punishment was a pestilence that killed seventy thousand people. David asked for advice from the prophet Gad who said: “Go up, rear an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.” (II Sam. 24:18) When Araunah saw the king coming, he bowed to the ground and asked what he wanted of his servant. David explained that he had come to buy his threshing floor on which he would erect an altar to the Lord so that the plague would be arrested. Araunah, delighted at the honor, provided David with the oxen and the wood for the sacrifice and wanted to give David the floor for nothing. But David refused the gift, bought the floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver, built an altar on it and offered up sacrifices. The Lord repented and the pestilence stopped before it reached Jerusalem. Araunah’s threshing floor later became the site of Solomon’s Temple. (Synopsis taken from Who’s Who in the Bible, Comay and Brownrigg)

Araunah (later referred to as ‘Ornan’ in I Chronicles 21 and II Chronicles 3:1) saw the king coming, bowed to the ground, and asked what he wanted of his servant. Then, after hearing what the king wanted, offered it all for free, being delighted to serve the king. David pays for the site and an altar is built there stopping the pestilence and, later, that site becomes the place of Solomon’s Temple. No big deal. Araunah is a bit player in a pageant that is larger than life some 1100 years before Jesus is ever born.

Yet, it is a big deal. Araunah is, perhaps, one of the most faithful people in this story, for he sees his king, bows before the king, offers what he has to the king for free, all for the honor of serving the king. Though paid for his belongings that David used to offer for a sin offering, Araunah sought no advantage, only service to the king . . . and later, in the reign of David’s son, Solomon, that site where the Lord appeared to David, was marked as holy, as the Temple was erected there for worship of the Lord. We know little more about him than this, but these few words of Araunah serve as a guide for discipleship as the Church moves daily towards the season of Lent.

The King is coming and nothing should be withheld. Not unlike David before Him, Jesus comes to meet us where pestilence dwells and, the One who is without sin, asks not for our lives or livelihood but, instead, lays Himself down, the only acceptable sacrifice for the sinfulness which kills our souls. And the Araunah of this story is known by the name of Joseph of Arimathea, who offers his own newly hewn grave for His body . . . and the site is made holy by His resurrection: the world is saved and a new Temple is raised that cannot be destroyed.

By his action, David saved Jerusalem . . . and by His life, Jesus is saving the world. And Araunah, like Joseph of Arimathea after him, still lives in the faces and tears, in the joys and sorrows, in the honor and service of all who serve the King, then and now. Their offerings become the places and times of holy ground, not by our naming, but by God’s own blessing. I pray we all walk on such holy ground as we journey from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, from Incarnation to Resurrection, with the One who is Holiness Embodied, Redemption With Us: Jesus Christ our Lord.