To understand the pain
David felt in the moment when he cries out “O my son Absalom, my son, my son
Absalom! Would that I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!” we
need to take a look at the events which led to this moment.
It started when David’s
first son, Amnon, raped his half-sister Tamar, who was Absalom’s full sister.
The violation of Tamar became very public and David had a difficult time
deciding what to do. On the one hand a law had been broken and there should be
some kind of penalty and on the other hand the violator was his first-born son.
While David was furious about what had happened, he just couldn’t bring himself
to punish Amnon.
As you might imagine,
David’s decision angered Absalom. After all, how would you feel if a member of
your family was violated in this way and got away with it? So, Absalom made a
plan to avenge his sister himself.
One of the events the
elite celebrated in Jerusalem was the time of shearing. This was when all the
sheep in the land were sheared of their wool after which a banquet was held in
the hall of the king. Absalom was the host of this particular banquet and
invited everyone in the land to attend, including Amnon. Then, when Amnon was too
drunk to know what was happening, Absalom had him killed, right there in front
of everyone. David became livid and vowed to avenge his first-born’s death
which made Absalom flea from his home in Jerusalem to take up residence in the
homeland of his mother.
After Absalom had been
in exile for a few years, David was convinced by the kindness of a traveling
woman to allow his son to return, and so David did. That decision proved to be
a big mistake as Absalom soon plotted to take the throne from David, first by convincing
everyone in Jerusalem that David was an unjust king, then by building an army
so strong and large that David had no choice but to flea across the Jordan.
Before Absalom could
mount a battle to once and for all rid Israel of its king, David found a way to
delay him just long enough to build his own army. Today’s passage brings us to
the eve of the battle between David and his son, Absalom.
If we take a look at
what brought David and his son to be in such a place, we can see that the story
is filled with injustice, revenge, deceit, and mostly unresolved hatred; all of
which spin out of control to a point where neither David nor Absalom can do
anything to resolve it. Yet, in the midst of all this madness, on the eve of
the king sending his army to defeat that of his son, David makes a plea to his
generals, “Deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom.” With all that
has happened between him and his son, with all of the back-stabbing and lying
and cheating, David still shows compassion for Absalom and asks that nothing
happen to him.
The battle known as “The
Battle of Ephraim’s Wood” begins and it’s a slaughter. We are told that the
battle spread over the entire country and that Absalom loses 20,000 of his army,
with the rest giving up and fleeing home. Unfortunately, one of the defeated is
Absalom himself as he is trapped by a tree branch with his body suspended in
mid-air while a group of David’s servants come across him.
When I first read this
I must admit I chuckled; the scene is rather comical. Imagine a seasoned
soldier, one trained by the best army-trainers in the land, riding a mule
through the woods when suddenly his head gets caught between two branches.
Then, while he’s struggling to get free his mule continues on, leaving this
great soldier with his feet dangling and the weight of his body too great for
only his arms and hands to free himself.
Well, it’s a funny
scene to me.
But as I was preparing
for today’s text I came across a comment by 20th century theologian
Walter Brueggemann that said, “Absalom is suspended between life and death,
between the sentence of a rebel and the value of a son, between the severity of
the king and the yearning of the father. He is no longer living, because he is
utterly vulnerable, but he is not dead”
There it was, as plain
as daylight for me. We had reached a place in the story which mirrors what many
of us go through at times; that place between life and death. We find ourselves
in that place where we’re not sure if we can go on because the entire world
seems to be crashing down on us. We find ourselves in that place where
overwhelming circumstances have taken control and we don’t know if we can
escape the grip of that which suspends us.
Absalom is now set to
face the consequences of his actions. Yet, he is unable to cry out for help.
Absalom is utterly alone and at the mercy of others. Unfortunately, this
circumstance gets him killed. Not by those who wish to honor the king’s plea to
be gentle with his son, but by David’s most trusted advisor, who takes it upon
himself to avenge his king.
It would seem that the
circumstances which surround David are falling more and more out of control at
the hands and minds of those closest to him.
A messenger is sent to
tell the king what happened, actually if you read this chapter in its entirety
you would see that two messengers are sent. David asks both if there is any
news of his son and the first messenger, who was actually a witness to
everything, says to David that he saw something going on, but he didn’t know
what it was. The second messenger answers that the king’s son was indeed
killed, but doesn’t tell him how.
Instead of knowing the
truth, David is led to believe that his son was killed in the heat of battle.
I have to admit that when
I read today’s text after getting all of this information, I felt my heart
sink. Here stood David, a father who was betrayed and cast out by his own son –
a man who had nothing but hatred for his father, a man who made it his life’s
quest to destroy and kill his father. Yet David stood, winner of a great battle
but loser of one he still loved. David stood at the gates of his great city with
all the hope he had for any chance of reconciling with Absalom gone.
There David stood with
circumstances in his life out of control and feeling alone as he cries out to
nobody in particular, except maybe himself, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son
Absalom! Would that I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!”
The other day in our
English class the teacher led a discussion with which the lesson was to
understand that we all have different points-of-view and as such we interpret
things differently, especially literature.
She projected a
painting by Andrew Wyeth titled “Christina’s World.” In the foreground of this painting is a woman,
dressed in a pale pink dress, sitting sideways in the middle of a field of
grass that is brownish-yellow. She has
one hand on the ground to her side, and the other on the ground in front of
her, almost giving the impression she is either lifting herself off the earth
from a nap, or pulling herself by her hands along the field.
In the background is a
farm house, a very good distance from where the woman sits. Her body is twisted
in the direction of the home as it seemingly points itself along a path towards
the house. In between the woman and the farmhouse is a lot of dry grass, a
field so large it seems to engulf both the woman and the house.
The teacher then asked
the class to describe what they thought was going on in the painting. Most of them answered that the woman was just
waking up from a nap, or that she fell down and was trying to get up. A few of
them commented that maybe she had something wrong with her which caused her to
faint.
Then one of the boys
noticed that there was a set of tire tracks to the far right of the painting.
He commented that perhaps the woman was riding in a car that was driving away
from the house and had to jump out of the car because she didn’t want to be in
whatever situation was happening in the car.
The class began
agreeing with this young man, that perhaps something bad was happening to the
woman in the painting and she was trying to get away. The teacher asked them
why they felt that way and those who participated in the discussion said that’s
how they feel sometimes. They mentioned that their parents are always fighting,
or that they’re always getting in trouble for things they honestly didn’t do.
One even said she was thinking about a relationship she had a few years ago
that wasn’t good for her and all she wanted to do was get out.
The teacher was then
ready for the real lesson; how sometimes our perception changes when we know a
little more about the facts of that which we observe. This particular painting
is that of a real-life person named Anna Christina Olson. She actually lived in
such a place with a large grassy field and a farm-house.
One day, while staying
in the farm house as a guest, the painter looked outside his bedroom window and
saw Christina actually crawling across the field. He thought this to be quite
touching because Christina suffered from a muscular-degenerative disease, such
as polio. Crawling was how she got around.
He thought it was one of the most amazing things he’s seen; a woman who
could not support herself with her legs finding a way to get outside and enjoy
God’s creation.
Almost in unison the
students showed their own amazement as they breathed a collective “wow.” The
teacher then asked if anyone’s perception of the painting had changed.
One boy raised his hand
almost immediately and said in a confident voice, “That last comment about the
tire tracks is still fresh in my mind and after hearing about how she has polio
or something like that I began to think, what if the tire tracks are from the
doctor’s car. Maybe he just drove away after telling Christina that she has a
degenerative-muscle disease and she ran out of the house to get as far away
from the bad news as she could, not yet impacted by the disease. But just as
she reached that point in the field her legs gave out and she fell, so that now
she’s crying out to the house for help.”
The class gave a hum of
approval, with a few actually applauding and saying how deep that was. This
young man had hit on something I think they could all associate with; the need
to escape bad news and realizing there is no escape. In a way I think almost
every one of those students had been in a place where their circumstances had
become overwhelming to a point where they felt alone, not knowing if they can
escape the grip of that which suspended them between life and death.
He then added that
sometimes he feels like that, alone, in pain, wanting only to escape but unable
to. It’s in those times he wants to just scream at the world. A few others in
the class added that they’ve been in that place a lot of times; sometimes
wishing they were dead. One of them even said that when they get to that place
they actually contemplate suicide.
All I could think at
this point was how deeply sad it was for a 16-year old person to think that the
only way out of their circumstance was to end the life which is so preciously
theirs.
Then somebody called
out, “We love you!” and the rest of the class joined in, all crying out, “We
love you!”
It was a very touching
moment, one that really brought home to me the meaning of today’s text.
Sometimes we get to a place in our lives where nothing seems to be going right
and everything around us is spinning out of control, just as it was for David.
And just like David all we can really do is cry out.
The good news is that we
have a God who is always by our side, not only as we’re going through our
trials, but also as we cry out in despair. It’s this God, our Constant
Companion, who will eventually cry out to us that we are loved, and no matter
what we are never alone.
God is always with
us. Amen.
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