David and Absalom

2 Samuel 18:24-33

March 1, 1998

by Dave Wilkinson

The boss's secretary was leaving to get married and the boss gave her a big hug, "You've been just like a daughter to me -- insolent, surly, and unappreciative.’

This seems to be a common perspective on family life -- one certainly voiced by Clarence Darrow who declared that "the first half of our lives is ruined by our parents and the second half by our children."

Yet children are a great joy. And it is the most natural thing in the world for parents to love their children.

One of the greatest lovers of his children was King David of Israel.

David, of course, was a sinful man He was guilty of adultery, first degree murder and what we would almost certainly define as war crimes.

But scripture says that God also called this sinful David "a man after my own heart. I believe that this is because David was a man who knew how to rejoice like God. He also knew how to grieve like God. And no where is this better seen than in David’s profound grief over the death of his rebellious son Absalom.

Frederick Buechner describes the situation in this way: "Almost from the start, Absalom was slated for trouble. He was much too handsome for his own good. His special pride was such a magnificent head of hair that once a year when he had it trimmed, the trimmings alone tipped the scales at three and a half pounds. For another thing, David was always either spoiling him rotten or shutting him out. This did not promote stability of character."

2 Samuel 13 tells how Absalom murdered his lecherous half-brother Amnon for assaulting their half- sister Tamar. When David’s old war-horse General Joab wouldn't help him patch things up with David afterwards, Absalom set fire to his hay field! All Israel found this kind of daring-do irresistible, of course, and when Absalom eventually led a revolt against his father, a lot of people joined in. They thought it was time for "with it" Absalom to take the place of old fogey David.

"On the eve of the crucial battle, David was a wreck. If he was afraid that he might lose his throne, he was even more afraid that he might lose Absalom. The boy was a thorn in his flesh. But he was also the apple of his eye. Before the fighting started, David told the commanders till they were sick of hearing it that if Absalom fell into their clutches, they must promise to go easy on him for his father's sake.

General Joab kept his fingers crossed. He remembered what had happened to his hay field. After the battle, when Joab found Absalom hanging from the branches of an oak tree by his beautiful hair, he had his men kill him.

When they broke the news to David, it broke his heart, just as simple as that, and he cried out in words that have echoed down the centuries ever since. "0 my son Absalom. My son, my son Absalom! Would that I had died instead of you, 0 Absalom, my son, my son!"

David's heart broke with grief for his loss. After his countless wars and many deaths, the meaning of grief finally came home to him.

Edmund Burke, Prime Minister of Britain in the early 1800s, was very enthusiastic in his support of the long wars against Napoleonic France. He never seemed to think of the sorrow those wars brought home to multitudes of hearts. But when Burke’s own son was killed in battle, it was as if all world politics and personal pursuits had lost their meaning. "The storms," he writes, "have gone over me, and I lie like one of those old oaks which the late hurricane has scattered about me. I am stripped of all my honors. I am torn up by the roots and lie prostrate on the earth. I am alone. I live in inverted order they who ought to have succeeded me have gone before me. they who should have been to me as posterity are in the place of ancestors."

David cried: "Would that I had died in place of you. 0 Absalom, my son, my son."

And in the depth of his grief David shows why God called him "a man after my own heart." The love of David and the grief of David point us to the love and grief God. But the love and grief of God far surpass the love and grief of David. God isn't God just because he can out think us and out perform us. God also out feels us. He out-emotions us.

Listen to the expression of the grief and loss of God through the prophet Hosea. In chapter 9 we hear God's words of judgement on the rebellious people of Israel symbolized by the tribe of Ephraim.:

"As for Ephraim, their glory will fly away like a bird. Ephraim is planted in a pleasant meadow like Tyre. But Ephraim will bring out his children for slaughter. All their evil is a Gilgal. Indeed, I came to hate them there! Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of my house! I will love them no more! All their princes are rebels.

"Ephraim is stricken. Their root is dried up. They will bear no fruit. Even though they bear children, I will slay the precious ones of their womb."

Those are terrible words of divine judgement. But then in Hosea 11 we hear the voice of fatherly mercy. We hear the cry of God as a father with a broken heart.

"'Yet it is I who taught Ephraim to walk. I took them in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of a man with bonds of love, and I became them as one who lifts the yoke from their jaws and I bent down and fed them."

'How can I give you up, 0 Ephraim?

How can I surrender you, 0 Israel?

My heart is turned within me. all my compassions are kindled.

'Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a delightful child? Indeed, as often as I have spoken against him; I certainly still remember him; therefore my heart yearns for him I shall surely have mercy on him.

In the same way David cried: "0 my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would that I had died instead of you. 0 Absalom, my son, my son!"

David meant it of course. If he could have done the boy's dying for hm, he would have done it. If he could have paid the price for the boy's betrayal of him, he would have paid it. If he could have given his own life to make the boy alive again, he would have given it.

But, as Frederick Buechner points out, "Even a king can't do things like. As later history was to prove, it takes a God. In Jesus Christ God did for rebellious Ephraim and rebellious us what David could never do for rebellious Absalom -- die in our place.

God promised concerning his rebellious people through his prophet Hosea: "I will ransom them from the power of hell. I will redeem them from death. O death where are your thorns? 0 Sheol, where is your sting?" (13:14)

Paul quotes these words from Hosea in 1 Corinthians 15. Then Paul adds the reason why sin and death have no real power over us. We know the way God fulfilled the promise given through Hosea. "Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord."

It is this gift of victory in the midst of our human need we celebrate now as we gather here at the table of the one who did for us what David could not do for Absalom -- die in our place. "For God loved the world so much He gave His only Son -- that anyone who believes in Jesus may not die but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but in order to save the world through Him." "Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord."