<< Back to June 2001 Sermons

2001
17th June (am) - David & Suffering, once again: A Father's Grief
Communion: 17th June, 2001 (am)

The scene today is a home where the news has come of a son's untimely death, and where we are allowed to see the awful anguish of the father's grief. It is heart rending to watch and listen to that grief:

O my son, Absalom! My son, my son, Absalom. If only I had died instead of you - O Absalom, my son, my son!

The father, of course is King David, and Absalom is the son who had rebelled against him and set himself up as king - a couple of Sundays ago we saw how that sad situation developed, and now today it has come to a head, and it has finished up with Abasalom's death at the hands of David's soldiers.

As we think about this part of David's life, we'll see that it maybe speaks to us at 2 levels:

it is really honest and realistic about human love and suffering and grief - the way we feel when someone close to us is taken by death.

it should probably also make us think about the nature of God's love for people like you and me - the father in heaven loving and grieving over his children on earth.

Communion Sunday is a good day for thinking along those lines.

So please think with me, as I try to help you think about that sad day of anguish when David cried out O Absalom, my son, my son!

First of all, please notice the grief of a father. You can't miss it, for it is the overwhelming emotion of this story - David is utterly overwhelmed with grief and despair when he receives the news of his son, Absalom's death. The news had come from the scene of the battle - the mesengers were almost afraid to tell the king, but someone had to do it, and so the messenger says: May the enemies of my lord the king, and all those who rise up to harm you, be like that young man - Absalom was dead.
And we are told that the king was shaken. He went up to the room over the gateway and wept. He could not be consoled. This scene is the same as the phone call that you don't want to get, the news from a doctor that you never wanted to hear, the person whose face tells the news before they ever say a word.
This is a scene of the most heart rending sorrow - Devastating anguish swallowed David up - and the darkness that descended on his life must have descended on the whole place and everybody there.
The grief of this father, mourning for his son, echoes the grief that death brings every time it strikes.
Most of us have been there at one time or another - some of us have been there in particulary difficult circumstances when bereavement has come suddenly and unexpectedly, or tragically, or when illness has struck at what seems like an utterly young age.
Most of us know what it means to face the devastating loss and grief and loneliness of a dear loved one's death. We must never ever dismiss or underestimate the awfulness of that experience - to do so is not human, for we were made to live in close and loving relationships with other people. And it is not Christian to diminish the grief that we feel in the face of death and bereavement.
Sometimes we have the feeling that if we have proper faith in Christ, then death and bereavement won't hit us so hard - that we should sail through those stormy waters fairly well - this is not true.
- think of Jesus as he wept with the sisters of his friend, Lazarus, and felt the anguish of what death could do.
Jesus felt that same terrible sorrow that David felt, when he cried out, O Absalom, my son, my son.
Never ever imagine that when our faith is in Jesus, that the grief will not hurt us or hit us so hard - it will, it must if we have loved and lost someone very dear - and those who grieve as David did, must be given the right to grieve and the help to manage in that grief.
It is not that Christians have nothing more or better than people who do not have Christian faith - for we do have the solid hope of Jesus and his resurrection - we do have something more and something better, but, at the same time, we do not have anything less in terms of all the feelings of loss and loneliness - we grieve, but not like the rest of men who have no hope, as Paul puts it to the Thessalonians.
So, a Father's grief.

Secondly, notice that this is the grief of a father for a terribly rebellious son. When David cries out, O Absalom, my son, my son, he is greiving for a son who had done everything he possible could to get rid of his father and take the throne - Absalom's story is one of long-term strategic opposition to his father and eventually open rebellion against him - remember from 2 Sundays ago how we learnt about Absalom schemingly building up his popularity among people, shamelessly using his religion as a cover for his plans, and unilaterally declaring himself king in opposition to his own father, David.
It is a sad, sad story of a family tearing itself apart, and it ends in the utter grief David felt when this rebellious son lost his life in the battle between his men and his father's.
David & Suffering, once again: A Father's Grief That David never gave up caring about this this rebellious son is unmistakable. as David's soldiers went out to confront the rebel forces of Absalom, David gave his commanders clear instructions in the hearing of all their men: Be gentle with the young man, Absalom. vs.5
Maybe that wasn't very realistic as they went out to fight - maybe it was a bit sentimental - but that was how David felt - this was his son, no matter what he had done and how he had behaved. David had never given up caring about him, even though Absalom had done everything he possibly could to dislodge and destroy his father. Despite all the frief that Absalom had caused David, he says Be gentle with that young man - try to spare his life if you possibly can.
As we know David's commander, Joab didn't heed the king's wishes - maybe he knew that there was no other way if the kingdom was to be safe and secure .... but when the news came, David's grief for this utterly rebellious son was heart-rending.
Surely there is a parable here for us: Is this not how God feels for us? Does the Bible not teach us that this is the way in which God loves us - that he never gives up caring about us and wanting the best for us, even though we have caused him so much disappointment and grief; that even though our lives are unlovely in so many ways, he never concludes that we are unloveable and beyond any hope; that even though sin has got a grip in our deepest being and has made us rebellious in our attitude to God's true and full authority, he never ever turns his back upon us and abandons us to what we deserve.
The grief and love of David for a rebellious and undeserving son is a parable of God, the Father's love for us who, in the words of the hymnwriter are described as thy erring children, lost and lone.
When Jesus told his famous parable of the prodigal son, was his point not that we all need to understand that we are like that Son - that we have taken what the father gave us for life and we have used it in our own way and gone off in our own directions ...... and yet the Father never gives up loving and hoping that the son would return, and when he does the father runs to greet him and welcome him back into his love - a lost and rebellious son had returned.
David & Suffering, once again: A Father's Grief. We often and rightly speak of God's love - God is love, writes John in his letter - but we need to understand that God's love is for unlovely people who do not love him - that we are so much like the rebel, Absalom, or like the down and out prodigal - God's heart grieves for all whom he sees living life without reference to him - and his heart grieves for those who are like the prodigal's brother, who even though he had never left home, had never really understood the father's love or responded to him.
The prodigal had lived a self-centred life, until he came to his senses and returned to be met by the father's love. The other brother had lived a self-righteous life and never allowed the father to love him.
Even though God is love - even though God's love is like that of David for his rebellious son, Absalom - even though God's love is greater and deeper than anything we see in David ..... it is still possible to be a lost son, unablke, unwilling to come back to the father's enormous, forgiving love ...... leaving it until it is too late, as it was for Absalom who met his end hanging from the branches of an oak tree.
David & Suffering, once again: A Father's Grief. The father in heaven grieves over everyone of us while we continue to live in self-centredness, lostness and hopeless.
As Paul once put it to the Ephesian Christians: Remember that at that time, you were separate from Christ ...... without hope and without God in the world. (Ephes.2:12)
This is the urgent call of the Gospel that we should come back to the loving arms of the god who grieves over our lives every minute that we continue to live life away from him.
This is the call, once again, to us today., for Absalom's sad end is a sober reminder to us all of the fate of those who will not and do not allow the father's love to call them back.

One final thing to notice about David's grief: this is the grief of a father who would willingly have died instead of Absalom.
vs.33 If only I had died instead of you - O Absalom, my son, my son.
In the depth of his grief, David wishes that it had been him and not Absalom who had perished - what depth of love and loyalty to a son who had treated him with such disdain and disloyalty.
David & Suffering, once again: A Father's Grief Maybe there was a bit of guilt in David's grief - maybe he recalled the sombre words of Nathan the prophet years before, after David's adultery with Bathshebe - that David's family would tear itself apart - perhaps David knew that even though Absalom had brought his death upon himself, he, David, carried the guilt too - If only it had been me, instead of you! It was him, instead of us, when it came to Jesus - he did die and give himself in our place - with no blot of sin or guilt upon his own life, he was ready to give it up for ours - the father's love, expressed through the awful death of his son, given as a substitute in place of you and me - we who are the sinful ones with the dark and guilty blots upon our lives.
- the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me
- God demonstrates his love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
- this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
He took our place - If only I had died instead of you, said David in sorrow that had no small measure of sentimentality and guilt - Jesus Christ, the pure and perfect one, whose life was lovely to the uttermost and whose life was the living message of God, the Father's, love for us did die - so that we who are more like Absalom, more like the prodigal, more like the self righteous older brother, might be rescued, brought back to God, forgiven, filled with the eternal hope of God, the Father.
Because he gave himself in our place, there is a true forgiveness of sin.
Because he gave himself in our place there is a real hope of heaven.
Because he gave himself in our place there is a deep comfort in the face of grief.
This is the love and hope of which Communion speaks - of themselves, these are just outward elements of bread and wine - because of Christ these are the living reminders of the father's love and the son's sacrifice and victory. For all who see their need, who recognise their lostness apart from Christ, who understand that they do not deserve any of God's love and hope of themselves - these are the very promises of God for forgiveness, for faith and for a future in the father's house.