Note When I started this project it was my intent to post a devotional a day, as they are shown in the book Beyond Words. However, yesterday life happened, and I wasn’t able to post Day 5. So here is Day 5, a day late. I hope I won’t have to do this very often, but as we all know, life is life.
DAY 5
Taken from the cevotional book Beyond Words by Frederick Buechner
ALMOST FROM THE START, Absalom had a number of strikes against him. For one thing, he was much too handsome for his own good, and 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, his father, King David, was always either spoiling him rotten or reading him the riot act. This did not promote stability of character. He murdered his lecherous brother Amnon for fooling around with their sister, Tamar, and when the old war-horse Joab wouldn’t help him patch things up with David afterward, he set fire to his hay field. All Israel found this kind of derring-do irresistible, of course, and when he eventually led a revolt against his father, a lot of them joined up.
On the eve of the crucial battle, David was a wreck. If he was afraid he might lose his throne, he was even more afraid he might lose Absalom. The boy was the thorn in his flesh, but he was also the apple of his eye, and before the fighting started, he told the chiefs of staff 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. Remembering what had happened to his hay field, old Joab kept his fingers crossed, and when he found Absalom caught in the branches of an oak tree by his beautiful hair, he ran him through without blinking an eye. 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. “O my son Absalom, my son, my son,” he said. “Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son” (2 Samuel 18:33).
He meant it, of course. If he could have done the boy’s dying for him, 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 even a king can’t do things like that. As later history was to prove, it takes the King himself.
2 Samuel 13-19
my reflection Another Bible story I’m unfamiliar with. This one is pretty straightforward. Clearly Buechner is drawing parallels between the story of Absalom and Jesus. And he is not wrong. David definitely deeply loved his son Absalom, though he was wayward, rebellious, and ultimately traitorous. Still, if he could have died in his place, he would have. That is parental love. I myself have a daughter. If I could do anything to ease her burden in life and take it on as my own, ease her pain and take it on as my own, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But, of course, I can’t. Nobody can do that for anybody. In all of history, only Jesus, the King of Kings, has been able to pull this off. And He does it for all of us, forever and all time. And in the end that was Buechner’s point in this devotional.
- Our Weekend Getaway - January 22, 2024
- So Long, Mom, And Thanks For All The Spaghetti - November 10, 2023
- Thoughts On The Chogaffirm Petition - June 3, 2023
- Rhonda - June 3, 2023
- Beyond Words Day 23 - April 4, 2023
- Beyond Words Day 21 - April 1, 2023
- State Of The Household - January 9, 2023
- Book Review and Miscellany Thoughts - November 18, 2022
- Initial Thoughts On My Writing - September 13, 2022
- Beyond Words Day 19 - September 11, 2022
