12th Sunday After Pentecost. August 11th, 2024. Series

2 Samuel 18:5-9, 2 Samuel 18:15, 2 Samuel 18:31-33, Psalm 130:1-8, 1 Kings 19:4-8, Psalm 34:1-8, Ephesians 4:25-32, Ephesians 5:1-2, John 6:35, John 6:41-51.

(A) WOULD GOD I HAD DIED FOR THEE.

2 Samuel 18:5-9; 2 Samuel 18:15; 2 Samuel 18:31-33.

When I was still on the threshold between boyhood and manhood, I wrote two books of poems. The first I entitled, 'Going our own way.' I did not think of it at the time, but perhaps I was using the royal prerogative to assert (like so many others) that I wanted to be King in my own life.

This seems to be the position that Absalom was in, in our Scripture passage today. Absalom may well have become king when the time was right; but he grew tired of waiting, and rebelled against his father the king. As well as the outworking of something which David himself had set in motion (2 Samuel 12:10), and the failure of David to discipline his boys (2 Samuel 13:21), there is the problem of Absalom’s own pride and ambition (2 Samuel 15:6).

It was the position of Adam in the garden, too. Man was the crown of God’s creation, yet man forfeited all his privileges by believing the lie of the devil (Genesis 3:5), and imagining that God was keeping back from him something that would be good for him. And, as the rhyming couplet goes, ‘in Adam’s fall we sinned all.’

The result for Absalom was disastrous (2 Samuel 18:6-8), and he lost his life (2 Samuel 18:15). David could hardly contain his grief (2 Samuel 18:33). Yet amid the cries of, “my son, my son, my son, my son, my son” we hear the astonishing statement, “would God I had died for thee!” However, it was not possible for David to die for Absalom.

For us, however, that is not the end of the story. There is a tension between justice and love which cannot be resolved without the Cross of Jesus. The fatherly tears of David the king demonstrate to us the compassion of God for His wayward children.

Only God can resolve that tension. He is ‘not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance’ (2 Peter 3:9), and becomes ‘both just and the justifier’ of all that come to Him by Jesus (Romans 3:26).

Whilst it is true that ‘in Adam’s fall we sinned all', it is also certainly true that it was while we were ‘dead in trespasses and sins’ (Ephesians 2:1); ‘while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us’ (Romans 5:8); ‘that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him’ (2 Corinthians 5:21). The Father’s love (John 3:16) has found a ransom (Mark 10:45), and justice and love have met in the Cross of Calvary (cf. Psalm 85:10).

I wrote my second book of poems after I was converted, and entitled it, 'Going His way.' Mercifully, perhaps, neither of these two small volumes is still extant. Words would never suffice to tell what great and wonderful things God in Christ has done for His children!

(B) WAITING IN HOPE.

Psalm 130:1-8.

This Psalm is a song of ascent: “Out of the depths” (Psalm 130:1). The Latin language captures the intensity of the situation: “De profundis” (from which we have the English word ‘profundity’, meaning ‘a great depth or intensity of state, quality or emotion’). We have all been there, or somewhere like it. The Psalmist spares us the details.

Yet even in the depths - indeed, especially in the depths - the Psalmist does not forget the LORD. And the LORD does not forget him. When we are in the depths, it is to the LORD that we may cry. He has never given up on us, so we need not give up on Him.

The Psalmist’s plaintive plea is that the LORD will hear his voice, and that His ‘ears’ (an obvious anthropomorphism) would be attentive to the voice of his supplication (Psalm 130:2).

It would be a mistake to just take it for granted that somehow the Psalmist’s troubles arose from some specific sin. The sense is, “If you LORD should mark (literally ‘watch over’) iniquities, who would be able to stand? BUT there is forgiveness with you, that you might be revered” (Psalm 130:3-4). The writer is drawing strength from his own sense of past forgiveness. (Incidentally, forgiveness is not just about us: it is about the glory of God.)

Whatever the petition was, the Psalmist is waiting confidently for the answer of the LORD. This is personal: “my soul” waits (Psalm 130:5). It is intense: more intense than the watchman on the wall who could be waiting for news - or, just waiting for the morning so his shift can be completed peacefully (Psalm 130:6). I think of the City Crier, as the sun breaks over the horizon: ‘Six o’clock, and all is well!’