Ready for the Bad News?

2 Samuel 18:33

“The king was shaken. He went up to the room over the gateway and wept. As he went, he said, ‘O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you – o Absalom, my son, my son!’

  

Being a mom changed my movie-life. First, I never thought I’d come to a point of choosing a film on the basis PGs and GPs instead of plots and actors. Second, I can’t believe our discussion last night about the third installment of Transformers ended with Tris and I alternating roles as fanatics and babysitters. And third, I have never been this overly affected by family-themed flicks as I am now. I can understand the pain if we’re talking about my kids getting hurt. I just never thought I’d cry so hard for another’s.  Somehow, I think, parents feel for each other. 

And I feel for David here. Losing a son is heartbreaking. Weeping is an understatement. I dare not imagine it soon happening to me. It will surely crush my heart. ‘No parent should have to bury their child’, said Theoden in LOTR’s The Two Towers. But it wasn’t David’s first time. His first son to Bathsheba died at day seven. But he did not weep for him AFTER.  The account said upon realizing the child is dead, he got up, washed himself, worshiped the Lord, then comforted his wife. We do not find it here. The only similarity with the two deaths is that both sons were born out of adultery, and both died as consequence to those sins. The former because of David’s deliberate disobedience, the latter indirectly because he failed in disciplining Absalom. What was missing? The crucial marker is what he was doing BEFORE his son’s death. In chapter 12, David was in all humility bowed down at the Lord’s feet, admitting his sins, knowing God’s justice but still begging for mercy. Chapter 18 gives us no account of him praying at all. Because if he did, even if it wasn’t written down, he would have acknowledged that it was God’s justice at work. Then we would see him make an altar to worship, and Joab would not need to rebuke him for not encouraging his men.

One online dictionary defined acceptance as a person’s agreement to experience a situation, to follow a process or condition, without attempting to protest or resist. It doesn’t mean we are forgetting the loss or we won’t feel grief, but is about understanding what has happened as God’s call. Prerequisite to acceptance is seeing who He is and knowing our place. He is sovereign God and we are but sinners, deserving death but privileged with grace. Bad news is actually irrelevant when we come face to face with God. Everything serves His good purposes. That’s what prepared David’s heart in accepting his baby’s death. Worship is what will free us from fear of what’s ahead, even enable us to encourage another amidst personal pains. Yes will still cry, but not as one without hope. Not like those without God. Preparedness or panic? Just like prevention or cure, it can spell a lot of difference.