Absalom’s Rebellion

2 Samuel 14-16

            Absalom had spent his life never hearing, “No.” Yes, Amnon’s crime against his sister was horrific, and, yes, David’s blind eye was a slap in the face. But Absalom had murdered his brother, who was, not unimportantly, the crown prince. Fratricide and treason—and David hadn’t pursued justice against Absalom either.

            Now, after some chicanery, this handsome and headstrong young man was back in Israel and demanding full restoration—and David gave it to him. 14:33 says that David summoned Absalom and kissed him, in the words of my study Bible, “signifying his forgiveness and Absalom’s reconciliation with the royal family.” David didn’t scold him for his chariot and his fifty men. David didn’t intervene when Absalom was denigrating the king’s justice and campaigning for himself.

            I’m sitting here thinking about all these failures of David, and I’m thinking about his behavior as he fled Jerusalem, and I’m wondering maybe David, previously always the man of action, wasn’t just being a passive, indulgent father. I’m sitting here thinking, “Maybe David through he deserved this.” Sure, the seeds of this rebellion must have been planted years earlier in David’s youth, but these events all happen after the incident with Bathsheba, after the prophet Nathan pronounced the Lord’s judgment of trouble from within his own household. I’m just wondering if, even though David had heard the Lord’s pronouncement of forgiveness, his shame and guilt were such that he just accepted what Absalom was doing.

            It makes me wonder how often we sabotage ourselves because we don’t really believe that God forgives sins. We think, “I don’t deserve joy. I don’t deserve blessing.” David knew shame. In Psalm 51, which he wrote in the aftermath of the Bathsheba incident, he says, “I know my transgression, and my sin is always before me (ps. 51:3). And I think the shame of our sins clings to us like that. We might say, “God has forgiven me,” but we still struggle with the shame. Sometimes people talk about not being able to forgive themselves, and I understand where they’re coming from. However, I tend to think of it in more theological terms, and I think it’s that we struggle to believe that forgiveness is really forgiveness, that the Lord has truly, by the suffering and death of His Son, removed our sin as far as the east is from the west (Ps 103), that sins as scarlet can be made white as snow (Is 1). The solution, as far as I can see, is to keep on putting yourself in the presence of the God who forgives. Keep on attending Divine Service, hearing absolution, receiving the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus for the forgiveness of sins. Only by this constant reminder and refreshment will we become convinced that God does indeed forgive sins, fully and completely.