Sadness, Songs, Salvation and Supper

July 5, 2009

2 Samuel 1:1-4, 17-27 & Mark 5:21-23, 35-43

King David could be a despicable cad. His incident with Bathsheba calls to mind public figures and politicians today like John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, Mark Sanford, John Ensign, and Milwaukee’s own Ed Flynn – all caught with their proverbial pants down (and more).

David’s military conquests could be self-serving too … and bloody.

But in his brighter moments, Israel’s favorite king wrote beautiful poems about life and death, gains and losses, sorrows and hope – poems that still illuminate the connection between God and God’s covenant people.

Many of these poems are collected in the book of Psalms. But they appear in other parts of the Bible as well.

Today’s reading offers a stirring ode from David to two men who died in battle. Jonathan is one, David’s closest friend. The other is Saul, Jonathan’s father, ruler of Israel and a bit of a madman. David will soon claim Saul’s throne for himself. That this dear friend and that dire foe are father and son adds pathos to David’s song of lament.

David grieves not for one or for the other, but for both. “How the mighty have fallen!” he cries, repeating it three times: “How the mighty have fallen! … How the mighty have fallen!” Not once, however, does he ever divide Saul and Jonathan into good and bad, enemy or ally.

Though different in life, David recognizes them as equals in death.

For all his military prowess and success, David never forgot that war’s cost is not borne by the losers alone. Innocent bystanders and the winners take hits too. Death plays no favorites. No one gets off unharmed. Collateral damage is fierce.

David also understood that war rarely strengthens either side. Victors and vanquished pay the price. In his opening line, David moans, “Your glory, O Israel, lies slain in your high places!” The whole nation is wounded, even though they have won. The “glory” of Israel’s best and brightest sons is tarnished with blood. The young and strong are strewn on fields of battle. National qualities of loyalty and courage produce not even one everlasting hero.

If other nations were to hear of the devastation, they would grow haughty, and make plans to attack. With Israel’s forces in tatters, the worst thing would be to tell it abroad to the citizens of Gath, on the streets of Ashkelon, or to the daughters of the Philistines. Because then Israel’s enemies would seize upon that wretched news and exploit the nation’s sudden weakness.

War is not pretty. Even winners suffer unsustainable losses.

* *

So, this weekend, as we “ooh and ah” at the “bombs bursting in air” over the lakefront and county parks in bright colors and intricate shapes, we join King David in remembering soldiers lost in battle, whose forms now rest in the earth, including some 4600 of our own who have perished in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Yes, we remember the valiant men of old, who signed a document that England’s King George III considered treason, a document that has stood as a testament and model to freedom-seeking peoples now for 233 years and one day.

And, yes, we rejoice that Tom Jefferson, John Hancock and 54 others (including eight Presbyterians such as John Witherspoon, the only clergyman in the bunch) valued “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” enough to risk all that and more; and that tens of thousands of others on this half-settled soil joined them in a fight to the death for the “inalienable rights” of all people.

Yet we do not sugar coat the suffering and terrible cost. The truth is that nearly one American soldier out of twenty in that Revolutionary War died in combat or as a result of disease, perhaps 25,000 in all.

Likewise, we remember those who died in subsequent wars for the American ideals they and our nation’s founders so greatly cherished.

• Roughly 625,000 Northern troops who fell during the Civil War.

• 116,500 more who lost during World War I.

• More than 400,000 in World War II.

• 36,500 in Korea.

• And nearly 60,000 in Vietnam.

Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, civilians and soldiers, hawks and doves – we all are beneficiaries of their sacrifices for the values we hold dear. And so “united we stand,” at least for this one weekend, in gratitude to them all.

Though it is harder emotionally (and spiritually) to do, we also join King David in lamenting those on “other” sides and other uniforms in those same conflicts:

• More than a million dressed in Confederate gray, roughly twice as many as the Northern losses.

• Sixteen million total in World War I.

• Sixty million altogether in World War II.

• Half a million Koreans and Chinese in the 1950s.

• One-point-five million Vietnamese.

• Countless Afghans and Iraqis.

• And as many British forces as American troops in the Revolutionary War.

King David was right. “How the mighty have fallen” – both friend and foe. The cost of freedom is never discounted. And now, 65 years and a month after D-Day, almost a thousand World War II vets die of old age every day, members of the “Greatest Generation,” one and all. Indeed, one of the touching things for me in yesterday’s parade wasn’t the number of veterans riding on floats or walking, but my realization of how many fewer there were than in previous years.

It is a remarkable testimony David offers, and the Bible as a whole, honoring all lives, giving tribute to those on each and every side.

* *

In his sadness, David consoled himself with a song directed to God. For him, sadness and song fit together, and brought relief.

But for us, meanwhile, consolation and hope come through David’s greater Son, Jesus – who is not so much a song, but a Word. The Living Word of Christ.

In today’s Gospel, a leader of the local synagogue falls at his feet and pleads for him to rescue his little girl from certain death.

Barely are the words out of his mouth, though, before others come, saying, “Too late. No use. Don’t bother. She’s already dead.”

But Jesus goes. He goes to the place where sorrow and death mingle. Ignoring the taunts and cynical laughter of those gathered outside – people hired to sing as David sang for the dead – he enters the child’s room, takes her by the hand, and raises her to her feet.

He raises her … to life.

Where the “glory” of Israel “lies slain,” and the best and the brightest of a youthful generation die undeserved death, where the hopes of the nation do not always survive to old age, and where no weapon on earth can save us … Jesus comes to win the last battle for us. Refusing to let death have the final say, he brings life.

Where David could only grieve and pour out a psalm of lament in the face of death, Jesus acts. Where onlookers and bystanders know only about death, he offers an answer to David’s lament, and a new melody to sing.

Jesus changes our song from a minor key to a major voice, just as the Apostle Paul will do when he sings: “O Death, where is your victory? O Death, where is your sting?”

Jesus raises up the little girl. Not surprisingly, Mark uses the same Greek verb for what God will do at Christ’s resurrection. The impact is the same. The signs are already in place. Even while we wait for the tide of battle to turn, we see evidence of how the fight between death and life will turn out. We see that the powers of death are no match for the life-giving powers of God.

* *

Nor does Jesus stop with the girl. While the mournful and doubting onlookers are dumbfounded with amazement, he beckons them to start being the church.

“Give her something to eat,” he commands.

After sadness, a song, and salvation … it comes time for supper. Intuitively, we all know that. It’s the reason we bring casseroles to a neighbors and friends, when a loved one has died. And it is what this table represents. Shared food, in the name of enduring love.

The work of getting past death is exhausting. It wears us out. Both body and soul need to be revived. Life will go on. But we have to be nourished for it.

So, just as he did at Easter in Emmaus, and in a locked room and at the seashore for his disciples, Jesus calls for food. And he provides it. Provides what we need to replenish our bodies for battles yet to come in every person’s life. Food for the spirit, so we do not lose hope. Food on this earthly table, matching food on a heavenly table where our loved ones now dine.

“Give her something to eat,” he says, foretelling the day when we no longer lament those who have fallen. “Something to eat,” that changes cynical laughs to songs of joy, and making us one family in Christ, one Body, across borders of language, politics and race.

The good news is: that food is not limited to one little long-ago girl. It is for you and me. Today. It is here at this table, where the raised up girl is present along with the whole heavenly host, and where Jesus presides.

So, come. Bring family … and friends … and enemies too, that together we may be reconciled to God and one another.

Taste and know the goodness of the Lord. Let your body and spirit be nourished. Look up toward heaven.

You may see not just bombs bursting in air, but a Messiah who brings salvation.

And supper.

To the glory of God.