FORGETTING THE PROMISE

1 Samuel 29:1-31:13; John 11:55-12:19; Psalm 118:1-18; Proverbs 15:24-26

“The fighting grew very fierce around Saul, and the Philistine archers caught up with him and wounded him severely. Saul groaned to his armor bearer, ‘Take your sword and kill me before these pagan Philistines come to run me through and taunt and torture me.’ But his armor bearer was afraid and would not do it. So Saul took his own sword and fell on it.”

“Then the Pharisees said to each other, ‘There’s nothing we can do. Look, everyone has gone after him!’”

“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good! His faithful love endures forever…. In my distress I prayed to the Lord, and the Lord answered me and set me free. The Lord is for me, so I will have no fear. What can mere people do to me? Yes, the Lord is for me; he will help me.”

“The path of life leads upward for the wise; they leave the grave behind.”

Saul’s end is a sad tale of dreams gone sour and the depression of separation from the God who gives us life. Lost, disillusioned and desperate, he lowered himself to hypocritically consult the witch of Endor, even though it was against his own ordinances. He finally faced the truth: his life and disloyalty surely would culminate in a last disaster. He could not handle the news or the defeat. His finale was as inglorious and debasing as his life. Stripped of all creativity and hope, he could think of nothing else to do but suicide. For anyone who began with such great raw material and potential, it was a humiliating denouement. Yet, Saul’s crushing destruction also was predictable. Such is a not uncommon finish for those who have decided to live only for themselves and in their own strength. Death is the inevitable result for anyone who rejects and forgets the promises of God.

The death Scripture promises for those who choose their own way rather than His is not limited to physical mortality, either. The Pharisees literally were dead men walking as they tried to maintain power in the face of overwhelming grace. They had no real sense of peace or beauty; they were consumed by a negativity of eternal dimensions which spoiled everything for them. Bound to their laws and checklists of right and wrong, they stripped religion of any ability to bring hope to them or their followers. There was no fellowship, no joy; there was only right and wrong, effort and failure, sin and corruption. Not much of a life for anyone claiming God as Father. But again, it’s totally understandable when we forget Jesus’ promises or prefer process to the blessing.

Unconditional love and grace often generate feelings of jealousy or paranoia in those who refuse to accept them. Whether we are threatened by our own incapacity or envious of those who have the security in Christ to admit when they need help, there seems no middle ground. It is either life or death. There is no compromise, no Plan B, no in between. Guilt and divine judgment eventually will claim all whose souls are not anchored to the covenant of Christ. That is no way to live, and it is no way to die.

Praise God that Jesus offers a better, more positive and more joyful option. He is the embodiment of the Promise given to Abraham over 400 years before the first human ears ever even heard of the Law. He is the freedom God offers to those willing to finally admit a life of rules is a life of melancholy near misses and eventual futility. He is the Lord’s solution to a problem with which every one of us struggles: we can never be good enough for God or ourselves because we can never be perfect. Our fallibility is a slow poison eroding our spirit and enthusiasm. Christ is God’s antidote for human fallibility. We just have to remember His promises and be willing to actually accept and rely on the grace He prescribes.