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2 Samuel 13
Our first reading was a while back in the service. Let me give you the highlights.
Boy loves girl.
Boy wants girl.
Boy can’t have girl.
It’s the stuff of holiday novels and Hollywood. Except that this story shines a
spotlight into some far darker places.
You see it starts:
Boy ‘loves’ girl.
Boy wants girl.
Boy can’t have girl.
But then,
Friend advises boy.
Boy tricks girl.
Boy grabs girl,
Boy rapes girl.
And then…
Boy hates girl.
Boy silences girl.
Boy discards girl.
It’s not Hollywood. This is
reality.
This week I read an estimate that 1 in 3 women in their lifetime
will face sexual abuse, broadly defined.
1 in 3 women. 1 in 4 men
will face sexual abuse, broadly defined.
And 2 Samuel 13 does not flinch from revealing life as it is. This morning we’re not going to turn
away either. We know that here
this morning there will be people who know Tamar’s pain first hand. And we grieve with you. We’re going to look at this chapter,
not with detached interest but with a heavy heart. Not to stir up pain but to acknowledge
the existence of such evil. One of
the greatest abuses which Tamar suffered was the abuse of being
silenced. But this morning we will
not silence Tamar, we will not brush her under the carpet as many do in
this chapter. Instead we will
grieve with her and acknowledge the evil which she suffered.
Because this is not an isolated evil. We cannot hold 2 Samuel 13 at arms
length, because here is an evil that is as old as Adam.
Ever since Genesis chapter 3…
[SLIDE: Genesis 3]
… the wickedness of the human heart has played itself out in terms
of:
[SLIDES x 4: Desire, Deception, Unlawful Taking, Death]
Desire, Deception, Unlawful taking and Death. Adam and Eve were forbidden just one
fruit. But the serpent deceived
them. He cultivated their desire
for the forbidden fruit. They
desired, so they took unlawfully.
And death and chaos was the result.
[SLIDE: Chaos]
2 Samuel chapter 11 showed a very similar pattern.
[SLIDE: David and Bathsheba]
Just two chapters prieviously we’ve seen David desiring Bathsheba
– another man’s wife. He took her
unlawfully. He deceived Uriah and
when the deception didn’t work, he killed him. Desire, deception, unlawful taking and
death. And from this event
in 2 Samuel 11, chaos broke out.
David’s kingdom, from this point on, becomes not the mirror
of Christ’s Kingdom which it was meant to be. Instead it becomes a broken mirror,
reflecting not Christ’s Kingdom but the wicked kingdoms of this
world. The chapter in front of us
is part of that fall-out.
Desire, Deception, Unlawful taking and Death.
[SLIDE: Sermon on the Mount]
Jesus, in the sermon on the mount, as He described our chaos put
His finger especially on two sins: lust and murder. We all lust in our hearts, which makes
us adulterers. And we’re all angry
in our hearts which makes us murderers.
How does that play out? Let
me give you one more Scripture.
[SLIDE: James 4]
James, which has many links with the sermon on the mount, says
this.
[SLIDE: verses]
He looks on the chaos of the world and he
gives this diagnosis:
What causes fights and
quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires [lusts] that battle
within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but
you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight.
Do you see the picture here?
I desire something. I lust
after it. And when I cannot have
it, I kill. I murder those who get
in the way. I cheat and I steal
and I quarrel and I fight until I get what I want. I am lustful (I want things) and I am
angry (if you block me from getting what I want, watch out!) I am an adulterer and a murderer. And so are you.
[SLIDE: 2 Samuel 13]
So as we look at 2 Samuel 13, we see this same spiral of desire,
deception, violent taking and murder.
It’s the problems of the whole world boiled down to a kingdom – in
fact boiled down to a family. 2
Samuel 13 is not a distant tragedy.
We live in the chaos generated by just these problems. And we are, all of us victims of
this chaos. And we are, all ouf
us, perpetrators of this chaos.
We are all Tamar but we are also Amnon and we are Jonadab, we are
Absalom and we are David.
This morning we’re just going to look at the victim and the
perpetrators in this tragedy. The
victim is Tamar and the perpetrators are the four men: Amnon, Jonadab,
Absalom and David. Between them
they make up a perverse household, indeed a perverse kingdom. Then, once we’ve seen the chaos, we’ll
finish by thinking about the hope of Christmas. What does Christmas have to say to
Tamar?
But first let’s look at the
characters. And here’s the victim
in this tragedy. Tamar. What do we learn?
Verse 1. She is
beautiful. Her name means palm
tree, which according to Song of Solomon is a very desirable thing to be
like. It makes you think tall and
fruitful. In fact she is so
beautiful that she makes the crown prince of Israel literally love-sick.
But she is also skillful, industrious and caring. Verses 8 and 9 go into great detail
about how she made all this food for Amnon herself. Beautiful, skillful, industrious,
caring. And virtuous. Nobody in this chapter speaks any kind
of godly wisdom, except Tamar.
Look at verses 12 and 13:
12 "Don't, my brother!"
she said to him. "Don't force me. Such a thing should not be done in
Israel! Don't do this wicked thing. 13 What about me? Where
could I get rid of my disgrace? And what about you? You would be like one
of the wicked fools in Israel. Please speak to the king; he will not keep
me from being married to you."
Tamar makes 6 pleas to Amnon,
any one of which should have stopped him in his tracks. First she says ‘Don’t’. That’s it. Don’t.
That should have been the end of the matter. But it wasn’t, so secondly she calls
him ‘my brother.’ She reminds
Amnon – they are related, they have the same father. Leviticus 18 should have been
resounding in his ears at this point.
“Do not have sexual
relations with your sister, either your father's daughter or your
mother's daughter.” (Lev 18:9).
But the law of God won’t stop Amnon’s lust. So thirdly, she appeals to his sense of
dignity. Here is the crown prince,
the heir to the throne, doing something that no member of God’s people
should do. Fourthly, she asks him
to pity her. If he loved her as he
said, then shouldn’t he care for her disgrace? Fifthly, Tamar appeals to his own sense
of shame. Amnon would become a
wicked, contemptible fool if he went any further. And sixthly, here is the last resort,
if you’re that determined Amnon, let’s marry. Tamar is a desperate woman, but she is
a voice of reason and great integrity.
Nonetheless Tamar is silenced. And humiliated, abused and disgraced.
Yet even after Amnon rapes her, she is still the only voice of reason in
the chapter. Verse 16 she pleads
with Amnon to let her stay.
Perhaps they could still marry and save face. But she is thrown out, and the door is
bolted after her. That’s a
harrowing detail for me. Amnon has
dragged her into his bed, he’s come crashing into her world against every
barricade she could possibly erect.
But now, she is turfed out by Amnon and the door is bolted.
No wonder, v19, she tears the royal robe of a
virgin princess, she puts ashes on her head and weeps aloud. She acts just like David acts in v31
when he thinks all his sons are dead.
She is in mourning. This
has been a death. And, v20, she
lives out her days in Absalom’s house as a ‘desolate woman.’ The word for ‘desolate’ here certainly
means she remained single and childless.
But more than this, the word is a violent word. It’s the word used for a body ravaged
with tumours, it’s the word used for a whole family killed in
disaster. It’s used of war-torn
lands, of famine for the crops and of the desecrated temple. Tamar, whose name means tall, fruitful
palm tree, has withered and died.
Tamar begins
[SLIDE: Tamar]
Desired
(v1)
Deceived
(v11)
Disgraced
(v14)
Despised
(v15)
Discarded
(v17)
Distraught (v19)
Dismissed
(v20a)
Destroyed
(v20b)
In the hands of this kingdom, run by these
men, the virgin princess has been thoroughly defiled, dismissed and
destroyed.
Let’s look at her abusers.
[SLIDE – Amnon]
Amnon. The heir
to the throne of Israel. He is the
firstborn son of David about whom there must have been high hopes. His name means faithful. Here is a faithful ruler. And he is a lover, v1. In fact he is literally love-sick for
Tamar. Amnon is depressed, he’s
losing weight, (v4) he’s become haggard with desire for Tamar.
But look at what lies behind these
feelings. See the last half of
v2. It does not read: “It seemed impossible for Amnon
to do anything for her.”
That would be love. Love in
the Bible means service, it means sacrifice – putting yourself out for
the other. But Amnon’s love was a
love that wanted to do something ‘to’ Tamar.
And what happened once Amnon does what he
wanted to do to Tamar?
Verse 15:
15 Then Amnon hated her with
intense hatred. In fact, he hated her more than he had loved her.
Amnon’s love really is
hatred. And it probably always has
been hatred – really. You see, a
desire to do something ‘to’ another person is not love in any
biblical sense. It might qualify
as love in today’s pop songs, it might qualify as love in films, but it’s
not biblical love. The feelings that
Amnon had nursed for Tamar actually find their fulfillment in violent
sexual abuse. Amnon’s ‘love’,
which had made him ill with longing, was a love that found its
consummation in rape. I wonder how
many love songs betray Amnon’s love.
A desire to do something to her. I wonder how many of our romantic
desires are actually like Amnon’s love.
And when Amnon’s so called love
is consummated in rape, then the façade of love can no longer be
maintained. Now he feels a
hatred greater than his prior feelings of ‘love’. But really I think this is the
hatred that drove him throughout.
This is Amnon: the faithful lover. In this kingdom he is anything
but.
Then Jonadab:
[SLIDE: Jonadab]
Here is a wise counsellor. Verse 3 calls him literally ‘a very
wise man.’ Yet Jonadab is really
cast as the serpent of this piece and we remember that the serpent of
Genesis 3 was also wise and ‘crafty.’
Now it’s important to remember that without Jonadab, Amnon would
simply be left in his love-sick depression. There would be no rape
without Jonadab. His ‘wisdom’ is
cunning and deceit. Here is a
political animal who knows how to get what you want. If you have desires that you want to
pursue, Jonadab can help you lie, cheat and steal to get them. His ‘wisdom’ makes him very dangerous.
Jonadab: he appears wise, but he is a
dangerous schemer.
There’s Absalom:
[SLIDE: Absalom]
Tamar’s brother. He is cast as an avenger, a
rescuer. But look at his words to
Tamar in verse 20:
"Has
that Amnon, your brother, been with you? Be quiet now, my sister; he is
your brother. Don't take this thing to heart."
Notice how Absalom talks around
the subject. The narrator says it
was rape. Jonadab in v32 says it
was rape. Absalom speaks of ‘being
with’ Amnon her brother. Here he
diminishes her ordeal and fails to face facts.
And notice how he tries to calm
Tamar by calling Amnon ‘her brother’.
It’s fascinating to see in this
chapter how people play the family card.
Amnon plays the family card in order to get into bed
with Tamar. In v11 he says “Come
to bed with me my sister.”
Now that’s no way to play the family card. Being brother and sister means they shouldn’t
do this. Tamar plays the family
card correctly, v12: “Don’t my brother.”
But now in v20, how does Absalom
play the family card? Just like
Amnon did. Not to prevent
but to justify abuse. “Be
quiet now, my sister, he is your brother.”
Here is a family using family
relations to abuse and re-abuse each other. Of course Absalom hates Amnon, of
course he doesn’t want to be anything like Amnon. But he plays the family card to silence
and repress. Just like with Amnon.
In fact Absalom uses the family
card three times in this verse.
Twice he uses it to downplay the rape – don’t worry, he’s only
your brother. And once he uses it
to silence his sister: ‘Be quiet now my sister.’ Absalom basically says ‘If you’re any
kind of sister to Amnon you won’t make a fuss and if you’re any kind of
sister to me you won’t make a fuss.’
Put yourself in Tamar’s shoes if you can. At that point you either scream or you
shut down completely. Well Tamar
has already shut down and Absalom just drives another nail into the
coffin with those six words: “Don’t take this thing to heart.” Here is a
woman destroyed, disgraced and in mourning, she’s told not to take it to
heart.
Christmas is a time when
families get closer together. It’s
no wonder that Christmas can be so hard.
I heard yesterday that more people file for divorce in January
than any other time. Families
coming together is not the joy it should be. The family card so often justifies
abuse and then so often covers up abuse.
Now Absalom loved his
sister. Later, Absalom even calls
one of his own daughters ‘Tamar’ in his sister’s honour. But he is too much of a coward to face
this event as it is. And so two
years after this event, Absalom exacts vigilante justice. Real justice should be swift and
proportionate. It’s revenge that
is served cold. And this killing
of Amnon is definitely revenge rather than justice.
Verse 28 is so ironic, Absalom
gets his servants to kill Amnon and he tells them: ‘Be strong, be
brave.’ Absalom is anything
but. Absalom never faces the
issue. He silences Tamar immediately. He silences himself immediately. He does not go to David his
father. He does not face Amnon his
brother. Instead he let’s his
anger brood and even at the point when he exacts revenge he cannot face
it. His servants have to be brave
and strong for him.
Absalom may appear to be the
heroic rescuer, the defender of Tamar’s honour. But he isn’t. He silences her just as Amnon did and
then brings about, not justice, but only a cowardly revenge.
Finally, David.
[SLIDE: David]
Tamar’s father. Israel’s king. What would he do to protect his
beautiful princess? Verse 20:
When
King David heard all this, he was furious.
Good. He ought to have been. But verse 20 should not stop
there. We should read about
David’s righteous anger leading to action. Here is the king. Here is her dad. He ought to have gone to his daughter
and spoken words of comfort. He
ought to have done all he could to restore her dignity and her
reputation. He ought to have
brought Amnon to account. Tamar
was right, such things should not happen in Israel. So what is the king going to do about
this? David does nothing. And the kingdom spirals down into
greater and greater chaos. Because
David does nothing, Absalom takes matters into his own hands. He kills the heir to the throne and
then, as Absalom goes on the run he becomes a contender for the
crown. If David had only acted
here in chapter 13, then the turbulence and blood-shed of the next 5
chapters would not have happened.
But David, the Almighty King, simply wrings his hands. His daughter and his kingdom needed him
to act but he does nothing.
So there we have it – the fallen
house of David. One righteous
woman destroyed. Four unrighteous
men who between them allow and perpetrate horrendous evil. And this is what our fallen houses
look like. This is what our fallen
families look like. This is what
the fallen kingdom of the world looks like. We are, all of us, to one extent or
another victims and perpetrators in a fallen house. All of us are part Tamar and part
Amnon. We are part Jonadab, part
Absalom and part David too. Life
in this fallen house looks like 2 Samuel 13 and it is unutterably tragic.
This doesn’t sound like a
Christmas message does it?
Well. I don’t know. Because it’s precisely this situation
that the Christmas story speaks into.
Turn to Isaiah 9 our second
reading.
Here in verse 2 we see where
Christmas always begins. Christmas
begins in darkness:
2 The people walking in darkness have seen a
great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light
has dawned.
Now we from the southern
hemisphere boast about going for a swim on Christmas day, but Christmas
is not meant to be a summer celebration.
Christmas ought to be celebrated in the dead of winter. Christmas begins in darkness. Because, perhaps the most basic message
of Christmas is that God meets us in the dark, God meets us in the
mess. He meets us on our
level. On that first Christmas
Herod was killing babies all around them.
Rome was butchering the people of God left, right and centre. And right in the midst of that, is a
baby who is called Immanuel: which means ‘God WITH us.’ Christ the LORD enters, He draws alongside,
He is born into our troubles. And as a shining light, He comes to transform
our darkness. Look at verse 6:
6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is
given, and the government will be on His shoulders. And He will be called
Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7
Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end. He will
reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding
it with justice and righteousness from that time on and for ever.
Having seen 2 Samuel 13 don’t we long for those words. ‘Justice’ and ‘Righteousness’. We have seen those who supposedly ruled
the house of David and we are sick to the stomach to even look at
them. Now comes the Mighty God
Himself. And He will reign on
David’s throne. God moves into the
house. That’s the meaning of
Christmas, God Himself moves in.
And He establishes and upholds the Kingdom in righteousness,
justice and peace.
And what kind of King is Jesus?
Look at His four names. He
is the Wonderful Counsellor.
[SLIDE – Wonderful Counsellor]
Not like Jonadab – the scheming adviser. Here is a truly wise Counsellor.
And He’s the Mighty God.
[SLIDE – Mighty God]
Not like David the impotent, hand-ringing king. Here is a God who will use all of His
might to be God to His people.
He is also the Everlasting Father.
[SLIDE – Everlasting Father]
Amnon’s so-called love was so changeable. It quickly turned to hate. Yet here is
One with an eternal and dependable love.
And finally Christ is the Prince of Peace.
[SLIDE – Prince of Peace]
Not like Absalom. He’s
neither a coward nor a vigilante but One who rules to uphold Peace.
2 Samuel 13 showed us four parodies of men. The lover, the counsellor, the rescuer
and the king – all of them perverted by sin. How wonderful it would have been if
they were genuinely lovers, counsellors, rescuers and kings. Well such a kingdom exists, not because
we have made the house of David into the house of the LORD. No it exists because at Christmas, the
house of the LORD entered into the house of David. There in the manger God has entered the
house to transform it the way light transforms darkness. Mary’s child established and upheld
this kingdom and now sits enthroned – the government on His shoulders.
All we are asked to do is receive the king. To us a child is born. To us a Son is given. Here is the ultimate Christmas
present. Addressed to us. To we who are walking in darkness. We who are victims and perpetrators in
this fallen house of the world.
Each of us need to come to Christ for healing and we need to come
to Christ for forgiveness. Come
before Christ and tell Him all the ways that you have been like Tamar,
and tell Him all the ways you been like Amnon, Jonadab, Absalom and
David. Come before Christ and pray
through what it means for Him to be your Wonderful Counsellor, your
Mighty God, your Everlasting Father, your Prince of Peace.
Let’s be quiet.
Lord we often find ourselves as Tamar:
Desired, Deceived,
Disgraced,
Despised,
Discarded,
Distraught, Dismissed, Destroyed.
Lord bring
us wholeness and hope.
Lord we often find ourselves as
Amnon – a lover
who turns to lust and hate.
Jonadab – a
schemer and deceiver
Absalom – a coward
driven by fear and hate
David –
hand-ringing impotence
Lord
forgive us and change us.
And help us to see Christ again as our Wonderful
Counsellor… Our Mighty God… Our Everlasting Father… Our Prince of Peace. Amen
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