Battle and Death

2Samuel 1:25

How the mighty have fallen
in the midst of the battle!

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We come from the land of the ice and snow,
From the midnight sun where the hot springs blow.
How soft your fields so green, can whisper tales of gore,
Of how we calmed the tides of war. We are your overlords.

On we sweep with threshing oar,
Our only goal will be the western shore.

So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
For peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing.

"The Immigrant Song" written by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, recorded by Led Zeppelin from "Led Zeppelin III"

Edwin Starr and later Bruce Springsteen sang the song "War." It carries the chorus, "What is it good for/Absolutely nothin'." Well, many wars are good for nothing. Most wars have a tendency to kill young boys for the indiscretions of older men. Some wars are fought because someone can't leave well enough alone. More and more, wars are fought not for noble reasons, but only for wealth and power; both only fleeting blips on the radar of history.

Saul had fallen out of favor with the Lord. David is rising in stature. It doesn't help matters that Saul's son Jonathan and David are like brothers together, Saul's line is threatened because the people hail David, the conquering hero.

Philistines attack the Israelites at Gilboa and Saul heads into battle with his sons, but it is not to be his victory. Saul and Jonathan with Abinadab and Malchishua, two of Saul's other sons, all die in the battle. It is a horrible day for David.

How the mighty have fallen in the midst of the battle!

How soft your fields so green, can whisper tales of gore.

War is horrible, war is a terror; especially the wars that are fought for the wrong reasons with weapons and tactics that are devastating to the armies that fight them and the nations that wage them. (Yes, I am saying that war, when engaged poorly, can harm the very soul of a nation.) It is highly likely that there are people who feel this way of every war, without regard to whether it is just or not, and maybe this is what we need to remember, there is just war.

Perhaps even more important than the war itself is what follows. Is there justice in the peace that follows the war. The leading cause of World War II was the Treaty of Versailles. The way WWI ended, the penalties placed at the feet of the Germans, laid the groundwork for the next world war. The Marshall Plan rebuilt Europe after World War II. Europe is stronger today because of it. American reconstruction was another matter after the assassination of President Lincoln. This is an example of winning a war and losing a peace which America still pays for today.

It is time to remember Robert Plant's plaintive cry in "The Immigrant Song," "So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins, For peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing." In battle the mighty will fall. It is how we follow the fall that matters to the end of days.

Winning poorly only lays the way for the next generation of war victims.

What's a Man to Do?

Hosea 3:1-5

The LORD said to me again, “Go, love a woman who has a lover and is an adulteress, just as the LORD loves the people of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes.” So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer of barley and a measure of wine. And I said to her, “You must remain as mine for many days; you shall not play the whore, you shall not have intercourse with a man, nor I with you.” For the Israelites shall remain many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or teraphim. Afterward the Israelites shall return and seek the LORD their God, and David their king; they shall come in awe to the LORD and to his goodness in the latter days.

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Sunday morning when we go down to church
See the menfolk standin' in line
I said they come to pray to the Lord
With my little girl, looks so fine
In the evening when the sun is sinkin' low
Everybody's with the one they love
I walk the town, Keep a-searchin' all around
Lookin' for my street corner girl

I got a woman, wanna ball all day
I got a woman, she won't be true, no no
I got a woman, stay drunk all the time
I said I got a little woman and she won't be true

"Hey, Hey, What Can I Do?" by Led Zeppelin

There are some who think scripture is this clean, tidy, glorious, joyous work that shows the world the power and majesty of God. Well, except for clean and tidy, this is true. The book of Hosea is one of those times when scripture is anything but clean and tidy.

Hosea is a man, a simple man, a prophet, who is called by the Lord to "Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom." You know Billy Graham never got this word from the Lord, and we should all thank God that we didn't either. Robert Plant singing "I got a little woman and she won't be true" takes on a whole new meaning in light of this scripture.

In our life, in our society, the man is a fool for taking such a woman into his bed. In the age of AIDS, and it's still the age of AIDS, it's suicidal. In the time of Hosea, it wasn't too good either. Imaging how a man could go broke if paying two weeks wages for his wife to bring her home.

Actually, given a six day work week, the fifteen shekels of silver would take between two and three weeks to earn and the homer of barley and measure of wine would cost more. There goes a month of wages and you don't know if the kids are yours until the Maury Show hits the airwaves thousands of years later.

So what's a man to do? There are two things. The first is tough enough, be obedient. The Lord tells Hosea to take this wife of ill repute. She won't be true, and you are called to take her into your bed. What could be tougher?

Well, there's this. The second is tougher, it is to do nothing. There is nothing Hosea can do to change the ways of his wife. Well, nothing he can do in an active way that is, not in the way "men of action" think of action.

In the end, these are too much for the man of the song and he leaves her where the guitars play.

In the end, in the truth of life, the work of redeeming the woman, and the work of redeeming Israel (which is the point of this Hosea), is only possible thorough the work of the Lord God. Hosea can do nothing but love her, show her true unconditional love; even in the light of her actions. This is the quandary of the Lord and the Lord's first love Israel, but while God will never force love upon the nation, the Lord will never leave either.

This is the reconciling work of the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The work of God in Jesus Christ is glorious and joyous. The work of God is ripe with power and majesty. But it is not always clean, and it is not always tidy. Sometimes, somebody's got to get their hands dirty.