Every year, on Ash
Wednesday, we pray with King David the powerful Psalm 51: “Have mercy on me, O God….Against you only
have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight…” To plumb the depths of this beloved psalm,
we must revisit the tawdriest episode in King David’s life when he committed
adultery with his neighbor’s wife, Bathsheba (see II Samuel 11 and 12 for the
whole heart-rending tale). So
infatuated was David with Bathsheba that he went to great lengths to seduce her,
including his willingness to arrange for the murder of her husband.
Reflecting on Psalm 51 and its
biblical back-story, I’m struck by the resonances between David’s treachery and
the tragedy playing out these days in Ukraine.
Not unlike ancient King David, Vlad the Destroyer gazed westward,
lusting for his neighbors in the beautiful country of Ukraine, leading him to
take by force what was not his.
The brave, stern prophet of the
LORD, Nathan, confronted King David and forced him to realize the error of his
ways: “You are the man!” (II Samuel 12:7). Today the freedom-loving democracies of the
world are taking the part of Nathan in proclaiming to Vlad the Destroyer, “You
are the man!”
This is, of course, my own
interpretation of how both the biblical story and the tragedy of Ukraine might
be playing out right before our eyes.
Some may write off such ruminations as “more politics But I believe it is incumbent upon us all to
seek to discern the mysterious ways of God as they are interwoven in real-time
events in our own day.
In this regard I call upon
Abraham Lincoln—not much of a church-goer, but the most profound lay theologian
ever to occupy the White House—in the stirring conclusion of his magnificent
Second Inaugural Address on March 4, 1865, during the waning days of the Civil
War:
“Fondly do we hope, fervently do
we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until all
the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited
toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be
paid by another draw with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so
still it must be said, ‘The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous
altogether.’
“With malice toward none, with
charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right,
let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds,
to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his
orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among
ourselves and with all nations.”
(Henry Steele Commager, editor of Documents of American History, Volume
I, pages 442-443)
