The Creepiest Story in the Bible
It seems appropriate that Halloween and the election of 2016 should occur within 1 week of each other. While people around the country will celebrate the creepy, strange, and spooky on Monday Night, its hard to argue that the scariest costumes won't be of our Presidential Candidates. (insert creepy clowns joke here) Lets be honest, if Halloween really wanted to scare people, it should take some lessons from modern politics. But Halloween and the Election are not the only sources of fear and hopelessness.
Near the end of 1 Samuel, Israel's first king, King Saul, is a hot mess. He's obsessed with killing his rival for the throne, a guy named David. He's also crazy. Furthermore, He and God aren't on speaking terms, partly because he's trying to kill God's next chosen king, because he ordered the deaths of an entire city of priests, along with a litany of other missteps. The main reason is that Saul sees God as his own personal means of getting what he wants and needs. (Good thing we would never do that.) Then Saul learns that the Philistines are marching to war. He freaks out and tries to get God's advice on the matter. Except that God isn't a psychic with a hotline number, so theres no answer. Saul freaks out a bit more. In an incredible act of rebellion Saul asks his men if they know of a medium. He wants to communicate with the dead prophet Samuel.
This is important because God has expressly forbidden speaking to mediums and one of Saul's first acts as king was to kick the mediums out of Israel. All but one. When Saul hears about it, he disguises himself and goes to her in the middle of the night. Think about this for a second. In the middle of the night, a mad king disguises himself sets out to find a witch in order speak to the ghost of a dead prophet. If we were sitting around a fire this would be when I put the flashlight under my chin and turn it on.
In the story, Saul arrives at her house (I know it probably wasn't, but I've always imagined a cave, with lots of fog, because...witches?) and asks the woman to call up the spirit of Samuel. She agrees and begins summoning the "prophet." Suddenly she cries out and says, "Why did you lie to me? You are Saul."
Saul says, "Don't worry about me, what do you see?"
Saul says, "Don't worry about me, what do you see?"
"I see a ghost coming up from the ground," She says, "He looks like an old man with a robe."
At this, Saul is confident that the "ghost" is the prophet Samuel, since obviously Samuel was the only old man in Israel who wore a robe.
The ghost asks Saul what he wants. Saul tells about the Philistines and the ghost says to Saul, "Why are you talking to me. You know God has become your enemy. You didn't obey him so he has rejected you. Tomorrow you and your sons will die, and your army will be defeated." At this Saul collapses. The next day, there is a battle with the Philistines and, just as the ghost predicted, Saul and every one of his sons present at the battle are killed and the army of Israel is defeated. Thus ends the tragic story of Israel's first king.
What is that all about?
The story of Saul and the Witch of Endor is depressing and confusing. For those who believe that the dead are out of the reach of the living, the story brings up an entire list of questions. So most of the time great pains are taken to show that the ghost in the story is not really Samuel. I believe this is all true, but my goal here is not to explain what death is like. The bigger question I see is, did the ghost know the future? Isa. 46:8-10 makes it plain that God is the only one who truly knows the future. No the ghost did not know the future. So how did the ghost predict Saul's death? In 1 Sam. 28:16-19 the ghost gives the key to answering the question. "The Lord is your enemy. Because of the all the things you've done. Tomorrow you'll die."
Before the ghost predicts Saul's future, he defines Saul's past and present. Thats the point. Whoever defines your past and your present will define your future. The reason the ghost could so easily predict the future for Saul is that he simply took the events of Saul's life and removed the one ingredient Saul needed most in that moment: Hope. Then the ghost projected that into the future. Saul now saw a future utterly devoid of hope. The ghost uses facts that are basically true. Was Saul God's enemy? In many ways, yes. Had God rejected him as King in favor of David? Yes. But the message beyond those facts is this, "You are irredeemable."
Hope is Found
The best contrast in the Bible to this story is ironically also named Saul. A man who fights passionately to protect God's people from the upstart group that believe the Messiah has come in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Then everything changes. Saul is convinced, by Jesus himself, that the Christian Gospel is truth. He starts going by his Greek name, Paul, and spreads the message of Christ across the Roman Empire.
The story of Paul is a story of Hope. A story of a man who sees his past and his present redefined by the death of Jesus so completely that his future shifts 180 degrees. In his letters he takes the hope he has experienced and applies it to every Christian. In 1 Cor. 6:11, after making a comprehensive list of the sins in which everyone has taken part, he says:
"And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." (ESV)
Your past is redefined.
In Romans 8:1, he says:
"There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."(ESV)
Your present is redefined.
And in Timothy 4:8, he says:
"Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing."(ESV)
Your future is redefined.
Looking for Hope in all the Wrong Places
Many of us fall into the trap of King Saul. In our busyness and the noise of our lives, God seems quiet or slow. In our desperation we rush to the nearest ghost we can find with some kind of word for our lives. It could be the ghost of politics with its grandiose promises and spectacle. The ghosts of pleasure and comfort promising a life of easy fun. Maybe its the ghost of success or security giving you something tangible, like a full IRA or a growing business. Whatever it is for you: Romance, Family, Recognition, eventually it fails and the false hope it gave is pulled out from under you like a table cloth by an unpracticed magician, leaving behind the shards of your plans and the stain of your tears. In that moment, the fear is more primal than any haunted house attraction can conjure.
Our choice now is not which costume to wear, or who gets our vote. Our real choice is which voice will we hear? The temptation to see reality as ultimately hopeless and descend into a fatalistic melancholy. Or the voice that shouts with gentle strength through all the hype, vying for our attention and calling for a peace that passes all understanding because we know that our past is covered, our present is blessed, and our future is secure.
