History has its eyes on... us!
"In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, Joan led out the army, ravaged the country of the Ammonites, and came and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem. Joab attacked Rabbah and overthrew it."
(1 Chronicles 20:1)
My very first seminary class... Monday morning @ 8am of my very first week... was CHURCH HISTORY w/ Dr. Bob Bull. I will never forget the very first thing he said to us: "There is a fine line between orthodoxy and heresy. It all depends on who's writing the history." So true.
There's an interesting parallel in the Old Testament. Many of the stories (heck, sometimes even entire chapters) in the books of I/II Samuel are mirrored (almost verbatim) in I/II Chronicles. That's why I was so surprised to read 1 Chronicles 20 today. It starts, "In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, Joan led out the army... But David remained at Jerusalem." It goes on to tell of Joab's victories anyhow David handled the "affairs of the state" back at the nation's capitol.
BUT... 2 Samuel 11 starts out the very same way: "In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel with him; they ravaged the Ammonites, and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem."
Practically identical, right?
BUT THEN... the author of 2 Samuel 11 proceeds to tell the story of David and Bathsheba. A powerful man in a position of great authority forces himself upon a married woman (knowing full well she was married). Their sexual tryst led to a pregnancy... which caused the man in power to proceed to cover it up... ultimately ending in the murder of the woman's husband.
It's a shocking chapter in the life of David. He repented before God, of course. And was forgiven by God. But the lasting damage of his sin and the repercussions of his actions echoed loudly in the hallways of his family for generations.
The author of 1 Chronicles 20 says NOTHING about that incident. Absolutely nothing. It's his/her attempt to "scrub clean" David's record. But, as Lin Manuel Miranda reminds us, history has its eyes on us.
We humans are complex, flawed and multidimensional characters. The current debate over statues/flags/names/traditions that "honor" our past history is in the forefront of our culture right now. We ARE flawed people indeed. But we cannot erase (or ignore!) the sins of our past. They must be confronted and dealt with. By ALL of us. Even the great King David recognized that. (Too bad the 1 Chronicles writer, didn't.)
History has its eyes on us.