Absorb

Cleaning up. Always cleaning. And as she was organizing her servants, making sure the feast was running well, one little task and another duty after another. Her to-do list ran long. And all were on eggshells—Nabal was drinking, after all. Nabal was throwing a feast. And his tongue and wine could run long and run sharp. The disgruntled neighbor who had a jab of Nabal’s tongue was appeased with an extra serving of fine dates. Another angry response was placated with a cup of rich red wine specially poured to the offended. And Nabal blindly blathers on. Abigail oversaw, kept peace, hovering in the background, her sharp eyes and mind reading the body language. Servants scampered quietly, tension high in the air. Cleaning, always cleaning up. Sending the servant to wipe up the spilled wine, to sweep after the pounding of the fine flour, to rake the ashes. Always cleaning.

14 But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife, “Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to greet our master, and he railed at them. 15 Yet the men were very good to us, and we suffered no harm, and we did not miss anything when we were in the fields, as long as we went with them. 16 They were a wall to us both by night and by day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep. 17 Now therefore know this and consider what you should do, for harm is determined against our master and against all his house, and he is such a worthless man that one cannot speak to him.”

Another mess. Another dangerous spill of Nabal’s wine-lazy and drink-ready tongue. Scurrying, loaves from the feast and wine skins garnished, raisins and cakes of figs, delicacies. And she tremblingly sets out.

To face the swords. The harm was done. The anger hot. She, a small woman in the face of offended anger? David’s intent to do in all of Nabal’s household could start with her. Instead of grabbing the loaves and running in the opposite direction, Abigail glances to heaven, bows her head in whispered prayer, and sets to meet the swords.  

To face the shame. She humiliates herself. Fell down on her face. Yes, a woman, but a wealthy woman before a nomad, desert vagabond. “My lord, it is my guilt.” Not Nabal’s. No excuses run off her lips. Did her heart tremble here too? The shame? What the servants would say? Her pride tremble at the suppressed protestations, “Not my fault!”?

The weight of guilt assumed bowed her innocent shoulders down, bowed her face to the dusty ground. Abased. She absorbed the evil that her husband had done.

And offered peace. Offered life. Her own body a bridge of peace and life.

Life is costly. Peace is costly. Asking forgiveness, admitting wrong—costly. Giving forgiveness—costly. The real evil done by you or done against you is absorbed. The forgiver says, “I will not exact what you should owe me from you. Instead, I will bear the pain.” The confessor says, “I will bear the pain to try to make things right again as much as it is in my power to do.” The little things heap up. Costly. The big things jab deeply. Costly.

Life demands courage. Peace demands courage. For swords can still be out.

* What do you need to absorb to forgive or to ask for forgiveness? Where can you get that strength to do so?

* What courage do you need to make peace?

Some of us have huge costs to forgive. It is a pain that bows us down to the ground, plants our face in the dust. “Lord, I cannot absorb that pain. I cannot let them off the hook. It is too much.”

Yet, Abigail did. “For Yahweh will certainly make my lord, David, a true house.” God, her Promise Keeper.

“For my lord David is fighting the battles of Yahweh.” God, the One Sovereign in Time and Space and Acting in History.

“The life of my lord David shall be bound in the bundle of the living in the care of Yahweh your God.” God, the Preserver of Life, the Life-Giver.

“The lives of your enemies, David, Yahweh, shall sling out from the hollow of a sling.” God, her Defender.

“And when Yahweh has done to the my lord David according to all the good that he has spoken over you, and when Yahweh has dealt well with my lord David…” God, the Good-Giver, the Promiser of Blessings, the One Who Causes His Word to Be Fulfilled.

Abigail absorbed her husband’s evil, making peace instead of running in self-protection for she saw God. She knew God. Swallowing her fear, she trusted her life to God instead of the men’s anger. She saw her Savior bigger than the swords. Swallowing her pride, she set out to make right for she knew whose she was, and knew she was to bear his image of peace, life, unity, shalom. She saw God’s glory more than her own greatness, his purpose more than her own pride.

Abigail absorbed the evil—done against her by Nabal countless times. She could have run away, and let him get his due finally for all the foolish, banal slanders he had thrown against her. Abigail absorbed the evil—claiming his trespass as her own. Abigail absorbed the evil—preventing David from responding in deadly, foolish kind. On her stooped shoulders the evil stopped.

And Abigail’s act of humility, extending peace, foreshadows another man who bore evil on a cross. Who made peace between God and man by saying, “Father, do not exact from them what they owe you; I absorb in my own body all the evil. Father, forgive them.” The Son of God, the true human, who was sin for us (1 Cor. 5:21). The Son of God, the God in human flesh, who made forgiveness possible in his act of humility.

Promise Keeper, Sovereign in History, Preserver, Life-Giver, Defender, Good-Giver, Promiser of Blessings. The Savior, the Absorber of Evil, Prince of Peace, the Humble Servant. This is our God. And no matter what courage, what evil, what banal acts others do against us, we serve the same God. Forgiveness is costly, but he has born it. We absorb the evil, passing it on to God. For whatever cost and repercussions forgiveness and peace brings, we trust him. For all that Abigail pointed out to David is true for you—God will establish you, work for you, preserve you, protect you, bless you. In Christ our Lord.