2 Samuel 17-18: Mourning for Absalom

The account of Absalom's death in the Old Testament is one not soon forgotten.  Absalom's ignominious death, hanging by his hair from a tree, defenseless, humiliated, and subjected to the wrath of his enemies, seems a fitting end for someone so pompous and brazen.  But what struck me in these chapters was, again, David's behavior.  It is David who is the common thread that runs through this part of the Bible, and just how his meek behavior in Chapter 16 is striking and anticipates the pinnacle of virtue we see in Christ, it is David's pity, his compassion, his mourning for his son Absalom in Chapter 18 that once again points toward Christ Himself.  

David weeps for Absalom, which makes sense on the one hand, for it is his son, but Absalom also was someone who betrayed David on a grand scale, tried to usurp the throne in the ultimate act of treacherous disrespect.  The purely human reaction to Absalom's defeat would have been satisfaction, but David shows no signs of being happy about how things played out, instead he acts with a superhuman grace, an example of the charity and compassion we all ought to conduct ourselves with.  He weeps for Absalom's lost soul, his tragic death, the fact that Absalom didn't get a chance to repent and make his life right.  Jesus likewise wept looking down over Jerusalem as He saw the waywardness, the sin, the lack of repentance in His children.  As sinners we are like Absalom, rebellious, insolent, self-destructive; yet like David for his son, Jesus never ceases loving us and desiring our salvation, and He weeps for the lost sheep who never find their way back to the fold.