Haunted houses.
Ghost stories.
Things that go bump in the night.
Goose bumps, that shiver that goes up the spine and down the arm, hair raising.
All that.
Waking up sometimes in the middle of the night and walking around the house listening for something that can’t be heard.
King Herod was haunted.
Generally he was haunted by God, by a fascination and a fear of God’s kingdom and God’s judgment, it perplexed him and he liked to hear about it.
Specifically he was haunted by John the Baptist, both when he was alive and especially after his death.
While alive John called Herod on his adulterous marriage, divorcing someone to marry someone else is adultery, and that is what Herod did.
His new wife didn’t like being called on this.
The long and short of it is that eventually Herod had John executed to keep his wife happy.
Now John was back from the dead going about with the new name of Jesus.
That is who Herod thought Jesus was, John come back to haunt him.
Herod was haunted by God.
He played all the games of the wealthy and rich, he played the games of power and politics, he played the games of personal whimsy and pleasure, he was King he did as he pleased, but he was haunted, he knew there was something more out there, and it was out to get him.
Herod would wake up at night and walk around listening for something that couldn’t be heard.
Herod was haunted by God, the knowledge that he would be held accountable for his actions, and God was always reminding him of this fact, he kills John and he comes back never letting him forget.
Herod knew their was more out there, something more to life, the whole other dimension and reality of God’s kingdom that was always bumping up against us and breaking in, but he could never live differently because of it, he could never fully accept it because it would mean changing, giving up too much of what he worked and longed for.
God was just too inconvenient.
So Herod was haunted, so he always filled up silence and stillness with noise and delightful distraction, but sometimes at night he would wake up and listen and be afraid.
King David was haunted as well.
But it was different.
It was more like God was courting him, a persistent suitor who would not take no for an answer. It was a rocky romance to say the least.
David couldn’t get away with anything, and God would call him on it in some way, like Bathsheba and the death of Uriah.
Then there were times when David would call God out, with all that broke his heart, like with the death of Saul and Jonathan, or his first child.
Israel had changed under their first two Kings, Saul and David. God’s chosen leaders had been the center of attention for several decades as the loose association of tribes were united to defeat all foreign threats. It was all about defeating the enemy and the legitimacy of the throne.
The prophets had moved into the background, the Ark of the Ten Commandments of God had been put into storage, forgotten except by a few.
It was time to renew that part of Israel’s heritage.
It was time to remember that Israel was about more than the King and defeating enemies, it was about being a people of covenant, a people who belonged to God.
David was bringing the Ark back.
But on the way God burst out and struck dead one of the grandchildren of Abinadab.
David canceled his plans then, he left the ark at his friends house Obed-edom. David was angry, and scared, God was not safe, God was not behaving.
David would wake up at night and walk around the house listening to what could not be heard, sometimes he would return the silence, not being on speaking terms, and sometimes he would smile and dance and sing, and write what we now call the psalms.
Later David changed his mind and had the grand parade as the Ark was brought into its new home in Jerusalem. And David danced before God the whole way, he danced with all his might, a dancing fool in love with God, haunted by God.
The story goes on.
But for today we get to see two Kings of Israel, Herod and David, both very different, both haunted by God, and we get to learn from them, how we are like them and how we different.
They are both to be admired for having a consuming awareness of God and God’s activity and presence in the world. They were able to be haunted. Granted both responded differently.
Are we capable of such an experience anymore?
Can we be haunted by God? Or is God a passing interest that we take up and put down at our leisure and convenience?
Something to think on. A haunting can not be ignored or treated so cavalierly.
Then there are Herod and David’s responses: (granted these are my own reading between the lines) Herod fleeing into distraction to avoid the silence, and David’s dancing with all his heart, then sending God away to someone else’s home, and then dancing again with all his might leading the parade.
Do we flee into distraction? Do we dance with all our might? Do we send God away in anger?
Then there is the other character in the story, the sound that can’t be heard, the Holy One of Israel, the Lord God who is persistent to say the least, and unpredictable, untamable, not safe, who is always there to guide, to hold and to judge.
We see the God who is present in all the dullness and drama of human life, who goes into our darkness and forsakenness, violence and despair, who takes it all into himself in the person and death of Jesus that we may be free to live and to love and grow close to God.
I wonder if we haunt God?
Does God go about the house at night and listen?