* * * * *
A mighty king had a well-beloved son to whom he had given and forgiven more than is usually bestowed upon one of human kind. And yet the son traitorously plotted the downfall and even the murder of his royal sire, and the usurpation of the throne. He might have succeeded in his cruel, parricidal treason, but that he himself was in turn betrayed and finally slain. And when the grand, great-hearted, poetic monarch learned that Absalom, the sweet, the beautiful, the dearly-beloved, was dead, he wept before all Israel, and as he went his sorrowful way thus he said:
"O, my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! Would God I had died for thee, O, Absalom, my son, my son!"
If that arrow-pierced heart of the betraying and betrayed Absalom could have quickened but for one moment, how much sharper than the physical death-thrust would it have felt King David's cry of infinite forgiveness! But the past was irrevocable. Israel's lordly king, the beloved of God, was moaning in anguish at the gate of the city; and the beautiful Absalom, with the fatal hair, the beloved of his royal sire, was lying dead in the pit in the deserted wood, with ignoble stone crushing his lifeless body.
War, murder, exile were powerless to bring such desolation to these royal hearts; but when Absalom, the forgiven murderer, became a betrayer infinite woe fell around the name of the dead prince and the bowed head of the living king. But though the great tenderness of the psalmist could compass remission for the crime of Absalom, the nation and history must be more harsh. When a subject, for self-agrandizement, rises against a king, he is a traitor; but he is a thrice-damned traitor when that monarch against whom he rebels is his own father.
* * * * *
Women are often false to their lovers; subjects to their sovereigns, and even sons to their sires. Divinity itself is no invulnerable shield against betrayal. A merciful Christ came to save mankind from torment and lift them into eternal radiance. He chose and trusted His apostles. He ministered to them and with them. They each could give a testimony that their Master was the anointed Savior, the Son of the living God. Persecution came upon Him like the storm cloud lowers upon the snowy mountain and enfolded Him in a gloomy embrace. The prospect of suffering with this God-like Master, whom he had served as purse-bearer when the danger was not great, made Judas weak unto betrayal. Cowardice and avarice worked together in the traitor heart. He kissed and cried:
"Master, master! Hail, master!"
Then he took his thirty pieces of silver; and with them he accepted a hatred of all mankind.
The compassionate Redeemer of the world hung upon the cruel cross with drops of agony upon His radiant brow, while his lips were wreathed in a pained but forgiving smile. And Judas, the traitor, already tasting the infernal torments, called in vain to stay the progress of his dread act. The black-hearted deed was done. The mocking trial had passed, sentence had been pronounced and executed; and then the betrayer groaned and flung the money from him as a sinful, burning thing which had no worth. Upon the bloody field he cast himself and his bowels gushed forth in useless contrition. He died upon the spot which his blood-money purchased for the burial of strangers and criminals in the land.