Tragic Son, Tragic Father
Some of the most facinating and instructive persons in the Bible are hidden away in places we might easily miss them. Give them a name that is vertually unknown in our time and they will more than likely be missed. Let their story be the kind that is at face value uncomprehensible and they will almost surely be missed. On Sunday the MRC Community reflected on the story of Jephthah.
His story seems to be a classic tragedy. He began life as a tragic son and ended as a tragic father. Judges 11 states that “Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior. His father was Gilead; his mother was a prostitiute.” His half brothers must have sensed the strangeness in Jephthah long before he knew the story behind his birth. Our human instincts are peculiar in this way, we often intuit what no one has verbalized. Once Jephthah knew his heritage, did he curse his mother’s profession and his father’s passion/indiscretions. We learn in the story that Jephthah’s siblings forced him to leave.
But, life takes some ironic twists. His family/tribe was about to enter into a war with an enemy they could not defeat - for they did not have an able leader. They petitioned Jephthah to come and lead them. He agreed and made a deal with God [if he was victorious he would sacrifice the first person who greeted him from his home]. Jephthah won. The first person that greeted him was his daughter. He told her that he had made a vow to God that he could not break.
This is a strange story. The strangest thing is its commonness. A number of years ago J. Ellsworth Kalas taught me that we all know Jephthahs. Men & women who sacrifice what is dearest to them in order to win something that had little meaning without that dearest thing. Jephthah’s story is so fancinating because such a tragedy is avoidable. Life does not have to breed tragedy from tragedy. God is so committed to our human struggle that God graciously brings new factors into the chemstry of our lives that cause the distresses and reversals of life to become productive. God builds where life is a shambles and God redeems when all seems lost.
I find it amazing that God came to earth in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ, so that through Him we can be transformed and experience new life in Him. In turn, the son of tragedy can become the father of blessing.
What do you think?