The King

March 17, 2023 | Teni Asade TC ‘26

image description: lightning in field

Saul stood in front of the mirror. It was curved, its ironglass edge inched with gilded swirls and golden loops. In the center, he looked painfully bare in comparison–especially without his crown.

As he moved away from the mirror and splashed water on his worn face, the words of the prophet came back to him: “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord?”

I don’t know; I don’t know, Saul remembered thinking. Please tell me, I don’t know. 

But he didn’t say any of that then. 

He had stood tall, spine cracked straight with pride, the pressure suffocating him. And yet sometimes that pride—that crushing weight of self-reliance—was the only thing that kept him standing at all.

I don’t know, he had thought. And he realized with a start that he had never asked. He stopped in the corridor leading to his bedroom. He had never truly considered what the Lord wanted. And even then–with the prophet blazing before him and the consequences of disobeying the Lord hovering above him like a sword—he had not been truly sorry. He remembered being afraid. Not of the Lord’s wrath, but of shame, of ordinariness, of life without the pride-leaden crown. He stepped into his bedroom.

“Forgive me so that I may worship the Lord,” his mouth had said, head bowed in exaggerated grief.

But what he had really meant was, go with me so that I will not be alone.

He had torn his robe in distress, but it had been a sort of a performative cry for attention—a way of saying, look at me and see that I am sorry.

The prophet had stated, not unkindly, “The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to one of your neighbors—to one better than you.”

And then it became real, the consequences of his irreverence. “But please honor me before the elders of my people and before Israel,” he had begged. Spare my pride, he pleaded. Leave my soul and spare my pride.

And the prophet had acquiesced, and Saul had worshiped, and something deep cracked open– far more gut-wrenching, far more heart-sinking than the snapping of a golden crown. 

His soul, it seemed, had not been left after all.

And his pride had been speared straight in two. He knelt down before his bed. No crowds, no prophet, no fear of judgment from anyone but God. There were no priests; he was honestly not sure whether his God would hear, but still he knelt.

It was just him alone in the empty room, a disgraced king before the throne of grace. He whispered, “I’m sorry. Help me know you.”

This piece is a part of a series for Lent 2023. Read more at https://www.yalelogos.com/lent2023