Love Won
- erwinburn44
- Jan 31, 2024
- 5 min read
A story is never told unless you tell the whole.
There is a story in the Bible found in 1 Kings 3 which is a classic illustration of this truth. In this story two harlots (the biblical term) had babies. One woman's baby was three days older than the other woman's baby. The two women shared a living space. One night they both lay down to sleep and placed their babies in their bosom (the biblical term). During the night one woman during her sleep laid on her baby and the baby died. When she discovered her dead baby, she silently and stealthy took her dead baby and swapped the dead baby with the living baby of the other woman. When the mother of the living baby awakened, she discovered the dead baby by her side. When she looked closely at the dead baby, she knew that the baby was not her baby but the baby of the other woman. The mother of the dead baby insisted that the living baby was her baby. There were no witnesses to what had happened. So, it was one mother's word against the other mother's word.
At this point in the story the two mothers came to King Solomon for him to give a ruling as to which woman was the mother of the living baby. Both made the claim that they were the mother of the living baby. (It is noteworthy in the biblical context of this story that King Solomon in the verses previous to this story had prayed to God for wisdom and understanding. "Therefore give to Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people, that I may discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge this great people of Yours" (1 King 3:9)? God certainly answered Solomon's prayer in a positive way.)
After listening to both mothers give the details of the story and state their claim to be the mother of the living baby, Solomon restated the details as they had been given to him.
"Then the king said, 'Bring me a sword.' So they brought a sword before the king. And the king said, 'Divide the living child in two, and give half to one, and half to the other'"(1 Kings 3:24,25).
What follows in the story was both predictable and understandable.
"Then the woman whose son was living spoke to the king, for she yearned with compassion for her son; and she said, 'O my lord, give her the living child, and by no means kill him!' But the other said, 'Let him be neither mine nor yours, but divide him'"(1 Kings 3:26).
At this point in the story, the wisdom of Solomon for which he had prayed was on full display.
"And the king answered and said, 'Give the first woman the living child and by no means kill him; she is his mother'"(1 Kings 3:27).
This is a heart-warming story. Anyone reading this story has to rejoice with the ending. As the title of this blog asserts, Love Won!
There are many layers to this story and several need to be noted.
Solomon saw the whole story. This means he saw beyond the externals of the story, beyond the physical details. Both women were prostitutes. Both had little babies. They shared a living space. One baby died during sleeping hours one night. One other detail that Solomon saw and took note of is a mother's love. This detail was more important to the story than any of the other details. This detail shaped the ultimate outcome of the story. This story is not whole without the story of a mother's love. Love indeed won is this story.
A story can never be told unless you tell the whole. Every day stories are being told but is the whole being told? Every day and night people glue themselves to televisions, usually turned to the channel that they have decided is the sole purveyor of truth and listen to the stories. When the stories are being told, do they contain the whole? Are they slanted? Are the details carefully chosen to create an illusion of the truth? During 2024 we will be bombarded with political ads, intense debates and a constant stream of commentary. Will the whole be told?
The importance of morals and ethics in life is a second layer of importance in this story. Being a harlot was not an ethical or moral profession. Deliberately lying and practicing deceit are not ethical or moral virtues. The two women in our story became pregnant through harlotry. One of the women deliberately lied and tried to deceive the other woman and the king. Yet, in the midst of the immoral and unethical parts of the story, love, arguably, the highest ethic and supreme expression of morals emerged. Love, specifically the love of a mother, won the day.
The stories of the day are being written. What part, what influences and what weight will ethics and moral play? More and more of the stories of the day are being written with little regard to the importance of ethics and morals. When ethics and morals get in the way of political victories or financial gain, they seem to shrink in importance. The ethics and morals in the opposition party are enlarged while they are diminished in my own party.
It was the presence of ethics and morals, specifically love, which wrought justice in the case of the two women and the living baby. If justice and righteousness win the day in the future it will be because of the presence of ethics and morals.
There is a third layer of importance worthy of consideration in this story. The woman whose baby had died and who then claimed that the living baby belonged to her was willing for the living baby to be severed into parts. Since she had been deprived of her child, she wanted the mother of the living baby to experience the death of her child. How pathetic! How selfish! How harsh and cruel can you be! She seemed to be saying, "If I had to experience the pain and sorrow of a child dying, I want you to have the same experience. I want you to hurt just like me. If I lose, you lose."
This raises some questions for all of us. How do we handle and respond to the losses of our lives? Will the hurts and disappointment of our lives make us spiteful and vindictive toward others? Do we want the joy, happiness, success and good fortune of others to be capped at a level so that it never exceeds our own?
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