Difference between revisions of "Sermon for January 11th, 2026"
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As the family grows, William’s talents as a writer begin to draw him away from home. He spends long stretches of time in London, working in the theater, while Agnes manages the household and the children on her own. In a season of sickness and plague, their daughter Judith becomes dangerously ill. Hamnet, her twin, stays close to her, caring for her and trying to protect her. Hamnet becomes ill, while Judith recovers. Hamnet dies at the age of eleven. | As the family grows, William’s talents as a writer begin to draw him away from home. He spends long stretches of time in London, working in the theater, while Agnes manages the household and the children on her own. In a season of sickness and plague, their daughter Judith becomes dangerously ill. Hamnet, her twin, stays close to her, caring for her and trying to protect her. Hamnet becomes ill, while Judith recovers. Hamnet dies at the age of eleven. | ||
| − | The remainder of the film follows the family as they grieve, as Agnes and William's relationship becomes strained, and as both try to make sense of things in their own separate ways. Eventually, Agnes goes to London to see William's new play, a tragedy called "Hamlet." She is at first angry, thinking her son's name is being profaned. But as William's love and grief become clear through the scenes of the play, and as she watches the audience embrace (and grieve) her son, she finds peace and joy to | + | The remainder of the film follows the family as they grieve, as Agnes and William's relationship becomes strained, and as both try to make sense of things in their own separate ways. Eventually, Agnes goes to London to see William's new play, a tragedy called "Hamlet." She is at first angry, thinking her son's name is being profaned. But as William's love and grief become clear through the scenes of the play, and as she watches the audience embrace (and grieve) her son, she finds peace and joy enough to go on. |
====He Will Not Return to Me==== | ====He Will Not Return to Me==== | ||
| − | This is a beautiful but difficult film, and it deals with one of the most profound and difficult kinds of grief--the loss of a child. Our scripture passage from 2nd Samuel tells a similar story: How King David pleads with God to save the life of his child with Bathsheba, how the child dies, and how David in time resigns himself to the idea that while his child can no longer come to him, someday he will go to his child. What makes this kind of loss so poignant--in the Bible, in fiction, and in reality--is that it seems to go against the natural order of things. We expect to outlive our children, not the other way around. But David acknowledges that | + | This is a beautiful but difficult film, and it deals with one of the most profound and difficult kinds of grief--the loss of a child. Our scripture passage from 2nd Samuel tells a similar story: How King David pleads with God to save the life of his child with Bathsheba, how the child dies, and how David in time resigns himself to the idea that while his child can no longer come to him, someday he will go to his child. What makes this kind of loss so poignant--in the Bible, in fiction, and in reality--is that it seems to go against the natural order of things. We expect to outlive our children, not the other way around. But David acknowledges that power over life and death belongs solely to God. We cannot always understand it, or God's timing, but we can learn in time to accept it, and to appreciate what precious time we are given. In the film, Shakespeare's mother (who has lost three of her own children) comments on this: |
*Film Clip #2: Given and Taken | *Film Clip #2: Given and Taken | ||
She's quoting indirectly from Job 1:21 - "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." Both David's story and the Book of Job remind us that grief and loss, while devastating and unexplainable, go hand in hand with life. Others have walked that difficult path before us, and so we do not walk alone. | She's quoting indirectly from Job 1:21 - "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." Both David's story and the Book of Job remind us that grief and loss, while devastating and unexplainable, go hand in hand with life. Others have walked that difficult path before us, and so we do not walk alone. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ====Through a Glass, Darkly==== | ||
| + | Agnes has the ability to see things, to read a person's future by touching a certain part of the hand. But while her visions are technically correct, they are often limited, and therefore misleading. For example she has always known that she will have two children, because she sees them standing over her at her deathbed. And so she is surprised and confused when her second child turns out to be twins, for a total of three. What she does not see is that one of them will die. Likewise, when she touches her husband's hand she sees in his future oceans and landscapes, undiscovered countries. Shakespeare never actually visits any of those things... and yet the vision is true, because he creates them for others in his plays. In the following clip, Agnes comforts her son after his father leaves for London, and glimpses what she thinks is his future: | ||
| + | |||
| + | *Film Clip #3 - What Do You See? | ||
| + | |||
| + | Of course we know that what she is seeing is really her son immortalized through her husband's play. Shakespeare famously wrote that "All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts." Long before that, the apostle Paul wrote that "for now we see as through a glass darkly: but then shall we see face to face. Now I know in part: but then shall I know fully, even as I am fully known." Sometimes God reveals things to us, and sometimes we think in our own limited wisdom that we understand how things are supposed to work. But there is always a greater truth, a deeper understanding, a more vibrant reality yet to come that will make this life seem like a pale reflection, or like a staged play. | ||
====I Stand at the Door==== | ====I Stand at the Door==== | ||
| + | In Revelation chapter 3, Jesus says "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice, and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with me. To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with me on my throne, even as I overcame and sit with my father on his throne." | ||
| + | |||
* death's door, life's door | * death's door, life's door | ||
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*Reversal | *Reversal | ||
*Christ type | *Christ type | ||
Revision as of 23:14, 10 January 2026
Contents
2 Samuel 12:15b-23 (OT p.285)
The Lord struck the child whom Uriah’s wife bore to David, and it became very ill. 16 David therefore pleaded with God for the child; David fasted and went in and lay all night on the ground. 17 The elders of his house stood beside him urging him to rise from the ground, but he would not, nor did he eat food with them. 18 On the seventh day the child died. And the servants of David were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they said, “While the child was still alive, we spoke to him, and he did not listen to us; how then can we tell him the child is dead? He may do himself some harm.” 19 But when David saw that his servants were whispering together, he perceived that the child was dead, and David said to his servants, “Is the child dead?” They said, “He is dead.”
20 Then David rose from the ground, washed, anointed himself, and changed his clothes. He went into the house of the Lord and worshiped; he then went to his own house, and when he asked, they set food before him, and he ate. 21 Then his servants said to him, “What is this thing that you have done? You fasted and wept for the child while it was alive, but when the child died, you rose and ate food.” 22 He said, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, ‘Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me, and the child may live.’ 23 But now he is dead; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.”
Faith & Film XIV: Hamnet
- Film Clip #1: Trailer
Three-Minute Film Summary
Hamnet is an historical drama based on Maggie O’Farrell’s novel of the same name. The film is set in late-16th-century England and tells a fictionalized account of a real historical event: the death of William Shakespeare’s eleven-year-old son Hamnet, and how his family journeys through love and grief and ultimately redemption.
The story centers not only on Shakespeare himself, but very much on his wife, Agnes who is portrayed as a deeply intuitive woman, skilled in herbal medicine, attuned to the rhythms of the natural world, and rumored to be the daughter of a forest-witch. She meets and marries young William--at the time a Latin tutor--and together they have three children: an older daughter, Susanna, followed by twins, Hamnet and Judith.
As the family grows, William’s talents as a writer begin to draw him away from home. He spends long stretches of time in London, working in the theater, while Agnes manages the household and the children on her own. In a season of sickness and plague, their daughter Judith becomes dangerously ill. Hamnet, her twin, stays close to her, caring for her and trying to protect her. Hamnet becomes ill, while Judith recovers. Hamnet dies at the age of eleven.
The remainder of the film follows the family as they grieve, as Agnes and William's relationship becomes strained, and as both try to make sense of things in their own separate ways. Eventually, Agnes goes to London to see William's new play, a tragedy called "Hamlet." She is at first angry, thinking her son's name is being profaned. But as William's love and grief become clear through the scenes of the play, and as she watches the audience embrace (and grieve) her son, she finds peace and joy enough to go on.
He Will Not Return to Me
This is a beautiful but difficult film, and it deals with one of the most profound and difficult kinds of grief--the loss of a child. Our scripture passage from 2nd Samuel tells a similar story: How King David pleads with God to save the life of his child with Bathsheba, how the child dies, and how David in time resigns himself to the idea that while his child can no longer come to him, someday he will go to his child. What makes this kind of loss so poignant--in the Bible, in fiction, and in reality--is that it seems to go against the natural order of things. We expect to outlive our children, not the other way around. But David acknowledges that power over life and death belongs solely to God. We cannot always understand it, or God's timing, but we can learn in time to accept it, and to appreciate what precious time we are given. In the film, Shakespeare's mother (who has lost three of her own children) comments on this:
- Film Clip #2: Given and Taken
She's quoting indirectly from Job 1:21 - "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." Both David's story and the Book of Job remind us that grief and loss, while devastating and unexplainable, go hand in hand with life. Others have walked that difficult path before us, and so we do not walk alone.
Through a Glass, Darkly
Agnes has the ability to see things, to read a person's future by touching a certain part of the hand. But while her visions are technically correct, they are often limited, and therefore misleading. For example she has always known that she will have two children, because she sees them standing over her at her deathbed. And so she is surprised and confused when her second child turns out to be twins, for a total of three. What she does not see is that one of them will die. Likewise, when she touches her husband's hand she sees in his future oceans and landscapes, undiscovered countries. Shakespeare never actually visits any of those things... and yet the vision is true, because he creates them for others in his plays. In the following clip, Agnes comforts her son after his father leaves for London, and glimpses what she thinks is his future:
- Film Clip #3 - What Do You See?
Of course we know that what she is seeing is really her son immortalized through her husband's play. Shakespeare famously wrote that "All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts." Long before that, the apostle Paul wrote that "for now we see as through a glass darkly: but then shall we see face to face. Now I know in part: but then shall I know fully, even as I am fully known." Sometimes God reveals things to us, and sometimes we think in our own limited wisdom that we understand how things are supposed to work. But there is always a greater truth, a deeper understanding, a more vibrant reality yet to come that will make this life seem like a pale reflection, or like a staged play.
I Stand at the Door
In Revelation chapter 3, Jesus says "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice, and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with me. To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with me on my throne, even as I overcame and sit with my father on his throne."
- death's door, life's door
- Reversal
- Christ type
