Read: 2 Samuel 18:1-18

Absalom had done many things wrong in his life. There were many sins that he never repented from. In this chapter he is in a battle against his father. You probably remember the story well. Absalom had long hair. We can read in a previous chapter that he had a haircut once a year, and every time he cut off about 2.3kg of hair. That is a lot of hair. So, you can imagine how long his hair must have been. In those days, hair like that made a man looked handsome. The Bible tells us that Absalom was a very handsome man.

Yet God used this hair of Absalom to get him caught in the tree. As he was trying to escape, his hair was caught in the tree and his mule kept running, and so Absalom was left hanging from the tree. He had done this to himself because of his sins. He was stuck. There was no way that he could escape.

We know that a person hanging from a tree was cursed by God. Absalom’s own sin and folly put him under God’s judgement and curse. We, too, because of our many sins, should be cursed by God. Sometimes we even get trapped in our sins. We keep doing the same sins time and again. Sometimes it feels like we are stuck in our sins, just like Absalom was stuck in the tree.

But the good news is that God has made a way for us to be made free. We don’t need to be stuck in our sins. There is an escape. We can be free and forgiven from our sins because Jesus Christ was hung on the tree — the cross — for us. He received the full curse of God and took the full anger and wrath of God for us. Even though Christ hadn’t sinned, our sins were put on him so that he could be cursed by God, in order that we could be forgiven. What a wonderful Saviour we have!

Source: Sermon by Rev. H. Alkema