TEXT: 1 Samuel 28: 3-14
3 Now Samuel had died, and all Israel had mourned for him and buried him in Ramah, his own city. Saul had expelled the mediums and the wizards from the land. 4 The Philistines assembled, and came and encamped at Shunem. Saul gathered all Israel, and they encamped at Gilboa. 5 When Saul saw the army of the Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart trembled greatly. 6 When Saul inquired of the LORD, the LORD did not answer him, not by dreams, or by Urim, or by prophets. 7 Then Saul said to his servants, “Seek out for me a woman who is a medium, so that I may go to her and inquire of her.” His servants said to him, “There is a medium at Endor.” 8 So Saul disguised himself and put on other clothes and went there, he and two men with him. They came to the woman by night. And he said, “Consult a spirit for me, and bring up for me the one whom I name to you.” 9 The woman said to him, “Surely you know what Saul has done, how he has cut off the mediums and the wizards from the land. Why then are you laying a snare for my life to bring about my death?” 10 But Saul swore to her by the LORD, “As the LORD lives, no punishment shall come upon you for this thing.” 11 Then the woman said, “Whom shall I bring up for you?” He answered, “Bring up Samuel for me.” 12 When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice; and the woman said to Saul, “Why have you deceived me? You are Saul!” 13 The king said to her, “Have no fear; what do you see?” The woman said to Saul, “I see a divine being coming up out of the ground.” 14 He said to her, “What is his appearance?” She said, “An old man is coming up; he is wrapped in a robe.” So Saul knew that it was Samuel, and he bowed with his face to the ground and did obeisance. †vb
Conjuring Samuel
After the prophet Samuel died, King Saul, to his credit, got rid of all the pagan leaders and magicians. Yet their enemies the Philistines gathered for war near Har Megiddo (Armageddon). Saul was terrified. Usually, the king had a prophet to advise him, but with Samuel recently deceased, Saul was without counsel. He called upon God, but God was silent by all known means of hearing Him. So Saul, fool that he was, consulted a psychic.
He dons a disguise, and with a couple of escorts goes to see the witch, asking her to conjure up a spirit. She knows it’s wrong—knows that Saul has banished all the psychics—but he promises her immunity (swearing by God, no less). Here’s the weird thing: she succeeds in calling up Samuel. The moment she sees him, all truth is revealed and she knows Saul to be Saul. “What do you see,” he asks. “A divine being—an old man wrapped in a robe.” Yep, that’s Samuel all right, and Saul lays his face to the ground.
Samuel’s ghost then treats King Saul like a telemarketer. “Why are you bothering me?” he says. Whatever good Saul may have done he has undone with his cowardice and compromise. Samuel says, in effect, “I am on the Lord’s side. If He will not answer you, neither will I.” Saul is killed in battle that day, disgraced, humiliated, and leaving only a rotten legacy.
The main thrust of the story is to show how God’s favor for David plays out, but what are we to make of the weird details of this episode?
Did the psychic woman actually call up the ghost of the prophet Samuel? And up from where, by the way? The story would seem to affirm that psychics, witches, or wizards actually have the power to pull people up from Hades—even a prophet! (Hades is just the realm of the dead, it is not the same as Hell, a place of torment, but more on that next week!).
Are we to believe that Samuel, a prophet—and one of the good ones—was spiritually resting in peace and against his will got himself summoned up to the world of men by a witch? How does that work? We know that summoning spirits and attempting to commune with the dead was a forbidden dark art to Israel, but that Samuel was subject to the power of such dark arts is troubling. Samuel was favored by God—as holy a prophet as Israel ever saw—and yet even he has to get up and answer the phone when Mrs. Scam Likely calls? It’s very, very weird, to say the least.
But this isn’t the only ghost story. Let’s look at Luke 24: 36-39:
While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 37 They were startled and terrified and thought that they were seeing a ghost. 38 He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39 Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see, for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”
And in Mark 6: 49-50:
49 But when they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost and cried out; 50 for they all saw him and were terrified. But immediately, he spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”
So what are we to think of ghosts? On at least two occasions, the Disciples believed they were seeing a ghost.
Ghosts, Geists, and Spirits
Ghost is the English based on an older, Germanic word for “supernatural being." In Old English, ghost is used to render Latin spiritus. We’ve preserved it in the Apostles’ Creed when we say we believe in the Holy Ghost. Ghost, Geist, Spirit—are all the same in English. I often get the question, “Why do we say ‘The Holy Ghost’ instead of ‘The Holy Spirit’?” There is no difference; “ghost” is just the older English word. [Sideline: the other question I always hear about the Apostles’ Creed is ‘Why do we say Holy Catholic Church’?” The answer is that the word catholic means universal. There is one catholic/universal Body of Christ—and I would take pains to clarify that what we call the Roman Catholic church is not the Holy Catholic Church, though it may be included.]
Ghost in the sense of the “disembodied spirit of a dead person," especially imagined as wandering among the living or haunting them, goes back—in English—as far as the late 1300s. So ghosts in the common sense have been around practically forever.
So are there ghosts? Are they real? Is it possible to have experiences of a disembodied spirit? Can a person’s spirit survive after the death of the body and still interact with the physical world? Perhaps—I don’t really know—but have experienced things that could be well explained as ghosts, and I’m sure many of you have had those experiences as well, and I’m not so quick to dismiss those experiences as merely imaginary. Scripture talks about them, and so do many mature, life-long Christians.
I can’t tell you how many people I know who have lost a loved one have what we could only call ghostly experiences of those people later on. But they aren’t hauntings; they tend to run very positive. We would rather call them visitations. Perhaps you have been visited by a departed parent, spouse, or child after they’ve died. You see them in a dream, glance them down the hall, or catch them sitting in their old chair—for just a moment. Maybe you just have an overwhelmingly real sense that they are really and truly present with you, and you know that it is not something you are manufacturing in your own mind out of grief.
But there it is—a tender sigh from your departed spouse, a reassuring pat on the back from your recently deceased father, a word of grace from one who died unexpectedly—experiences of departed spirits.
Tater, the Pet Lop
I have a ghost story, and when I tell it to you, you’re going to know that I am completely nuts. I was visited by the ghost of a dead pet rabbit. Bear with me. I was given a pet rabbit—a mini lop with long flopped-over ears—when I was in my first call after seminary in Dallas, Texas. This rabbit was a great pet. When I came home from work, it would greet me at the door. If I lay down on the floor, it would kiss my face, just like a dog. Anyway, great pet.
When I moved to Oklahoma, I was staying in a church member’s house until I could find a place, and the rabbit lived in the backyard. It got infected with a bot fly, so I took it to a vet. They tried to treat it, but it got sicker and died. I got a call from the vet telling me the rabbit didn’t make it, and I played unemotional and professional—I didn’t want to lose my man card any more than I already had by having a pet rabbit. But I loved that rabbit—it was extraordinary.
So about a week later, I come home from work one day, and I’m going to work on some worship songs with my guitar. I go into the den—a room in which I used to play with the rabbit—and sat on the floor with my guitar and the sheet music. Then I noticed a smell. “What is that?” I thought. I looked around me—at the couch, the carpet—and couldn’t see what it was. I tried to identify it, and when I could name it, it was rabbit urine. I smelled rabbit urine. Again, I looked around, but there was nothing—no stains, no problems—nothing. Only then did it occur to me that it smelled like the rabbit. But it’s been gone for more than a week; it didn’t make sense. Then the smell changed. It smelled kind of nice—exactly like the smell of my rabbit when it climbed up and stood right in front of my nose (which it often did). That smell was the rabbit—a strong, pleasant smell—and it was right in front of me, but I could see no source for it.
A thought crossed my mind: I really loved that rabbit, and I never got to say goodbye to it. That hurt. And then it was as though the rabbit left—just went hopping away—and I felt for the life of me like it had come to say goodbye. I cried, and I laughed at the total absurdity. A rabbit ghost—now there’s a story I’ll never be able to tell anyone. And I haven’t—not to my family or friends until today, because I don’t want anyone to think I am either crazy or unworthy of my man card. At that moment, I thanked God profusely for whatever it was that had just happened, but I like to think that God gave that rabbit I so loved permission to say goodbye. And honestly, who is to tell me otherwise?
Widows in this congregation have heard their husbands voices, felt their presence, and their reassurance. People who have lost parents or grandparents have felt their touch and grace with their presence. Who can say that these events are not real?
Between Death and Resurrection
So how are we to think about what a human being is? Are we all spiritual? Does Christianity believe in the “immortality of the soul”? In short, no—not exactly.
Nowhere does the Bible teach the immortality of the soul in the sense that all human beings have innate immortality within them. Instead, Christianity teaches that just as Jesus arose bodily from the grave, so the promise of everlasting life involves a person’s eventual resurrection that unites the soul with the body in a newly glorified state.
As early as the year 180, in Against Heresies by Bishop Irenaeus of Lyons sets it down for Catholic and Orthodox Christians:
“. . . It is manifest that the souls of his disciples also, upon whose account the Lord underwent these things, shall go away into the invisible place allotted to them by God, and there remain until the resurrection, awaiting that event; then receiving their bodies, and rising in their entirety, that is bodily, just as the Lord arose” (from book 5, chapter 31).
And from our Westminster Confession of Faith, the Presbyterian credo from 1647:
“The bodies of men, after death, return to dust, and see corruption; but their souls (which neither die nor sleep), having an immortal subsistence, immediately return to God,” either “waiting for the full redemption of their bodies” or cast into hell. “At the last day, such as are found alive shall not die but be changed; and all the dead shall be raised up with the selfsame bodies, and none other, although with different qualities, which shall be united again to their souls forever” (from chapter 32).
While there is something about our souls being with God until the resurrection of our bodies in glory, there is nothing about our souls having the ability to wander around on Earth and either visit, comfort, or haunt people.
Our Faith and Hope
Great vulnerability is associated with all discussions of the supernatural and spirituality. Most vulnerable are those grieving the loss of loved ones.
Let’s be clear: we should have no respect for the kind of people who would exploit the vulnerabilities of those who grieve. Channelers, mediums, psychics, and people who pretend to be able to speak with departed relatives are all to be avoided—absolutely and without fail. They go by many names, but all play at being “spiritual, but not religious.”
Scripture tells us to have nothing to do with such people other than to help draw them out of their darkened lifestyle. Do they have special powers? I completely doubt it. Did the Witch of Endor actually summon the prophet Samuel from the underworld? Not likely. It’s more likely she, too, was a huckster no different from today’s psychics and “crossing over” entertainers. Saul was a fool to go there, and we would be, too. There are some things Christians do best just to avoid.
The realm of the supernatural is not our playground. Deception, exploitation, and abuse seem to go hand-in-hand with such things. What can and must do is maintain our focus on Christ—who is risen and Lord of all—He is our hope beyond death and for what is to come. Our faith is that we shall be raised as He was raised and share in a resurrection like His. There is no other hope worthy of our heart’s investment.
If you’ve lost someone and grieve deeply, don’t call out to that person—but call out to that person’s Lord and God, Who is always ready to hear us, receive us, heal us, and breathe new life into us. †