The news from Israel is not good. You heard it in the first lesson. The revolt against King David by his son Absolom has failed, but despite David’s insistence that no harm come to his son, Absolom has been killed by David’s overzealous followers, set on revenge against this upstart prince. The King has gone into mourning and the troops are bewildered at his reaction to the victory.

When I flew back from Germany Monday I was greeted by headlines like, “Israelis Authorize Expansion of Combat,” and “Hezbollah Vows Revenge.” It was nothing new. I had been seeing the same thing on CNN and German television all week. The only bit of good news showed up, of all places, in the senior newspaper The Beacon. Their feature article was about Professor Akbar Ahmed, Professor of Islamic Studies at American University, a Moslem, who is going around the world with Judea Pearl, a Jew whose husband was beheaded by terrorists, seeking to establish dialog between Jews and Moslems. Professor Ahmed was quoted as saying, “If you bomb someone, chop off their head, there is going to be repercussions in similar manner. That is not the way to see this cycle of violence broken.” King David’s plea may seem weak, it may be ignored in the highest places of government, but it’s still alive.

Despite the news on CNN, though, I enjoyed my visit to Bayreuth and my two nights at the opera. The strange thing is, though, that I found the issues of the day even in Wagner’s myths from earlier days. The first night we saw “The Flying Dutchman.” The “Dutchman” is a ghostly sea captain who swear to take his ship around a stormy cape if it takes forever. Satan overhears the remark and the Dutchman is doomed to sail the seas forever, with the single hope that every seven years he will emerge to find a faithful lover. He meets a Norwegian sea captain who is impressed, and who has a daughter, Sentra, who is deeply immersed in the legend, and who dreams of redeeming the cursed man by her love. All goes well until the Dutchman sees Sentra bidding a farewell to her long time suitor, and mistakes the embrace for betrayal. He goes off to his ship to set sail for another seven years, but Sentra follows and casts herself into the sea. The ship disappears in a maelstrom, but above it appears the figures of Sentra and the Dutchman, redeemed by love. It’s a wild tale, but somehow Richard Wagner, the arrogant bigot who hated Jews, who betrayed his wife with his best friend’s wife, somehow caught a seed of truth, the truth that self sacrificing love is at the heart of human redemption.

The second night we saw Tristan and Isolde, a medieval tale, again about love and death. Tristan is a knight and faithful friend of King Mark of Cornwall. Tristan has defeated the Irish and is now escorting an Irish princess, Isolde, back to Cornwall to be King Mark’s bride. Isolde, who hates Tristan for killing her Irish fiancé, plans to stifle the King’s plans by sharing a poisoned chalice with Tristan. Her faithful attendant Brangene, however, substitutes a love potion for the poison, and Tristan and Isolde melt into each others’ arms. Their love relationship continues, even as Isolde is settled in an apartment in the royal palace. But alas, King Mark discovers the tryst and the betrayal, and in the struggle that follows Tristan allows himself to be seriously wounded by an overzealous follower of the king, Melot, who is certain that the King’s honor must be avenged . Tristan’s friend carries him back to the island estate, where they wait for Isolde to come to them. She at last arrives, but just too late to apply healing balm, and Tristan dies in her arms, as King Mark comes on the scene, knowing now that it was Brangane’s potion that was at fault, and who forgives the couple, just as Isolde joins Tristan in death, singing the Liebestodt, one of the great love songs of all time. Both operas had modern staging and productions which I felt were outrageous, but Isolde’s solo was so superbly sung that nothing else mattered after that.

Someone has said that the more things change, the more they remain the same. That is certainly true of the great themes of human relations: revenge and forgiveness, good intentions gone awry, redemption through suffering, love and death. One wonders if we humans will ever learn from our experience, if we will ever rise above the deadly cycle of revenge.

One other event colored my visit to Bayreuth. On the first day there we went to the former home of the Wagners, now a museum. Wagner called the house “Wahnfried,” translated as “freedom through illusion.” I feel that Wagner sold himself short there. Perhaps it should be “freedom through illusion pointing to truth.” The first music I heard at Bayreuth was when I was seated in the hall in the great house. It was the Pilgrim’s Chorus from Tannhauser, and it was another moving, even a religious experience. The chorus also carried a message of redemption, of love overcoming death. The knight Tannhauser, having sowed his wild oats, is in love with Elisabeth, (who of course dies in the end) goes to Rome to seek forgiveness from the Pope. The Pope tells him that he is such a sinner that it would be easier for his staff to grow leaves than for Tannhauser to be forgiven. Tannhauser returns to Germany and as he mourns the death of Elisabeth a group of pilgrims, returning from Rome, sing the chorus. They proclaim that a great miracle has taken place, that the Pope’s staff has sprouted leaves. Tannhauser knows then that he is forgiven, redeemed by love.

Revenge and forgiveness, love and death. Perhaps the last word on the topic should be from our second lesson for today: “Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”