A Biblical Presence in Shakespeare's Hamlet

Some facts:

Hamlet is probably Shakespeare's most popular work, but he did not create this piece entirely. The plot is borrowed from a Scandinavian legend. Shakespeare's addition to the legend was the ghost, many murderers, suicide, and of course, the fancy swordplay. He added a new face to to the original character and transformed him from a barbaric avenger into the intelligent and complex individual of Hamlet. Isn't it ironic though that in the end Hamlet seemed to revert to the barbarian?

Please allow me to venture a rabbit trail and talk a moment about Ophelia. Among the ghosts and villains and heroes of this play she stands out the most in my mind. Ophelia did not seek out destruction and yet it found her anyway. She sought love and received broken promises. She looked for hope and received broken dreams. She looked for coherence and found her world had fallen apart. She was affected by the evils around her and as a result was pulled into the snares of destruction. Death was the final thief that robbed Ophelia. Her father's death left her feeling there was no hope and she finally sank into despair and madness. Her plight reminds me of how careful I must be to offer the sanctuary of Jesus Christ to the hopeless, rather than give them that which fades away.

I must constantly remember that there are many on the road to destruction that have not walked upon it purposefully or knowingly. They have, like Ophelia, been kidnapped by circumstance and taken to a place they don't understand, and are locked into a dungeon of hopelessness.

Hamlet is one of Shakespeare's plays that is rich with idealism, morality - or the lack thereof, and references to the Scriptures. His character is seen as evil by some and as good by others. He is viewed as both villain and hero; as a madman and as an intelligent man whose nemesis is that he is rash and heedless. Perhaps he is either or maybe he is both. Whatever the case may be, Hamlet is representative of what happens to man when he allows himself to be driven by revenge and controlled by voices other than God's.

Shakespeare introduces Hamlet with little background so we can only assume what he was before the visitation of the apparition. It appears he was thoughtful and scrupulous and a man who was respectful of his mother. That was before the ghost. He was trained in religion and feared what God may do if he were to take his own life.

"O that this too too sullied flesh would melt, thaw and resolve itself into a dew, or that Everlasting had not fix'd His cannon against self-slaughter! O God, O God."

He seems to have understood something of the love of God unless his inference was merely a misuse of words.

"For God's love, let me hear."

He was a young man in love and it seems he cherished Ophelia, but though he had of late, "made many tenders of his affection" to her, he had somehow earned the distrust of her father.

That which was supposed before the ghost has given me the following conjectures: Hamlet was a man of Honor, He believed in God and tended to follow a particular path because of what he knew to be true. He was probably a bit disorganized - which displeased Ophelia's father.

I believe the ghost has a profound effect on who Hamlet became after his father's death. Something changed him to become a presumed madman whose only quest was to see the end of his father's murderer. I see the ghost representative of the evil that so craftily sneaks its way into our lives. The apparition is a model for the spirit that can overtake our most rational thinking and drive us toward the same kinds of oblivion that it drove Hamlet.

The apparition that appeared as his father reminds me of the ghosts of today's spiritual concepts that were in just a few years passed embraced as a New Age Movement. There is such a longing for the supernatural that people today very willingly accept apparitions as truth, as did Hamlet. He too longed for the supernatural and sadly what he found brought him to his destruction. So it is with the ghosts of the new age - spirit guides that appear as good, but are evil in disguise, bringing with them a false sense of hope.

Like Hamlet, our apparition will likely appear when we are most vulnerable. It will likely seem good, for evil seldom shows itself for what it really is, indeed appearing as a light or a thing of beauty. Ghosts that seem good lure many into wickedness and like Hamlet those who are lured may not see these ghosts for what they really are until it is too late. I don't believe Hamlet was evil, only deceived. How many today are as deceived by the apparitions of drugs, gangs, cults that promise to become gods, by bitterness, envy and unforgiveness. If there is one lesson to take from Hamlet and used to benefit our society it is this:

People are in search of something that is greater than themselves. They long for answers to the hard questions of life and can be drawn to that which is holy. Offer them the real answers to their quest so they will not find false gods that lead them on the road to despair and ultimately to destruction. Offer them truth and goodness and holiness. Offer them Jesus.

© Carol Hudler, July 2009

1. The mention of the Savior's birth (I, i, 159).

2. "All the leaves must die, passing through nature to eternity." This seems to stem from Hebrews 9:27, "It is appointed unto man once to die, then judgment."

3. There are a couple of references to "ministering angels" (I, iv, 39 and V, I, 25)

4. "All you hosts of heaven" (I, v, 92).

5. "It faded on the crowing of the cock," may be referencing Luke 22: 60-61.

6. "O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou" (II, ii, 413).

Title: The Beautful Side of Evil

I. The Scapegrace's plan for plunder (John 10:10)

A. The thief comes only to kill, steal and destroy

1. Watch out, he may look familiar (Mark 8:33)

2. The knave may be an imp

B. Choose abundant life

1. For it is written (Matt 4: 4,7,10

2. Go to christ when life has you down (Matt 11:28)

II. The Ghost of the new age

A. Deception - Hamlets' path to destruction

B. Remember

III. The way to follow is truth (John 14:6)