Elijah’s Departure
What a
great chapter of the Bible! We hear
first of the story of Elijah and Elisha and the journey to Elijah’s
departure. This is one of two stories in
the Bible about people who go to heaven without having to die first. This is interesting because even Christ died
before ascending, although His death was significant for a whole different set
of circumstance than any of our deaths could accomplish. The other man was Enoch, see Genesis 5:24 and
Hebrews 11:5.
If we ask
ourselves why Enoch and Elijah were taken to heaven this way we shall become
confused. Certainly they were human and
certainly they were sinful. The Bible is
clear on this. All have sinned and
fallen short of the glory of God.
(Romans 3:23) So they were not
perfect. So did God treat them
preferentially? Perhaps, but who are we
to judge God’s grace? Can God not be
gracious upon those that He desires to be gracious without incurring our
jealousy and envy? (See Matthew 20:1-16,
especially verse 15)
If we try
to rationalize what Elijah and Enoch did to result in them not having to die we
will likely end up in a spiritual place that is not healthy. We will either end up thinking that Enoch and
Elijah did not sin (which is wrong), that they were not held accountable for
their sin (which is also wrong), or that God is unjust because He shows
partiality to them and forces the rest of us to go through death (which is also
spiritually wrong for us to think). The
simple truth is that we should not force human logic upon God’s outpouring of
grace in this manner.
Don’t let
yourself fall into that quandary. God is
gracious to Elijah here, and it is likely that only God knows why He bestowed
His grace in this manner. Some things
are simply beyond our ability to fully understand and realize.
Remembering Elijah’s Patience even among Sin
But there
is something neat about this passage with respect to Elijah’s past and his
sinfulness. Remember when Elijah was out
in the desert and he pleaded for God to just let him die? (See 1 Kings 19:4) How cool is it that because God did not heed
Elijah’s request that Elijah got to be taken up into heaven in a
whirlwind? In fact, Elijah had pleaded
to die – although didn’t go about bringing it upon himself – and as it turns
out death is the one thing Elijah will not get to face!
God
blesses us in such unusual ways if we are simply willing to be patient for Him
to work. If Elijah had gotten his way
based on his limited perspective, he would never have had the experience that
God had planned for him to have all along.
This story is a call for us to be patient and to allow God to do what
God has planned to do.
As I wrote
that last paragraph I am reminded of an oft-quoted passage that I had never
connected with the story of Elijah. But
I think it fits. Isaiah 40:13 says that
“they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up
with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and
not faint.” (ESV) Isn’t it cool that although Elijah desires to
die, he is willing to not take matters into his own hand? He cannot deny that he wants to die, but he
chooses to wait for the Lord to pick the time of the end of his life. As a result, Elijah gets a lift from the
coolest ride in the universe! In 1 Kings
19 we saw that Elijah quite literally had his strength renewed; in this chapter
we quite literally see Elijah mount up as though having wings like an
eagle. That’s pretty cool if you ask me.
Double Portion
I’ve
always wondered about Elisha’s request for the double portion. Is this a sign of greed? Is Elisha asking to be twice the prophet that
Elijah was? Actually, no. The request for a double portion is an
acknowledgment of family. The fact that
Elisha asks Elijah for a double portion of his spirit tells us that Elisha
considers himself spiritual family to Elijah.
Deuteronomy
21:17 tells us that the right of the firstborn is to receive a double portion
of the inheritance. So when Elisha asks
Elijah for a double portion of his spirit, he’s not saying it at all in terms
of greed. Rather, Elisha is making a
spiritual comment about being Elijah’s spiritual first-born. Elisha has followed Elijah and been discipled
by him more than anyone else.
Elisha
With
Elijah gone, Elisha picks up Elijah’s mantle and begins his ministry. I think it is also neat to observe the first
thing Elisha does. It is one thing to
witness God’s faith as Elijah parts the waters through God’s power. It is another thing to go out on that
spiritual limb and trust that you can be the vessel God uses – especially with
witnesses watching from afar! Elisha is
not caught up in mourning his loss of Elijah.
Elisha grabs the mantle and knows his place. God has called him to literally grab the
mantle that Elisha left behind and go!
Sons of Jerisho
In sharp
contrast to this, we have the lack of faith in the sons of the prophet of
Jericho. They saw Elisha part the waters
with Elijah’s mantle, but they did not believe Elijah was really gone. Perhaps they could not imagine a time without
the great prophet. Perhaps it was
wishful thinking on their behalf that Elijah was not really gone. But it illustrates a good point. Because of their “wishful thinking” they miss
the boat on what God is doing. We might
be able to frame the actions of the sons of the prophets in the best possible
light, but the reality is that even if their intentions were good they still
missed the boat. Good intentions are
nothing when compared to simply looking for God and giving up our expectations
for God. We should be focused on what
God is doing in our midst, not what we think want God to be doing in our midst.
Old Bald-Head
As for the
story at the end of the chapter about the 42 deaths at the paws of the
she-bears, it is a neat story symbolically.*
Remember that Bethel is one of the places where an alternate temple was
erected so that the people of Israel didn’t have to go to Jerusalem to worship
as the Lord directed them to do. Bethel
is a symbol of pagan religion leading people away from the true God. It is a symbol of blatant disobedience
against God’s ways. Here we have the boys
– young men, really – of this disobedient city coming out and mocking God and
God’s servant.
Why do
they say “old bald-head?” There could be
a couple of reasons. First, Elisha could
have genuinely been bald. However, my
guess is that it is again a symbolic insult.
Lepers would shave their head as a sign of their leprosy. Of course, we know that the leper was the
lowest form of social outcast. This
could very well mean that the young men are telling Elisha that he is a social
outcast and unwanted in Bethel. Which,
given that it was a place for pagan worship to occur, makes an awful lot of
sense.
Symbolically,
this story is about the generational sin being taught and passed down in
Bethel. The children are being taught to
mock God. That is why this story is so
neat on a symbolic level. This is a
story about the sinfulness of the people, about generational sin, about the
desires of young people to learn behaviors from the adults around them, and about
God’s disapproval of all of it.
Parents,
teachers, mentors, congregational leaders, and other interested adults: take
heed. Children will learn our sins. They will learn the behaviors that we do
apart from God’s ways. And one day they
will stand before God and be held accountable just as we will. Let’s do them all a favor and take this
seriously. We need to be shining
examples of the faith for the sake of our children. The world is a rough enough place to grow up
as it is, they don’t need our help in learning how to sin!
<><
*As neat as the story is
symbolically, it also really fits with what I said yesterday about Elijah. Yesterday Elijah was seen as the vehicle for
the death of 102 people. Here we see
Elisha as the vehicle for the death of 42 young men. We see here again that the work of the
prophet is quite controversial indeed.
No comments:
Post a Comment