Becoming the Child

Texts:

Psalm 102:12-28

2 Kings 4:8-17, 32-37

Acts 14:1-7

Regarding the text today, I encourage you to read 2 Kings 4:8-37.  It's not that long and provides important information about the narrative.

There are a few strange things in the story... First, Elisha does not go to the woman himself to ask what she desires as a gift for her hospitality; he sends his servant Gehazi.  The woman indicates she has had no children.  Elisha summons her and, using the same words that are used to promise Abraham and Sarah a son, indicates she will have a child.

The woman has the child, and he complains of a headache and dies.

Scarcely missing a beat, the woman rides off after Elisha, saying, "It will be all right."  Running as fast as the donkey will take her (have you ever seen a donkey run quickly?  Did it have a person on its back?).

Again, Elisha sends Gehazi, "Run at once to meet her, and say to her, 'Are you all right?  Is your husband all right?  Is the child all right?'"

What was it, after her child has died, after she has rode off after this crazy prophet, when it is clearly not all right, that she says, "It is all right?"  She marches up to Elisha, and accuses him of having misled her, having promised a child that would only be taken away.  She refuses to leave without Elisha, and they return to the child.

In an act that is strangely intimate and strangely sweet, Elisha, "Put his mouth upon his mouth, his eyes upon his eyes, his hands upon his hands, and while he lay bent over him, the flesh of the child became warm."  Our ears and our eyes can scarcely understand the non-sexual, non-predatory image conjured in this scene.  The image is an image in which the distinction between the man of God and the promised child become one, as though Elisha is becoming the child, taking onto himself the coldness of this child's lifeless body, and warming it with his own.

Is this not what it is to be in relationship with God?  Is it not to have an intimacy in which God places Godself upon our lifeless lips, eyes, and hands, upon our hearts of stone, upon God's creation, and brings our limp bodies back to life?  We forget that the intimacy of our Creatior is the intimacy as a mother with her newborn child, the intimacy of a father who is so overcome with love for his child he can't imagine life any other way.  And God draws near, placing Godself upon our limp lifeless bodies, breathing life into our lungs, giving light to our eyes, and strength to our hands so that we might see another day, until the moment we breathe our last, followed by our very first, breath.