Note: I offer up this past Sunday's sermon out of the hope that perhaps the written word is more ponderable. I find that many who would invest the time to digest and take some degree of interest, would much rather read weighty words than watch a preacher. Of course, you can always click over to our YouTube channel for the live version. This sermon series happens to coincide with the Bible Study that I'm currently leading on Sunday mornings, and so I make this immobile, dried digital ink version for the benefit of the class, and any other pilgrims who might happen along. May the Lord Jesus be honored and magnified. CS
New Life Presbyterian Church
Rev. Cameron Smith
May 18, 2025.
Elisha: “A Great Prophet Has Arisen Among Us!”
Sermon #3 of 7
2 Kings 4:8-37; Luke 7:11-17
Elijah and Elisha arrive on the scene in the middle of the Story in the books of 1 and 2 Kings. They were sent by God to the northern kingdom of Israel, at the time of the reign of a king by the name of Ahab. King Ahab was a very popular king. A very successful king. The economy was humming. The military was strong. And life was comfortable. And yet, all was not well. Ahab, and his queen, Jezebel, had imported a new religion into the Promised Land: the worship of Baal, the fertility god of Tyre and Sidon.
All had not been well in Israel for years with golden calves and faithless kings, and now, God’s People had bottomed out— the Land flowing with milk and honey had regressed to what it was before Joshua crossed the Jordan. Way worse than the days of the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Hivites and the Jebusites. A new “conquest” would be necessary.
Subsequently, two extraordinary prophets emerge: Elijah and Elisha. Elijah is the John the Baptist of the day. He is a loner, and his style is confrontational. He brings a zeal to stand against the drift and rot of Ahab. There was a knock-down-drag-out confrontation with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel; but then, the prophet gets chased out of the northern kingdom by Jezebel.
This is where Elisha enters the Story. Elijah anoints him, and Elisha crosses Jordan, like Joshua. A new conquest is about to take place. Going first, to Jericho, not to bring death, but to bring life by healing the water. God, in the presence of this prophet, had come to them.
I find it quite revealing that Jewish scholars recognize in the prophet Elisha something extraordinary: A unique prophet in Israel. They describe him quite the opposite of Elijah: As kind, supportive, and very unlike Elijah the loner, Elisha lived among his people, always surrounded by the “company of the prophets” who observe, listen and watch as his disciples. Elisha is even described as a “magnet for all aggrieved people.” Elisha seems to bring an approach of love rather than fear. There is a God in Israel.
We see this ministry in our reading today in 1 Kings 4, Elisha comes to the village of Shunem (Sulam). Shunem is located in the Jezreel Valley that runs west to east between the Galilee on the north and Samaria that borders the valley on the south. Situated at the eastern end of the Jezreel Valley, there is a ridge in the middle of the Jezreel Valley called the Hill of Moreh. That is where Shunem is nestled up against the southern side of that hill.
Apparently, Shunem is one of the villages Elisha traveled through frequently. Our Story here concerns a wealthy woman and her family who’d befriended him. She provided a room and board for the prophet amid his many travels. Elisha wanted to do something nice for the woman in return, and finding out that she had no children, and that she and her husband were old, well-past the possibility of children, he uttered words to her not heard since the angels had made a similar pronouncement to Abraham’s barren, older wife, Sarah (4:15-16): She stood in the doorway. And he said, “At this season, about this time next year, you shall embrace a son.” The prophecy came true. A son was born. But then the Story takes an unexpected turn south. A few years later, the boy is working with his father in the field, and suddenly, with the words (4:19), “Oh, my head, my head!” collapses, and dies. Ultimately, the boy is raised to life through the frantic prayers and activity of Elisha and is restored to his grateful mother.
The rabbis have had a field day dissecting this episode of Elisha and the Shunammite woman. They raise some critical observations about this Story. Elisha is the greater prophet who picks up the mantle of his mentor, Elijah. He is endowed with a double portion of Elijah’s ministry. His miracle output will outshine that of Elijah.
And yet, here with the Shunammite woman, there are begging questions. Why is Elisha unaware of the woman’s childlessness? His servant, Gehazi, must apprise him of this basic biographical note. Why does Elisha prophesy this child only to have the child die, and Elisha is again unaware of the eminent death, or that the child has in fact died. Why does Elisha’s sending of Gehazi to lay his personal staff on the face of the child to raise him, fail so spectacularly? Why does Elisha have to go through such extreme prostrations and sweating prayer to restore breath to the child, when he so easily, and as-matter-of-factly predicted the birth of the child?
The Jewish sages have raised many incisive questions, for which they have no good answers. They do, in the mystical foundational writings in Kabbalah called The Zohar, speculate that the identity of this child grows up to become the prophet Habakkuk. Beyond that, we are left to wrestle and argue convictions and insights over coffee.
All the same time, we believe, the rest of the Story is in our New Testament. Agnosticism is not our lot! I have conceptualized this sermon series on Elisha as “a longing for Christ.” Elisha is an embodiment in his person and activity of the expected Messiah. A forerunner, a fore type, a foretaste of the Lord Jesus. Elisha’s ministry is compassionate. It is tuned in to the needs and desires of lost souls who’ve lost their way. Nevertheless, the coming of Elisha begs for more.
This is where we need to turn to our New Testament reading from the Gospel of Luke. In Luke 7, Jesus and his disciples visit a village called Nain. This is the one and only mention of this village in the entire Bible. A one and done place. He encounters a funeral procession, replete with mourners and songs of lament. Luke 7:12 describes what comes next: Behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.
Jesus, mustering every bit of compassion, kindness, mercy found in the prophet Elisha— Cuts to the chase. When the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.” Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” (7:13-14)
Jesus doesn’t need to ask questions.
He already knows.
Jesus doesn’t need second chances to complete the miracle.
Jesus doesn’t need to pray or prostrate or genuflect.
He speaks, and there is resurrection.
And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. (7:15)
But then, there is this very revealing response from the good people of Nain: Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us!” and “God has visited his people!” (7:16)
It has been said that in the Middle East, particularly in the Holy Land, there is a “profound sense of place.” And that “geography holds memory.”
Geography serves as more than just coincidental scenery in the Bible. The Land of Israel is, as St Jerome observed in the 4th century, The Fifth Gospel. To understand or interpret well, there are two questions that must be asked of the encounters we find in the Gospels:
1. Where does it take place? And—
2. Did anything happen in this place or area?
In Luke 7 at Nain, geography is important. Earlier I gave you a description of the location of Shunem, on the south side of the Hill of Moreh in the Jezreel Valley. Nain (modern day Nin) is directly due north of Shunem on the north side of the Hill of Moreh. A two-mile journey between the villages. Many Bible footnotes identify Deuteronomy 18:15 as the source of the villagers’ acclamation that “A great prophet has arisen among us!” Jesus is that prophet Moses prophesied. But there is something local at play in this passage, too. The memory of these two neighboring villages is strong. When Elisha roamed this Valley, the people recognized that in him, “God has visited his people!” Even as Elisha embodied the presence and compassion of God, his shortcomings were evident as well. The people of Shunem knew that while he was “a man of God,” more than an Elisha was needed to overcome sin and death; more was needed to resurrect the hearts of the people.
The visit of the Lord Jesus to the tiny, obscure, neighboring village of Nain was the fulfillment of that desire. The resurrection at Nain was a declaration that one greater than Elisha had come.
A great prophet had arisen among them. In the Lord Jesus Christ, God has visited his people.
Amen.
Pictured Below, the Hill of Moreh from Nazareth. Nain would be the village at the upper left, at the foot of the hill.
