‘This is a day of good news’ (2 Kings 6:24-7:20)
Who would still dare to say that the Bible is a boring book? We have just read a tremendously gripping story, full of suspense and drama. The different people in the story all have their own way oof reacting to a situation of serious crisis in their lives.
What is actually the matter of crisis in this story? The story talks about the siege that the army of the Aramitic king Ben-Hadad had laid to Samaria. The citizens are being threatened with death by a famine. Bible scholars suppose that the precarious situation was caused by two circumstances. First of all there was, of course the lengthy siege. But secondly there is some archeological evidence indicating a time of great drought in this period. As a resut of the drought, the harvest had already, for some years, been very small, and people had not been able to stock up on food. Because of this combination of factors the need had increased dramatically.
The text gives us a picture of the situation, as some prices of foodstuffs and fuels are mentioned. At the black market, only a few products are available, and they are available at exorbitant prices. A donkey’s head cost about one kilogram of silver, and half a liter of seed pods (used for the cooking-fire), was half a kilogram of silver. It is even more surprising when you recall that a donkey’s head was unclean, and could not be eaten in Israel.
Next to this account, we read about a horrible incident of cannibalism. Two women decide to eat their own sons. The first day, one of the sons, the second day the other. After the first son is killed, the mother of the second son hides him. The other mother gets terribly upset and asks help from the king. But when the king hears about this atrocity, he tears his robes in total despair. He wants to take revenge on Elisha, the prophet of God. Something like this just can not happen! The king feels something needs to be done. He decides to chop off the head of Elisha.
It seems that the king is furious at Elisha, because the prophet told him not to surrender to the Arameans. Elisha wanted to wait for God. Elisha wanted to wait until God would liberate the city. Now that the liberation seems like it won’t come, the king looses all his patience, and wants to punish Elisha. The king even becomes so desperate, that he starts blaming God, and looses his faith in Him. “This disaster is from the Lord. What hope can I still have from the Lord?”
The siege and the hunger of Samaria can be viewed as a metaphor, an image of our world. The devil has laid siege to people’s lives. He has surrounded us by powers of darkness. One could even say that we are all in hunger, which makes us eat other people, figuratively. Naturally we don’t eat our children. But we feed our selfish desires by abusing other people. We cheat, we lie, participate in corruption, egoism. We eat each other in a metaphorical sense. At work, at school, in our families. And even in our church.
The king is desperate. The only remaining thing to do is to surrender the city to Ben-Hadad, the King of Aram. If God doesn’t give salvation, all hope is gone. “What hope can I still have from the Lord?” The king of Israel prefers to put his hope in the enemy. Perhaps Ben-Hadad still has some compassion in him; hhe leaves the city and doens’t kill its people.
Now, in the darkest hour of ultimate despair, Elisha may announce the liberation by their God. Tomorrow everything will be over. Elisha chooses rather unusual words for his message of salvation:
“About this time tomorrow, a seah of flower will sell for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria” (7:1).
In other words, Elisha proclaims: the economy of the city will be restored again tomorrow. There will be no more exorbitant prices at the black market. Tomorrow will be business as usual because the Lord will bring salvation!
There are only two possible responses to such a proclamation: either you believe, or you don’t believe. It was apparently beyond the belief of the king’s officer. He didn’t believe it at all, and expresses this doubt, “look, even if the Lord should open the floodgates of the heavens, could this happen." It’s hard to miss the biting mockery and ridicule in his words. "Whoever would like to believe this, shouldiis living in a fantasy world!" The king’s officer was at that moment, the only person who made his feelings public. It shows that he strongly denies God’s almighty power, and His ability to do such a thing. In other words he says, "our God is too weak for such a great miracle.’ But it’s not hard to imagine that many others present had strong doubts in their hearts as well.
As with us, there can be situations in life in which all hope seems to be lost, and we do not perceive any way out of our misery. God tells us through the Bible that we can trust in Him, that He will protect us and save us. And still, it is not a shame if we don’t always glow from faith and have confidence in situations of crisis. But we should be aware of the king’s officer’s attitude and behaviour. The king’s officer obviously crossed a critical border. His legitimate doubts in the expectation of such a big miracle was transformed into outspoken mockery and scorn. We have to be very careful of this borderline; the line between doubt in faith. And adding mockery has us walking on the thin line. Doubt is allowed, and happens to many Christians now and then in their lives. But when we mock and ridicule God’s promises, we commit a sin and we insult and hurt God. In such a situation the best attitude to express ourselves would be to follow the example of the father of the boy with an evil spirit in Mark 9.
In the face of Jesus, the father expressed his doubt so honestly and powerfully; “I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief." Jesus didn’t blame the father for his weak faith, but showed understanding and cured the boy.
The sin of the king’s officer is punished immediately. “You will see it with your own eyes” says Elisha “but you will not eat any of it."
After this, a moving part of the story follows. There happened two be four men with leprosy who find themselves between the city and the front line of the Arameans. Because of their contagious skin disease, they had been exiled from the city and forced to live somewhere a few kilometres from the city, where they had some land and a small shelter. But with the coming of the Arameans, they had taken their refuge as close to the city as possible. As they could not enter the city, they were sitting at the entrance of the citygate. But they realized they were going to be sandwiched between the two armies. In addition, there was hardly anything for them to eat in that dry land outside of the city. If there was a famine in the city, outside the gate would be even worse! In complete despair they go over to the enemy. At the citygate they will surely die, and maybe the Arameans will still have some pity with them.
If we try to imagine their situation, we can see them going towards the camp of the enemy with agony in their hearts. You can imagine the fear of death in their eyes. With shaky knees and trembling all over their bodies, they start walking into the sunset, toward the enemy.
And what happened? They found the camp of the enemy empty! There was nobody there! All the Arameans had left! How bewildered and shocked must the four friends have been. They, the rejected ones of the society, first experience the miracle of the salvation. It is so beautiful to see God’s way of doing things in this story. God comes to save us completely unexpectedly. In the despised and rejected men with leprosy, and also in the despised and rejected Son of Man, our Lord Jesus Christ.
The writer of the story gives the reason of this unexpected turn of events. God had caused the Arameans to hear the sound of a great army, who would attack them, and liberate the city. By this overwhelming noise they had become so terrified that they had abandoned their tents and animals immediately, without a moment of hesitation. In all panic they flee to Aram, their homeland.
Can you imagine what must have gone through the lepers’ minds? They were speechless and astonished. Can this be true? A whole army on the run? Once they have overcome their initial fear, they start eating the army’s rations like crazy! They eat the dry bread as if they were grandmother’s pies and cakes. Soon they start acting like Gideon’s best men. Greedily, they gurgle and lap up the water from full jars. After this, they begin to work in a more systematic manner. The four lucky Jims raid the tents, and are scarcely able to carry all the booty they find. This is really unbelievable! The euphoria must have been enormous with these four men. It is too good to be true. Life is smiling at them again in sunshine and happiness. There is freedom and abundance.
In the middle of this plundering they come to their senses and realize that they are doing this all wrong. They are in freedom and happiness, but in the city, so many people suffer from hunger and fear. They express their feelings in a beautiful way; "we are not doing right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves.” They realize that they would fall short greatly by not telling the citizens of Samaria. They recognize their responsability. And they are also a little bit scared that God might punish them afterwards. Something so wonderful and great as this, you may never keep it for yourself. Even though the city did not allow them admittance on grounds of their disease, they felt their responsability in the eyes of their Lord.
’Yes, something like this would not so quickly happen to us,’ we might think. But what would we do if we would find a pile of money close to the market tomorrow? Praise the Lord! You yourself can live without it, and you know about a family with six children who could use it very much. But on the other hand, you are the only one on that corner on the street, and nobody will know you found the money. Do you also feel God’s eyes looking at you? How do you deal with unexpected affluence?
I find it impressive how these four men with leprosy care about the fate of the people in the city. The people who usually walk around them with great caution, who don’t consider them as important and valuable. These men care about the people of the city and don’t want to leave them ignorant about the good news the lepers had received. They desired to let the people of Samaria share in the happiness of the liberation. “This is a day of good news."
Brothers and sisters, how deep is this feeling with us? Do we also care for people, like God cares for us? Do we feel responsible for people, just as God didn’t leave us to ourselves, but saved us from our sins at the cross of Jesus? The liberation through Jesus has taken place. He gave his life for us. We didn’t do anything for it, it was a free gift. But the message of this salvation still has to be shared with people. “This is a day of good news. We are not doing right if we are keeping it to ourselves.”
It strikes me very often, that the brothers and sisters of the churches in the New Testament did not keep the good news to themselves. In the Acts of the Apostles we read, "the Word grew." They wanted to share with other people the salvation they had experienced in their own lives. And do you know what was the secret of the blessing of the church in Thessaloniki? It is what Paul writes in his first letter to the Thessalonians, “the Lord’s message rang out from you”(1:8). They had become a model to all believers, because the Word of God had grown in them. They were a shining light of the good news they had received in Jesus Christ.
The message of this afternoon sends us home with a question. Do I care for the people around me; do I take responsability to share the good news with people at work, with friends and family? God has put a great trust in us, leaving us with the task of spreading the Gospel in His Name. It makes us glad and honoured, but with a feeling of great responsibiliity.
I end with a legend that I once read.
After Jesus had been resurrected and ascended to heaven, the angels welcomed Him with great honour and gathered around Him. They had all kind of questions about his death, resurrection and ascension.
"What was it all about?" they asked him.
"The salvation of the world," he answered them.
"But now you have returned here. How will the world hear about it?"
"I trained my people."
"To evangelize the entire world," they asked.
"Yes, every corner of the world."
"How many people did you train for such a gigantic task?"
"Some twelve people."
"Twelve people? But what if they fail?"
"If they fail, I don’t have other plans."
"But isn’t that a risk?"
"No. They will not fail."
The Lord has this trust in us…
AMEN
