Heinz Chapel
9.12.12
II Kings 1:2-17 and Luke 9:51-56
“Samaritans, Prophets, Fire From Heaven”
First
Lesson: II Kings 1:2-17
Now Ahaziah had fallen
through the lattice of his upper room in Samaria and injured himself. So he
sent messengers, saying to
them, “Go and consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron, to see if I will recover from this injury.”
But the angel of the Lord said to Elijah the
Tishbite, “Go up and meet the messengers of the king of Samaria and ask them,
‘Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going off to consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron?’ Therefore this is what
the Lord says: ‘You will not leave the bed you are lying on. You will certainly die!’” So Elijah went.
When the messengers
returned to the king, he asked them, “Why have you come back?”
“A man came to meet us,”
they replied. “And he said to us, ‘Go back to the king who sent you and tell
him, “This is what the Lord says: Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are sending
messengers to consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron? Therefore you will not leave the bed you are lying on. You will certainly die!”’”
The king asked them,
“What kind of man was it who came to meet you and told you this?”
They replied, “He had a
garment of hair and had a
leather belt around his waist.”
The king said, “That was
Elijah the Tishbite.”
Then he sent to Elijah a captain with his company of fifty men. The captain went up to Elijah, who
was sitting on the top of a hill, and said to him, “Man of God, the king says,
‘Come down!’”
Elijah answered the
captain, “If I am a man of God, may fire come down from heaven and consume you
and your fifty men!” Then fire fell from heaven and consumed the captain and his men.
At this the king sent to
Elijah another captain with his fifty men. The captain said to him, “Man of
God, this is what the king says, ‘Come down at once!’”
“If I am a man of God,”
Elijah replied, “may fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty
men!” Then the fire of God fell from heaven and consumed him and his fifty men.
So the king sent a third
captain with his fifty men. This third captain went up and fell on his knees
before Elijah. “Man of God,” he begged, “please have respect for my life and the lives of these fifty men, your servants! See, fire has fallen
from heaven and consumed the first two captains and all their men. But now have
respect for my life!”
The angel of the Lord said to Elijah, “Go down with him; do not be afraid of him.” So Elijah got up and went down with him to the king.
He told the king, “This
is what the Lord says: Is it because there is no God in Israel for you to consult
that you have sent messengers to consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron? Because you have done
this, you will never leave the bed
you are lying on. You will certainly die!” So he died, according to the word of the Lord that Elijah had spoken.
Second Lesson: Luke 9:51-56
When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and
entered a village of the Samaritans, to make preparations for him. But the people did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw it,
they said, “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But he turned and rebuked them. And they went on to another village.
In the passage from II Kings
we see Samaritans, we
see a prophet,
and we see fire from
heaven. In the passage from Luke we
see Samaritans, we
see the Prophet,
and we hear about fire from heaven. These parallels have led some to believe that the author(s)
of Luke is drawing upon the Old Testament story. But if that’s the case why do these very
similar stories conclude so differently?
Why in one story does fire come down and
destroy the haughty captains, while in the other no
fire comes and in its place is a rebuke?
Well, I think the best way to shed
some light on these questions is to unpack these parallel stories. First, let’s
start with II Kings 1.
Prior to this passage, the
author(s) of Kings notes that soon after King Solomon’s reign came to an end,
Israel broke off in two. And if you’re
at all familiar with the book, you’ll know that the kings in both of these
lands—but especially in the northern kingdom—get progressively worse. Only a few chapters earlier we learned that Ahaziah’s
father, King Ahab, “did more evil in the eyes of the LORD than any of those
before him.” And it doesn’t look any better with Ahaziah, because the chapter
before ours tells us that he too would follow in the exact footsteps of his
father by living in Samaria (not Jerusalem), serving Baal (not the LORD), and
therefore provoking the LORD to anger.
This sets the stage for the
first wild story involving Samaritans, prophets, and fire from heaven…
It begins in a rather humorous
manner. The great king Ahaziah has a great fall. And not just any fall, but one
from which he fears he may not recover.[1] So he sends messengers to inquire of
Baal-zebub—the god of Ekron—to find out if this is the end. Instead of putting his trust in the LORD—the
God of Israel—he walks in the idolatrous ways of his father.
So the LORD sends an angel to
our ever-dramatic prophet-hero, Elijah, and tells him to meet the king of
Samaria’s men and give them this sarcastic yet pointed message: “Is it because
there is no God in Israel that you are going to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god
of Ekron? Now therefore thus says the LORD, You shall not come down from the
bed to which you have gone up, but you shall surely die.”
So the messengers go back to
the king, relay the message from this mysterious figure,[2] and the
king just knows that the bearer of bad news must be Elijah that perpetual
hater.
The king is furious, so he
sends a captain with 50 men to go to Elijah to arrest him. Only when the captain calls this man of God
down, Elijah has another sassy reply. He
says, “If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and
your fifty.” And what do you know, fire
comes down from heaven and the company is wiped out.
So Ahaziah, being a rather
intelligent fellow, decides to go at it again with another 50 men. The second
presumptuous captain makes the same haughty demand and you know the outcome.
While some of you might think
Ahaziah a fool to try it again, what you do not know is that Ahaziah is a
firm believer in the notion that the third time is the charm.
So he sends out another 50
men. But this time the captain of the
men does something unlike the first two captains (which is key to the passage as a whole.) Instead of arrogantly
demanding that the “man of God” come down, this captain humbles himself by falling
on his knees before Elijah, begging
him for his life and the lives of his servants, asking that his life be
precious in the prophet’s sight.
And as a result, no fire comes
down. In fact, the same angel who came
to Elijah at the beginning of the story comes again telling him to go with the
captain to Ahaziah.
When Elijah confronts Ahaziah he
reiterates the message his messengers had told him once before, “You have sent
messengers to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron—is it because there is no
God in Israel to inquire of his word?—therefore you shall not come down from
the bed to which you have gone up, but you shall surely die.”
And with that Ahaziah’s wicked
rule came to an abrupt end.
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| "The Prophet Elijah and the Widow of Sarepta" Bernardo Strozzi |
Now to the second lesson. In Luke 9, Jesus—the ultimate prophet—is
about to stop in Samaria on his way to Jerusalem. And just like the Samaritans of old they have
no room for the Word of the Lord or its bearer.
At this, James and John have
an idea. Being good Israelites they know
the story about the Samaritans,
the prophet
Elijah, and how the fire fell from heaven.
They see the current situation as a perfect parallel: The detested Samaritans and the Prophet—Jesus. The only thing that was missing was the
inevitable fire from heaven. So this is what they say, “Lord, do you want
us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them [just like with
Elijah]?”
But instead of receiving the
answer they were expecting, they got something very different. Instead of fire there is a rebuke, and not
one directed to the Samaritans, but to the apostles.
Now one might be tempted to
say that what we have here is an example of the radical discontinuity between
the Old Testament and the New. The Old
Testament is about a God of wrath and judgment, and the New a God of love and
mercy. But let me make it clear, that is
not what is going on here. And the
reason why I went into such detail with the II Kings passage is to eradicate
that thought from your minds.
When Jesus rebukes the
apostles for craving fire from heaven on the hated Samaritans, he is revealing
the eternal character of God that is witnessed to in both testaments. And his character is this: God desires mercy
and not judgment. He desires that his
sinful people would turn to Him and live. He is essentially telling his apostles, “You
have been reading this Old Testament story all wrong. Your hatred of the Samaritans has clouded your interpretive abilities."
The fact that he desires mercy
is made clear, not just in the Luke 9 parallel, but within the II Kings’ text
as well. Remember the third captain, how
he humbled himself by falling on his knees, begging for his life, and as a result
no fire came from heaven? Here too, in
the Old Testament, the LORD is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding
in steadfast love.”[3]
Jesus did not call fire from
heaven upon the Samaritans because his will is the same as his Father’s, that
Samaritans and Jews, Muslims and Christians, you and I, would humble ourselves
before him and live.
And although all of us—including
the third captain in the II Kings story—have merited judgment, we are not going
to experience the proverbial “fire from heaven.” For the ultimate Prophet of the second
passage did what Elijah could not—He took the “fire from heaven” that all of us
deserved upon himself. On the Cross, God
absorbed our judgment so that we sinners might live.
Because of the relentless love
of the God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, sinners like you and me, who are
driven to fall down on our knees to plead for mercy and grace, are assured that
like the third captain, we have peace with God.
In the name of the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit…
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