St. Thomas
Memorial Episcopal Church
6.30.13
“Two
Testaments, Same God, Or, Samaritans, Prophets, Fire from Heaven: Revisited”
II Kings 1:1-17
and Luke 9:51-62
It was the fall of my senior year of
high school. It was “Bring your Bible to
school day.” I really didn’t want any
part of this. The last thing an anxious,
young public schooler needs is to be known as the Bible thumper. But, at the same time, I felt guilty about
not participating. I think someone
pressured me into it, but I also wanted to prove to myself
that I wasn’t ashamed of the gospel—that I wasn’t ashamed of Jesus—so not only
did I bring it along, I put it on the
top of my stack of books. It’s only one
day I told myself. What could go wrong?
It was first period. My Calculus teacher had finished her lecture
early and I was waiting for the bell that liberated my classmates and me from
the clutches of rule and order for a mere six minutes. As we waited, my best friend—who sat next to
me—who I had been talking to about the Christian faith for… forever, saw my
Bible and picked it up. He plopped it
open and read the first passage he saw…
What did he read the Sermon on the Mount, the Parable of the Prodigal
Son, John 3:16?… No. My friend happened
upon the conquest narrative of the book of Joshua. If you don’t know that story, suffice it to
say it’s one of what are known as the ‘hard sayings’ of the Bible. A passage most Christians aren’t rushing to
write on cardboard signs and hold up at football games. The last place I’d direct a curious young
spiritual seeker.
I was frustrated. My friend, who had been witnessing to and praying
for, was further turned away from the faith.
The bell rang. My six minutes of
freedom in between periods were ruined. “Bring Your Bible
to School Day” was a complete failure. I
remember thinking to myself, “Lord, why?
Here was your chance. Why didn’t you
plop open the book to highlight how good you are? Why would you open the book to the Old
Testament and not the New?”
This, and other happenings, led me
to ask a fundamental question of the Christian faith: What is the relationship between the Old Testament
and the New—between the first testament and the second? Have you ever asked yourself this
question? When I was younger I used to
think that the Old Testament revealed God’s darker, more judgmental side, while
the New Testament showcased his sunny, more loving side? The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob seemed at
times unstable, while the God and Father of our Lord Jesus seemed to be a bit
more mature. Most of my Sunday School teachers
only served to reinforce this sentiment.
Their instruction focused almost exclusively on the New Testament. Sure they talked about Adam and Eve, Daniel
in the Lion’s Den, and David and Goliath, but there were plenty of stories they
simply ignored. There were plenty of
passages that left them blushing.
It wasn’t until college that I
learned that the Church has never held the view that the Old Testament reveals
a judgmental God, and the New Testament a loving God. Today, I don’t either. While it’s true, the Bible speaks of an Old
Covenant and a New Covenant, and about discontinuity between the two, from
the very beginning Christians have always maintained that both bear witness to
the same God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Both reveal the character of the same God even though the authors of the
Old Testament did not see the God-man Jesus or the out-pouring of the Spirit at
Pentecost with their own eyes.
But what I’ve just said is heady and
somewhat abstract—important—but abstract.
How does what I’ve just said work with individual texts? How does it make sense with passages like the
conquest narrative? How does it play out
on the ground, so to speak? What I am
about to give you[1]
is a single example of how passages from both testaments bear witness to the
character of the same God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So buckle up your seat belts. Here we go.
There is a passage that we did not read
this morning from II Kings (don’t worry I’m about to unpack it). In it the reader sees Samaritans,
a prophet, and fire from heaven. In the passage from Luke (that
we did read), we see Samaritans, we see the Prophet, and we hear
about fire from heaven. These parallels between the two stories have
led some to believe that the author of Luke is drawing upon this Old Testament
story. But if you’ve ever read II Kings 1 you’ll notice that these
parallel stories would appear to have different outcomes. If the author of Luke is drawing upon the
story in II Kings, why do these otherwise similar stories seem to conclude so
differently? Why in one story does fire come down and destroy,
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 the story that was not read, II Kings 1.
Prior to this passage, the author of
Kings notes that soon after King Solomon’s reign came to an end, Israel broke
off in two—right after David’s son Solomon died—the kingdom of Israel has
fractured. And if you’re at all familiar with I and II Kings, you’ll know
that the kings in both of these lands, the northern kingdom and the southern
kingdom—but especially in the northern kingdom—get progressively worse.
Only a few chapters earlier we learned that King 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 (kind of reminiscent of our song
about humpy-dumpty). 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, well, the outcome is the same.
While some of you might think King
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. In other words, Ahaziah is an idiot.
So he sends out another 50
men. But this time the captain of the men does something unlike the first
two captains (which—hint, hint—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 King 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. And so ends
another “hard sayings” passage of the Old Testament.
---
Now to the second passage—this
morning’s Gospel lesson. In Luke 9, Jesus—the ultimate Prophet—is on his
way to Jerusalem to fulfill his purpose.
His followers go on ahead to make room for him in to retire for the
night in Samaria, but Jesus is so dead set on going to Jerusalem that when he
reaches them he continues on his way.
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]?” You can almost imagine them giddy in
expectation.
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 how the New Testament is a corrective of the
Old. The Old Testament story is about a God of wrath and judgment, and
the New about 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 hopefully wipe out 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 not just in the New Testament, but also in
the Old. By saying that God desires
mercy and not condemnation, that he would have his sinful people 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 reading of this text."
The fact that God desires mercy is
made clear, not just in the Luke 9 passage, but also in 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”(Exodus 34:6).
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”—we will not experience separation
from God. For the ultimate Prophet of our Gospel lesson did what Elijah
could never do—He took the “fire from heaven” that all of us deserved upon himself.
On the Cross, God took the judgment that we deserved upon himself so that
sinners like you and me might live—so that sinners like you and me might
instead be called his beloved—so that sinners like you and me might be
redeemed.
We know that this was the eternal
plan of the Father not just because the New Testament tells us so, but also
because the Old Testament makes it clear.
As the Old Testament book of Isaiah makes clear, “He [Jesus] was pierced for our
transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought
us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5).
Because of the relentless love of
God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, sinners like you and me, who are driven to fall
down on our knees to ask for mercy and grace, are assured that like the third captain,
we have peace with God—that like the third captain, we outsiders are made
insiders—that like the third captain, we are safe. This is truth is made evident not just in the
New Testament passage from Luke, but also in ‘hard sayings’ Old Testament
passages like II Kings 1.
May the God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ look with favor upon you—his
beloved—and give you his peace—a peace that the world cannot give.
In the name of the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit…
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