Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 11 February 2024.
Giovanni Bellini, c. 1490 (Source)
• First Reading: 2 Kings 2: 1-12 ()
• Epistle: 2 Corinthians 4: 3-6 ()
• Gospel: Mark 9: 2-9 ()
I suppose that the appeal of the dramatic and the glamorous has always been there. They provide us with a kind of entertainment that we do not get in our routine and workaday lives.
There is nothing remarkable about getting up, having breakfast and paying the household bills.
But offer a whiff of scandal and we are off. This is terrible. Tell me all about it – all the details and the more salacious the better. Nothing so satisfying as seeing the great and the good come to grief. A good football match is one thing – but the disgrace of one of the glitterati – and the more sordid the better – is quite another.
This is just a thought as we look at the passing of Elijah, in a very dramatic scene, with the horses and the chariot of heaven literally sweeping him off his feet.
And Elisha is left – Elijah’s faithful servant and disciple, to follow whatever path offers itself to him and the path that he also seeks for himself.
The glory of the translation of Elijah is unique – even the passing of Moses was a quiet and sedate affair as the Lord took his life and buried him on the mountain top overlooking the promised land, and in a grave never found.
But then there is that strange conversation between Elijah and Elisha who wants to continue Elijah’s work. He is anxious to do well and asks for a double portion of the spirit that was in Elijah. OK says Elijah, but you will have to be with me to the very end.
And so it was – Elisha stayed on to the end and was fully blessed with a double portion of the spirit that was in Elijah. And he is recorded as performing twice the number of miracles of Elijah.
But there the comparisons ended. While Elijah faced the demands of his time and the apostacies of Ahab and Jezebel, Elisha faced a different time: more settled, fairly peaceful, and the needs of the time were different as well.
If Elijah was there to challenge the royal court and its neglect of the worship and faith of the Lord, then Elisha was more of a community prophet. He was there to provide a nurture to the people and to support them in the issues of daily life.
There would be less of the razzamatazz and more in the area of support and giving good advice. Helping the people to stay in the faith and to trust in the Lord their God.
And this would also be a mighty ministry. We might compare our times with those of our parents who fought in WW2. Ours was the Cold War in which there was a permanent and insidious undermining of our confidence in the rule of law, representative and responsible government, and government by consent. Far less dramatic but the outbreaks of civil disagreement were still ferocious.
And so Elisha ministered to the Lord within his own times and circumstances.
Looking at the Transfiguration of Jesus, this was also a time of great drama. The remote mountain top, the drowsiness and the dream-like quality of the vision of Jesus with Moses and Elijah.
Then there was the overhearing of their conversation about a work to be completed. The Law and the Prophets, represented by Moses and Elijah – were all looking to their completion and fulfilment by Jesus.
And there would be only one way of doing it – on the cross. No alternative and no evasion. At the beginning of His ministry Jesus had already seen off the temptations of Satan to fulfil His ministry while avoiding the cross. But now Jesus was well on the way to Jerusalem and the climax of His ministry.
This was indeed the confirmation of His own inner sense of how things would develop and where they would lead. And yes, the voice from the overshadowing cloud sealed it all beyond doubt.
We might be tempted to look only at the dramatics and the sound and light effects. Yet Jesus was looking at the centre of the issues of humanity and the only way in which the judgment of God was to be tempered by His mercy.
Only God could meet the demands of the righteousness and holiness of God – and only those who identified themselves with His means and committed themselves to His ways were ever going to be able to find fellowship in Him.
God would provide the means but would never compel any to accept them. That must be a personal choice and a personal offering. It would be a personal commitment which would define all of life thereafter.
For some there might be some dramatic outcome – magnificent worship with compelling preaching. Church life that is indeed in the power of the very early church. The church itself multiplying daily in the most dramatic revivals and renewal movements.
But then there would be another aspect: ordinary believers coming to faith and living it through all the details and tests of daily life. There would be times of failure and of doubt – and calls to renew that personal faith and commitment in the midst of social indifference and even hostility.
But the promise of that additional helper has never been withdrawn. The Holy Spirit is still promised to us, to support us in need and to strengthen us in weakness. To bring us to the fulness of Jesus Christ and to support us as we seek to abide in Him.
There is no reason why we also should not ask – at least for a renewal in the Holy Spirit, to that we may become the people and the fellowship that the Lord always wanted us to be.
