What happens when responsibility and leadership passes from one generation to another? Hopefully, a double portion of the spirit – but also grief.
Here’s a transcript:
This coming Sunday is the last one before the beginning of Lent. That makes it Transfiguration Sunday. I am not, however, thinking about the ninth chapter of Mark. I’ve been thinking and preaching about the Transfiguration story almost every year for the last few years. Instead, I’m thinking about the second chapter of Second Kings (2 Kings 2:1-12), which is Elisha’s farewell to Elijah.
One could wish that the two prophets had names that were more different from one another, so that you could keep them apart. Elijah was the older of the two. He had been significantly engaged with the monarchs of Israel, particularly in trying (with some success and a good deal of failure) to encourage King Ahab and Queen Jezebel to rule more faithfully. Elisha was the younger one. He would have been Elijah’s student. It was clearly understood by the two of them that it when it came Elijah’s turn it to retire, Elisha would be the one to succeed him.
And that’s the story in the second chapter of Second Kings.
There is something of a travelogue. They journey from one place to another. They meet groups of prophets who are apparently living together, possibly training together. They warn Elisha, the younger one, that his master will be taken from him, and he says, “I know. Be silent.”
We have all had that experience of knowing that something unpleasant, undesirable, painful, is coming and not wanting to hear it from others.
They crossed the Jordan River in another instance of the river becoming dry for long enough to cross, and Elijah asked Elisha what he would like to receive from him. Elisha asked for a double portion of Elijah’s spirit. Elijah said, “That’s a difficult thing and not mine to grant, but if you see me as God raises me from the earth, then your request will be granted.”
As it happened Elisha did see Elijah swept up from earth in a whirlwind. He fell to his knees and he tore his clothes.
We are each one of us successors to the previous prophets. We are heirs of the message. We are its bearers in our own time. And we are those who will equip another generation, or more than one generation, to bring it to yet more people after we are gone. I think Elisha’s request for a double portion of the spirit — oh, my goodness. Imagine if each of us had done that, generation after generation after generation, what would the world be like if we could dedicate ourselves to the spirit of God as Elijah did, and as Elisha did.
But also on that very human side: Even as Elisha must have rejoiced to know that he had received that double portion of the spirit, he still fell to his knees and tore his clothes, because his mentor, teacher, and friend was gone. And even with his double portion of the spirit he was in grief.
None of that changes. People depart from us, sometimes for a short time, and sometimes until we meet again in eternity.
And we do grieve.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
