Tragedy and Hope
This is part three of my Becoming Elijah series.
Brief Overview
So far Elijah’s life has been one full of challenges. Interestingly the challenges have only been possible due to God’s intervention. Allow me to explain what I mean by this.
If God had never come to Elijah with a message for the king, Elijah would have not had to run away to a brook. If God had not sent the ravens to feed Elijah he would not have lived long enough for the brook to dry up. Once the brook dried up God intervened once again by telling Elijah to go meet a widow in Zarephath. Elijah obeyed and God once again intervened in a supernatural way keeping the oil and the flour from being used up.
Up to this point, life has not been easy for Elijah, but also life has only been possible because of God’s intervention. Keep this in mind as we tackle 1 Kings 17:17-18:2.
Sickness
Now it happened after these things that the son of the woman who owned the house became sick. And his sickness was so serious that there was no breath left in him.
- 1 Kings 17:17 NKJV
Try to imagine what this would feel like if you were that widow. The widow is poor, she has essentially nothing in life. Except for her son. She loves him with all her heart, he is her motivation to live and to fight, and to go on. He is the main reason she gets out of bed each morning. She sacrifices for him and dreams of him growing up and being happy and healthy and one day having a family of his own. Her greatest desire is for her son to be healthy, and strong. Her favorite sound is the laughter of her son, she loves to see him smile, she longs to see him happy, if possible, all the days of his life.
Now imagine how she feels when her son begins to feel sick. We don’t know the details. Did he have a fever? Headache? Cough? Were the symptoms more severe? Was he vomiting, crying, asking his mom for help, telling her it hurt?
Imagine that mother, doing all that she can, and yet her son continues to get worse and worse.
What was Elijah doing during this time? We do not know. How long was the boy sick? One day, one week? Was Elijah aware of his sickness? Did Elijah pray for his recovery? I believe all these things are possible. Ultimately we do not know. But I imagine Elijah could have felt as helpless as that mother.
I do not know about you, but it is very difficult for me to see someone suffering and not be able to help. Especially if it is someone who has been good and kind to me. This story is just not going according to what I expected.
What I would expect
If I was writing this story, if I was given the basic ideas of a faithful prophet of God living with a poor widow and her son, and told to write how the story would play out it would be nothing like the account we are reading from the Bible. In my mind, everything would be super easy, barely an inconvenience. The son of the widow would be the best soccer player in town. He would be healthy and wise and everyone in town would love him and would ask the widow about the secrets of raising such a fine young man. She would then tell them all about God. The widow would be so richly blessed by God she would soon become the wealthiest and most influential person in town. She would guide everyone to God. Elijah would be so loved by the townspeople that they would build a statue in his honor.
The whole town would be converted to the worship of the true God and soon the neighboring towns would follow suit. The truth about the real living God would spread from town to town and the world would be united in prayer and the worship of God. Soon afterward the Messiah would come and begin His kingdom of peace and prosperity.
I have a feeling that many of you reading this would have similar expectations. I would not be surprised if it turned out that many reject the existence of God because He does not behave according to their expectations. This is also similar to Jesus being rejected by so many because He did not meet their expectations.
Do we reject and doubt God’s existence because He does not behave in accordance with our will? Do we feel like we would do a better job if we were God?
It is interesting because we are under our control and our lives are not perfect. But we are so sure that we know how God should behave that when life does not meet our expectations we rebel against God and deny His existence.
Sin and Guilt
So she said to Elijah, “What have I to do with you, O man of God? Have you come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to kill my son?”
- 1 Kings 17:18 NKJV
This widow blames herself for her situation. She is aware of her sin. Despite her desperate need for help, she is afraid of drawing closer to God due to her sinfulness.
Have you ever experienced that?
You want to pray, you want to ask for help, but you know you don’t deserve it.
You want to get your life together, you want to save your marriage, you want a happy family, but you feel like you just don’t deserve it because you are deeply flawed. You experience guilt and shame and those experiences keep you from seeking and/or receiving the help you so desperately need.
This widow wanted desperately to believe in God’s mercy and love, but the death of her son is proof to her that she could never draw close to God. She believed that God would punish her for her sins.
Do we feel similarly?
Even worse, do we spread this theology? Do we tell people who are struggling with sin that God will punish them? Do we tell those who barely gathered the courage and mustered the will to seek God that they are not good enough to have a relationship with God?
Are people afraid to come to church because they feel like it will bring their sin to remembrance cause them to suffer some kind of judgment/condemnation from God?
I am fairly sure that most sinners are aware of their guilt and of God’s judgment. What many need is hope. Our hope is not based on what we can do, our hope is also not based on us not being guilty. Some may want to make things better by telling those struggling with sin that their sin is okay and not really that sinful. That is a lie and a false gospel. The truth is that their sin is actually much worse than they can imagine. This is also true of my sin. The hope is that God is willing and longs to embrace us and save us and transform us. That is the message the world needs to hear.
Taking Action
And he said to her, “Give me your son.” So he took him out of her arms and carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his own bed. Then he cried out to the Lord and said, “O Lord my God, have You also brought tragedy on the widow with whom I lodge, by killing her son?”
- 1 Kings 17:19-20 NKJV
Elijah could have talked with the widow about her sins. Made a list of them. Told her to do penance, to offer sacrifices to God for the forgiveness of her sins. Elijah could have lectured the widow on the importance of becoming a believer before she dies as well. Elijah could have scolded her for being a pagan and described to her the torment of hellfire that awaits those who reject God. Elijah could have used fear to manipulate the widow to do what he wanted her to do.
But what does Elijah do?
Elijah does the only thing we can do, intercede for those who are hurting. We can come to God in prayer and supplication.
Elijah cried out to the Lord. This was no quick rehearsed prayer. This was not a careless repetition done as a ritual. Elijah cares, he cried out to God, Elijah prayed like he expected something to change. Elijah did not come to God with answers or with magical incantations meant to force Him to do his bidding. Elijah came before God with a heavy heart and profound question.
“O Lord my God, have You also brought tragedy on the widow with whom I lodge, by killing her son?”
Take a moment to appreciate this.
A prophet, and not just any prophet, Elijah, one of the greatest prophets of all time, a faithful messenger of God, comes to God with a question. Imagine Elijah’s question, just hanging there in the air, did God do this to this poor widow? Elijah was a prophet, but that did not mean that he knew everything, it did not mean that he understood everything that God did.
Does this mean that it is possible to be a faithful messenger of God, and still not know everything? Can you teach others about God while not fully understanding what God is doing at any given moment? I believe this story teaches us that we don’t have to have everything figured out. We need to know enough to trust. to trust who God is, especially when we do not fully comprehend what He is doing.
Elijah trusted enough to pray to God, even if the prayer began with a major question. Elijah prayed because he knew that God could handle his questions. Also, Elijah was not going to give up simply because he had questions. Elijah, trusting in God to be a good a powerful God, was not done with his prayer and efforts to help in that crisis.
CPR?
And he stretched himself out on the child three times, and cried out to the Lord and said, “O Lord my God, I pray, let this child’s soul come back to him.”
- 1 Kings 17:21 NKJV
I have searched to the best of my abilities for an explanation or possible reason for Elijah stretching himself out on the child three times. Theories vary widely and many commentaries just skip it altogether. This indicates that laying on top of the dead is not a requirement, it is not a prescription, rather it is a description. To think that we are to lay on top of the dead and that it would contribute to the restoration of life is to miss the point. The next verse will clarify that the restoration of life comes as an answer to prayer.
Personally, I believe that Elijah was trying what he thought would help. In my mind, it makes sense to notice that a living body is a warm body and that perhaps transferring some of my body heat to a cold dead body would aid in life returning to that body. I see this as an ancient attempt at CPR. Elijah is doing what he can to help as he cries out to the Lord.
It is also worth noting that Elijah did this three times. In the Bible, we learn that persistence in prayer is extremely important. For a deeper study in this see Luke 11:5-13, Luke 18:1-8)
Soul? (Nephesh)
When Elijah pays for the child’s “nephesh” to come back to him, what did Elijah mean? Consider the following analysis of this Hebrew word.
Soul. Heb. nephesh. This Hebrew word occurs more than 700 times in the OT and has been variously translated “soul” (Gen. 2:7; 12:5, 12; etc.), “creature” (Gen. 1:21, 24; 2:19; Lev. 11:46; etc.), “person” (Gen. 14:21; Joshua 20:9; Jer. 43:6; etc.), “life” (Gen. 9:4; Ex. 4:19; Joshua 2:14; etc.), “dead” (Lev. 19:28; Num. 9:6, 7, 10; etc.), “self” (Lev. 11:43; 1 Kings 19:4; Isa. 46:2; etc.), and a number of other ways. Of all the various renderings, the translation “life” would probably be the most suitable in the text under consideration. The translation “soul” is misleading and conveys to many the idea of an immortal entity, capable of a conscious existence separate from the body. This idea is not resident in the word nephesh. In all of the more than 700 occurrences of the word, never once is such an idea attached to it or even implied. Not once is a nephesh called immortal. To translation nephesh “life” is in harmony with what the translators of our Bible have done in 119 other instances. A notable example is 1 Kings 19:4, in which Elijah declares: “O Lord, take away my life [Heb. nephesh].” Here the translators have correctly employed the word “life.”
- Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1976). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 2, p. 814). Review and Herald Publishing Association. (bold mine)
For other English translations click this link 1 Kings 17:21. You will notice the majority of translators choose to translate “nephesh” as “life” in these verses. But for a moment let us imagine that this ext was describing the boy’s immortal soul coming back to his body. Where was his soul? Had he accepted God and received salvation? In that case, would he have been in heaven? Would that mean that Elijah has just earnestly prayed for a soul that was in paradise to return to a world steeped in sin and suffering? Would that not make Elijah a cruel man. Why didn’t Elijah just comfort the mother with beautiful descriptions of heaven? Would it not be incredibly selfish of the mother to want her son to leave heaven to suffer with her for many years to come?
What if the boy had not accepted God and salvation? Would that mean that the boy was being tormented by hellfire? Would not the boy upon coming back warn the whole city about the worst possible reality anyone could ever imagine? just some food for thought.
I do a deeper study of this topic on my post The Mystery of Death (I do not have it all typed up but you can listen to the audio).
Revived!
And the LORD listened to the voice of Elijah. And the life of the child came into him again, and he revived.
- 1 Kings 17:22 ESV
Elijah’s prayers were not ignored! Also, this is the first biblical account of a resurrection. This means that Elijah was praying for God to do something that had never been done before! There is no account of anyone coming back to life before this story. Let’s take a moment to appreciate Elijah’s bold faith! He prayed for God to do something nobody had ever seen, that no one knew could be done. We now know God can raise the dead, but Elijah was the first one to discover this, to witness a resurrection. And all this was made possible because he refused to give up. He made the widow’s pain his own and interceded for her and God blessed and worked a miracle, the first recorded resurrection in the Bible! And it was not a great person of faith, but rather a child, and the child of a poor widow, who was not even an Israelite. So much for the limitations we try to place in God.
God’s grace and love and power know no barriers. The question is whether or not we are willing to cry out to God on behalf of those who are not considered members of His people. do we care about outsiders, about the marginalized, about foreigners, do we care enough to cry out to God on their behalf, to do what we can to help them? God is willing to bless, but He prefers to do it through us. This means we must be willing to care about the suffering of those who are considered outsiders or even enemies, recognizing that Jesus died for them and that God loves them!
A man of God
And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper room into the house, and gave him to his mother. And Elijah said, “See, your son lives!”
Then the woman said to Elijah, “Now by this I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is the truth.”
- 1 Kings 17:23-34 NKJV
The woman now believes in Elijah. She witnessed the power of God because Elijah was willing to care enough to cry out to God on her behalf. Elijah took her “problem” in his arms and brought it before God as if it was his own problem. Elijah could have lectured the widow about her wicked ways and her sins. He could have scared and pressured her into the worship of the God of Israel. But instead, Elijah interceded for her and her son. Elijah simply brought the problem before God expecting God to do something about it. The emphasis of the story is not on how righteous Elijah was, or how knowledgeable he was. The story simply describes a person who is willing to come before God with the problems of those around them.
Practical Application
Do you desire to be like Elijah?
Do you want to be a man/woman of God?
How about we begin by spending more time in prayer. not just praying for yourself, even though you’re more than welcome to pray for yourself. but to also cry out before God for the benefit of those around you, those who are struggling, those who are suffering. Are you willing to cry out to God on their behalf? To pray expecting God to do something?
As you pray are you also willing to go out of your way to do what you can to help? To help someone who could never repay you?
I may not know exactly all that entails being a man or woman of God, but I believe this is a good place to start. Are you willing to take that challenge?
