‘’Now Elisha had been suffering from the illness from which he died. Jehoash king of Israel went down to see him and wept over him. “My father! My father!” he cried. “The chariots and horsemen of Israel!” Elisha died and was buried. Now Moabite raiders used to enter the country every spring. Once while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a band of raiders; so they threw the man’s body into Elisha’s tomb. When the body touched Elisha’s bones, the man came to life and stood up on his feet.” 2 Kings 13:14,20-21
An ongoing funeral procession immersed in sadness and deep mourning. Suddenly, a band of raiders appeared and everybody took for the hills, dumping the corpse in the nearest tomb they could find. To everyone’s utter shock, the corpse jumped up and began to run for his dear life too! So everyone in the procession would now have to flee from two pursuers, the raiders and the corpse! That must have been spooky!
Our focus here though is neither the funeral procession, nor the corpse, not even the band of raiders but the man buried in the tomb, the Prophet Elisha.
In his lifetime, Elisha demonstrated unmatched dominion over the animate and the inanimate, seen and unseen elements of nature. Opened the womb of a barren woman, healed Naaman’s leprosy and transferred same to Gehazi. Prophesied who would live or die in multiple battles even upon his sick bed. Raised the dead when alive and even after his death through his bones as we see here. He was also the only one that witnessed Elijah his mentor trounced death. What a powerful man of God he was!
Yet, he was so sick that King Jehoash lamented and wept over him. As it turned out, he never recovered from that sickness. After his burial though, in a very strange twist, his dead bones raised the dead. What does this tell us? I would assay that it teaches us that no man’s experience, no matter how anointed, no matter the man’s exploits, not even all of men’s experience can ever be used as the final arbiter on who God is, or what God can do! Or even the truth of God that the man or woman espoused and preached.
Many powerful healing evangelists have died from common illnesses and have led many to stop believing in healing. Many holy men and women of God have fallen into common, sometimes silly immoralities. At times too, very grievous ones. This has often led many to conclude that no one can live holy with some abandoning the faith altogether, sadly. Let Elisha’s bones settle that for you once and for all,
Then again, all the while that Elisha was terribly sick, he carried in his bones enough power not only to heal the sickness that ailed him but also to raise the dead! How do one square that circle? Here, what was then true for Elisha is every bit true for us today as believers. Our immediate or non-immediate circumstances are often not the truest measures of our God given potentials, nor of our God-in-us potentialities. Reminds of 1 John 4:4 NIV , “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”
The rising of “a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full” does not mean Jesus “in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow” is redundant or has been outwitted (Mark 4:35-41 KJV)! That same Jesus asleep when the storm came on, will also bring on in a great calm!
The quote “what lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us” is indeed true, very true! Our mandate therefore is to reveal the superhero within us by facing everything that is coming at us now and may ever come at us from the inside out! What is in us is far far stronger than anything coming against us, as unbelievable as that may seem at times.
“I’m a thousand times bigger on the inside than I am on the outside.” — Smith Wigglesworth
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