2 Kings 2:1-12
When the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven by a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal. Elijah said to Elisha, “Stay here; for the Lord has sent me as far as Bethel.” But Elisha said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So they went down to Bethel. The company of prophets who were in Bethel came out to Elisha, and said to him, “Do you know that today the Lord will take your master away from you?” And he said, “Yes, I know; keep silent.”
Elijah said to him, “Elisha, stay here; for the Lord has sent me to Jericho.” But he said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So they came to Jericho. The company of prophets who were at Jericho drew near to Elisha, and said to him, “Do you know that today the Lord will take your master away from you?” And he answered, “Yes, I know; be silent.”
Then Elijah said to him, “Stay here; for the Lord has sent me to the Jordan.” But he said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So the two of them went on. Fifty men of the company of prophets also went, and stood at some distance from them, as they both were standing by the Jordan. Then Elijah took his mantle and rolled it up, and struck the water; the water was parted to the one side and to the other, until the two of them crossed on dry ground.
When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me what I may do for you, before I am taken from you.” Elisha said, “Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit.” He responded, “You have asked a hard thing; yet, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it will be granted you; if not, it will not.” As they continued walking and talking, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them, and Elijah ascended in a whirlwind into heaven. Elisha kept watching and crying out, “Father, father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” But when he could no longer see him, he grasped his own clothes and tore them in two pieces.
The inevitability of death and taxes is defied here. Yet despite the seeming escape of death, the end of an era still comes and a new one begins. What I love about this story is Elisha’s determination to remain loyal to his mentor and yet at the same time defying his instruction. I’ve often wondered about Elisha’s intestinal fortitude to continue to follow Elijah knowing that he will experience grief and loss in the face of Elijah’s own urging him to stop!
I find myself wondering if I have that kind of moxy to defy the urging of someone I love and respect and consider to be wiser than me out of my own strong sense of what is better in this situation. Elisha followed Elijah out of his own desire. It seems to come from a sense of this man is who I want to be like in every way. I wonder perhaps if we are to understand this as not as much of a defying but as a testing. There is no reason stated that Elijah to tells Elisha to remain behind. So perhaps Elijah is testing Elisha and perhaps Elisha knows it. And perhaps this testing is bringing to Elisha’s awareness the seriousness of the passing on of his ministry. The testing may perhaps be a question that may never go away. “Are you willing to go where I go?”
You gotta love youth. Elisha insists that he is able and when others confirm what he already knows he sounds like a typical young person, “Yeah I know! No shut up!” I think in this we are given a model for what it looks like when leadership is passed on to a younger generation. In this case Elijah didn’t pass on his mantel to one of the other prophets. He passed it on to his very young successor in front of all the other prophets of Israel. I also love that all the other prophets of Israel did not reject him nor did they let his still rough around the edges youthfulness offend them. They were quite okay with a much younger man being capable of being the leader.
Too often we see where youth is ignored or held suspect for their ideas of how things need to change. I think this story perhaps paints a picture of how two different generations can fully appreciate the differences that each has to offer when each side can understand that the other side is fully representative of God’s vision. That gets clouded when we get ourselves to a point of thinking our vision is the complete picture of God’s vision. Elisha clearly valued and was trained under the old ways. Yet was wise enough to defy his mentor when need be. His mentor was wise enough to test Elisha’s zeal and genuineness in wanting to carry on the work of leadership and not just wanting the position. They were both wise enough to know and trust in the fact that it was God that was ultimately acting on behalf of His creation and neither of them could really affect God’s plan one way or the other.
Elisha, brought up in the ways of Elijah, had the confidence to know that he could continue responding to God’s call to do and say all that God would lead him in. Though trained by Elijah, he knew Elijah wasn’t going to be there anymore and yet he is displaying the confidence to say, “I know you have doubts about whether I can do this, I do too, but I am not backing out, I’m moving forward with you”.
Our country cannot follow this example of passing on leadership. Here we see one great leader passing on leadership to another younger and yet to be proven leader. Sadly right now, we do not have great leaders mentoring the next generation. We have crooks and politicians who at best mentor others by teaching them how to play the game in Washington. If I were to imagine God intervening in our country to raise up an Elisha like leader, His or her voice would not resonate with our current leaders and may not resonate with many of the population! I just don’t see that going well.
The pattern that I see over and over in scripture is God shows up and meets us where we are at. God allowed Israel to offer animal sacrifices for thousands of years all while leading them to the discovery that he does not require them at all, as a matter of fact they are detestable to Him. But he allowed it because it was what they seemed to think they needed. He allowed it because within it was someith very good and God-like. The desire to sacrifice is a godly desire. He allowed it to remain so he could cultivate it till they understood that the sacrifices they should be making were things like showing mercy to others, forgiving those who did them wrong, showing love to even their enemies. How many who consider themselves to be loving or spiritual or christian, can even bring themselves to say something good about Trump? or Biden? or O’ Bama? Most feel perfectly justified in their position of negativity towards those they didn’t vote for and refuse to recognize any good that that person might have done. No one is completely evil and no one is completely good.
I also can’t help but wonder what we have in place that God allows because we think we need it. Partisism? Government? Weapons? Borders? Elections? Human rights? Armies? What if we only have these because we think we need them. Or what if we have these only because the evil we insist on demands that we have them.
Whether it is a company, government, church or any organization, I like the ideas that we can adopt from this story. Leadership should value the ideas of youth. And youth should learn from those older and wiser. If youth has a vision and zeal for doing even more than the current leaders perhaps we should trust that their vision comes not from themselves but from God.
It is interesting if you finish reading the entire second chapter, it ends with a story about how some youths were jabbing at Elisha for being bald and he sees behind them in the woods, female bears. As they are poking fun of his baldness he watches the bears emerge from the woods and maul the youths. I wonder if in his older years he looked back at that and wished he had more compassion to spare even his enemies from death and horror. I wonder if we are supposed to read this seemingly random story and understand that Elisha, while being trained and quite capable, was still immature. Even though youth, because of their immaturity, may not have conquered their own shortcomings, they are still quite capable of doing the work of God. That is perhaps God’s message to us. We are all immature and incomplete in how we love one another and yet God still loves us and believes in us and calls us to participate, however imperfectly, in the work that He is doing in His creation.