Scripture: 2 Kings 6: 1-7, Acts 28: 1-10
Sermon: Resurrection Courage
Preached: March 30, 2008 pm
Rev. Mike Abma
2 Kings 6: 1-7
Now the company of prophets said to Elisha, ‘As you see, the place where we live under your charge is too small for us. 2Let us go to the Jordan, and let us collect logs there, one for each of us, and build a place there for us to live.’ He answered, ‘Do so.’ 3Then one of them said, ‘Please come with your servants.’ And he answered, ‘I will.’ 4So he went with them. When they came to the Jordan, they cut down trees. 5But as one was felling a log, his axehead fell into the water; he cried out, ‘Alas, master! It was borrowed.’ 6Then the man of God said, ‘Where did it fall?’ When he showed him the place, he cut off a stick, and threw it in there, and made the iron float. 7He said, ‘Pick it up.’ So he reached out his hand and took it.
This is the Word of the Lord
Thanks be to God
INTRODUCTION Odd Story
You may have thought that I searched high and low for the oddest stories in the Old and New Testaments to read tonight. You have good reason to think that. These are the types of stories where you ate tempted to shake your head and mutter, “How did this get into the Bible?”
But the truth is, the reason we are looking at them tonight is because I actually stumbled on references to both these passages in some of the reading I have been doing in the Early Church Fathers lately. I was struck by how the early church interpreted what we see as fairly odd stories.
Take this story of the Axhead floating in the water.
Elisha had just finished telling the Syrian leper, Namaan, to go take a bath in the Jordan River.
So we know Elisha had settled down near the Jordan River.
We also know that at the beginning of 2 Kings (2:15) Elisha had a group of 50 apprentice prophets hanging out with him. After all Elisha’s miracles, that number probably went up and up. No wonder whatever facility they were meeting in was getting too small. They needed a bigger place. So these young men came to Elisha with a proposal – let us build a bigger place. And Elisha said, “Go for it.”
And they said, “Hey, this could be fun, why not come down to the river with us.”
And Elisha said, “Well, I reckon that sounds like a fine idea.”
So here we have this tranquil, almost Mennonite Barn-Raising scene, in which everyone is pitching in. Then an odd tragedy strikes.
The iron head of the ax they are using goes flying into the Jordan River.
We know it was tragic because when it happens,
one of these upright young men blurts out,
“Alas, master, it was borrowed (NRSV)
“Oh, my lord, it was borrowed (NIV).
This is about as close to cussing as you will find from a prophet in the Old Testament.
Why that reaction to a broken ax?
It was a tragedy for several reasons:
Iron was extremely expensive,
and added to that, it was a borrowed ax.
So the prophets would have to repay the loss of this ax head.
Also, no one was ready to wade into the water to try find it on the bottom of the river.
Another example of how the Israelites simply could not swim – I do think that would make a reasonable PhD dissertation someday – the Theological Implications of Israel’s Inability to Swim.
In the light of this tragedy, the company of prophets-in-training look to Elisha for help.
Elisha does an odd thing.
He asks where the ax head entered the water.
He then throws a stick into the water in that spot.
Miraculously, the ax head floats to the service.
The relieved young apprentice prophets fish it out.
The day is saved. Hooray!
So what does one do with a story like this other than say that God sure must have had a soft spot in his heart for those prophets.
EARLY CHURCH INTERPRETATION
Here is where the Early Church Fathers display an amazing amount of creativity in their interpretation of the Bible.
In his Dialogue with Trypho, written just a little over one hundred years after Jesus’ death and resurrection, the early church father Justin Martyr sees this passage as foreshadowing or anticipating Jesus’ resurrection.
For Justin, the two main images of this passage are Wood and Water.
His thinking goes something like this:
* in the passage, the piece of wood helps raise the ax head from the water
so that a place to study God’s word, a type of tabernacle, can be built.
* in a similar way, Jesus was crucified on a piece of wood, then he sunk deep into the
darkness, and was raised Lord of life, to be the new meeting place (tabernacle) between God and his people.
* and in a similar way, by the power of the cross, we sink into the water of baptism,
and are raised from sin into live so that our bodies can become temples of the Holy Spirit.
When I first read that in Justin, I thought, “My, that is creative exegesis.”
But then I read something very similar in another church father named, Irenaeus.
And Irenaeus adds even a few more interesting details to his interpretation of this passage.
Irenaeus assumed that when Elisha threw the wood into the water, it sank and the iron floated.
For him, this pointed out something else:
* just as the wood sank and the iron floated, two totally unexpected phenomena,
* so too, Jesus the innocent one, sank into the depths of death and Hell,
so that we, the guilty ones, may one day float or ascend up to heaven.
For the early church, the resurrection of Jesus was key to reading the whole Bible.
The resurrection of Jesus was essential to how they lived their lives.
They lived with a certain courage and fortitude.
Unlike so many others around them, these early Christians lived in such a way that showed they were not afraid of death.
They knew that Christ had conquered death for them.
Athanasius, another early church father, liked to use this image:
put something in the fire and it will burn.
Wrap it up in asbestos, and the flames will not hurt it.
The same is true for Christians.
Because we are wrapped in the resurrection power of Jesus,
the flames of death cannot hurt us.
For them, a vivid image of this resurrection courage is what happens to Paul on the island of Malta.
A viper, a serpent, leaps for a burning stick to bite Paul, but Paul is unaffected.
For many they saw the fire or heat as an image of the persecution of the church by outsiders.
They saw the viper, the serpent as an image of evil,
not just any evil, but the dangers of heretical insiders,
people in the church who were ready to compromise faith and cripple the whole church.
But the heat of the fire and the bite of the serpent do not harm Paul.
Paul goes about his business of spreading the gospel unaffected.
The mission of the church goes on because Paul lives with Resurrection Courage.
Aristotelian Courage and Resurrection Courage
Courage was a virtue well-known in the New Testament world.
For the Greek philosopher, Aristotle, courage was one of the 4 cardinal virtues.
Courage was often the theme in Greek and Roman drama and literature.
But as Eric Auerbach’s classic book Mimesis reminds us, in Greek and Roman literature, courage was almost always reserved for the military heroes. These heroes were those who fought against incredible odds and were willing to die glorious deaths.
Think of that movie 300 that came out a year or two ago.
I must admit, I haven’t seen it. But it is apparently the retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae (480 BC), when 300 Spartans try to keep an army of hundreds of thousands of Persians from getting through a mountain pass.
It is all about Classic Greek courage.
The movie tag-line is “Prepare for Glory!”
Throughout the movie the characters talk about dying “a glorious death.”
These larger-than-life characters are the heroes of Greek and Roman literature.
Auerbach’s contention is that this type of hero is the complete opposite of the heroes in the New Testament and early church. In the New Testament and early church, the heroes are pretty normal, ordinary folk – tentmakers, clothing retailers, fishermen. But these ordinary people are able to do extraordinary things because they live with Resurrection Courage and Resurrection power.
They are able to get bitten by a snake and act as if nothing had happened.
They are able to care for and heal the sick,
Bring relief to the poor,
And bring good news to the despairing.
No death-defying behavior.
No glory seeking.
Just simple ordinary folk doing extraordinary things.
It should be no surprise that the early church saw the resurrection of Jesus Christ as primarily giving us courage.
What are the two most often repeated phrases the risen Jesus says:
“Do not be afraid”
And “Peace be with You.”
“Do Not be Afraid” and “Peace be with You.”
Armed with these words, the church,
the ordinary common folk of the church,
has always been able to do miraculous things.
Think of that tiny band of plain-folk believers in Jerusalem after Jesus’ resurrection.
How was it possible for such a small group of believers to now number in the billions?
The answer is Resurrection Courage and Resurrection Power:
What other people see as impossible, the church sees as possible.
What others see as lost causes, the church has seen as the only causes worth living for
and fighting for.
What others see as a faith that will run its course and eventually fade from the world, the church has always seen as the only thing worth believing in,
because it is the faith that will one day redeem the world.
Calculus of the Kingdom
The Old Testament scholar, Walter Brueggemann has an interesting phrase for this phenomenon of how the biggest jobs in the Kingdom of God seem to be done by those with the least resources, and those who are enduring the most resistance.
He calls it the Calculus of the Kingdom:[1]
This joining together of a huge task and limited resources.
This joining together of great resistance yet the Spirit’s perseverance.
Where the two meet,
we Christians are called upon to use what every Christian is asked to exercise:
call it Courage
call it Fortitude
call it Faith.
It is the courage to act knowing that God’s way will triumph,
It is the fortitude of knowing His way will prevail,
It is the faith that His Easter triumph will one day be fully complete.
We are the ordinary folk who are called upon to live with Easter courage.
We are the common people who, by the power of the Resurrection, are called upon to do great things in and for his Kingdom.
So go forth, and live with Resurrection Courage.
Amen
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Brueggemann, “On People Who Do Great Things,” in Inscribing the Text, p. 46. ↑
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