03/31/2024
JESUS' CO**SE
Homily on 2 Kings 13:20-21
for Good Friday Tenebrae
TEXT: So Elisha died, and they buried him. Now bands of Moabites used to invade the land in the spring of the year. 21 And as a man was being buried, behold, a marauding band was seen and the man was thrown into the grave of Elisha, and as soon as the man touched the bones of Elisha, he revived and stood on his feet.
The death of Elisha is described with this interesting addition. Within a few years of his burial another man was being buried and the digging apparently exposed Elisha’s bones. But then a raiding party of Moabites appeared on the scene and the burial party had to flee. They threw their co**se into the pit but when that co**se touched the bones of Elisha the dead man came to life. Clearly the co**se of the prophet had power, or we might say that God used the dead body of Elisha to bring life to a man. Ironically the burial party had come to bury their dead, then they had to flee for their lives; But God used this occasion to bring their dead friend to life.
People in all ages recognize contagion. If you climb among the chalky cliffs of Dover you may emerge covered with chalk. We say that the chalk rubs off on you. When you hang out with people who speak with an accent, their way of speaking and the words they use may find their way into your way of speaking. (Unfortunately, this is how many of us learned cussing- it rubs off on us.) We have been reminded by recent epidemics, that if you spend time with infected people, you may receive the infection. Most cultures apply this principle to dead bodies or co**ses in a very negative way. This is because what killed the person, leaving a co**se, may affect those who touch his body. Especially in times of plague, or other kinds of diseases carried by parasites, we may be endangered by touching the dead body because parasites like fleas sense the cooling of the dead body and are drawn to the warmth of a nearby live body. They quickly jump onto the hand or arm that touches a dead body bringing infection, not to mention parasite infestation.
The laws of Moses had strict rules prohibiting contact with dead bodies human or otherwise. Only the closest family members were to prepare a co**se for funeral, because it was their duty as family and since they had cared for the dying person they were already exposed to any contagion. When Jesus performed healing miracles, and especially his three resurrection miracles, the direction of contagion changed. Instead of Jesus becoming defiled, healing flowed from Him into the sick. We call this healing “salvation.” The power of Jesus’ salvation was shown by his raising the daughter of Jairus who had died. He took the dead girl by the hand and she came to life. Similarly, Luke notes Jesus bringing comfort to the widow of Nain by touching her son's bier which would be expected to make Him unclean. Instead, Jesus commanded the dead man to arise and he came to life. Something similar occurred in the raising of Lazarus who had been in the tomb for 4 days. it is implied that Jesus’ call to Lazarus reversed the rot or corruption that was thought to have set in.
Now these resurrection miracles of Jesus and Elisha merely resuscitated co**ses. They demonstrated power from God but did not change the order of temporal life. Each of these raised from death died again. They received the unspeakable blessing of added years of life, but ultimately died. This is what makes the death of Jesus, and His resurrection, fundamentally different than one man coming back to life from the dead. Jesus died once but will never die again. He did not have to die.
Christ became flesh in order to share mortality with us. He never sinned and did not inherit sin and death as we have. He was safe. If He wanted to live forever avoiding death He could have chosen to do so. But He took on human flesh so that He could die and carry our sins with him.
We can compare what Christ did for us with the story of a man of medieval China whose son was arrested for breaking the emperor's window. The penalty decreed for breaking the emperor's window was to repair the window, and then endure a bite from one of the emperor's poisonous snakes. The boy was only 11 and could not repair the window because he had no skills. Furthermore, he was only half the size of a grown man and the poison of the snake would surely kill him, while a grown man would probably survive (after agony). His father volunteered to repair the window for he had the necessary skills, and he volunteered to undergo the snake bite because his bigger body would not be overcome by the poison. Thus, while the man did not HAVE to make repairs or undergo the snake bite he did so for the sake of his beloved son.
This is a dim illustration of what Jesus the Son of God volunteered to do for us. He suffered the poison of sin’s snake bite, but unlike any of us, He endured for the poison of sin is death. And Jesus volunteered to die. He said in the Gospel of John “No man takes my life from me. I have the power to lay it down and I have the power to take it up again.” Thus, when Jesus declared “It is finished” on the cross He was voluntarily laying down His life. He commended his spirit into his Father's hands, and yielded up his spirit. Yielding up the spirit means breathing one's last. In that sense we can see someone dying. Bystanders saw Jesus die but they knew there was more to dying than the cessation of breath. They realized, as do most of us, that dying entails the separation of soul and body. As Ecclesiastes says, “The body returns to the ground from which it was made, and the spirit returns to God.”
They took Jesus’ body, wrapped it in a cloth, and laid it in Joseph of Arimathea's new tomb. The women would have to return the third day to finish the embalming job. It was fitting that Jesus’ body was laid in a borrowed tomb for he did not need it for long. And the women who came on Easter morning did not find the body of Jesus as they expected. Some, it appears, saw nothing but an empty tomb; most reported a vision of angels. Mary Magdalene saw Him, though she mistook Jesus for the gardener, at first.
Consider again the incident with Elisha’s bones- God brought a resurrection out of the prophet’s co**se to foreshadow how He would bring eternal life out of the death of his only begotten Son. Just as Jesus’ body communicated power for healing before His death, now His body, His risen body, is a contagion of life! Those who come to Him receive power to become children of God. Those who hear His words are given the Holy Spirit which gives faith for eternal life. Those who believe His promises receive His very body and blood in the holy sacrament so that their faith is strengthened, their sins forgiven, and they receive power for living, not just a temporal life but an eternal life, a life that is not endangered by temporal death but released when we pass through death’s gateway into the manifest kingdom of God!
It is profoundly right that we mourn at this time in remembering the suffering and death or our Lord Jesus Christ. But we mourn in hope for if God used Elisha’s dead body to bring life to a countryman, so our Savior’s death brings eternal life to those who are close to Him. Amen.
