October 28, 2020
A Dead Boy
I Kings 17:17-24
The long and the short of it was that the boy was dead. His mother had a dead son on her hands, and she knew it. Many people have the same problem. They have children who are very much alive to all that this world has to offer, but, just the same, are spiritually dead, “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1). This mother had done all that a mother could do for her son, but now he was beyond all human help. She turned to the one man she knew who knew a God she did not know.
There are three people in the story: the dead boy, the distraught mother, and the distressed prophet. The problem with the boy was physical, the problem of the woman was emotional, and the problem of the prophet was spiritual. The child cried to his mother, the mother cried to the prophet, and the prophet cried to God. The tragedy in that little cottage in that pagan town gives us a glimpse of why God allows sorrow to come into our lives. For the widow, for instance, it led to confession. For Elijah it led to compassion.
For che woman, it led to confession of sin. We are not told what her sin was. Likely enough, it had something to do with idolatry. She was a pagan, but a pagan to whom God had spoken. The idolatry of the Canaanites involved the grossest immorality. Few could have escaped it. Perhaps the woman had once been engaged in some aspect of the immorality of her religion. Perhaps her boy was its fruit. In time, the woman had come to idolize her child. When Elijah had asked for a piece of bread, she told him that all she had was a handful of meal. “It is just enough for one small meal for me and my son,” she said. Before it was all over, the prophet would say in the name of the living God, “Give me thy son.” That is about all we can do with spiritually dead children, give them to God, totally and without reservation.
As she gazed at her dead child, a sense of her sin suddenly overwhelmed his woman: “What have I to do with thee, O thou man of God?” she cried. “Art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son?” It suddenly dawned on her that she was a sinner, though Elijah had said nothing at all about sin. The mere presence of a truly holy person often has that effect on guilty people.
We turn now to the prophet himself. In all this, God wanted to develop within the prophet a compassion of soul. Elijah was the prophet of the Law and not overly famous for his grace. There was a great deal of difference, for example, between Moses and Elijah. Moses unveiled the Law, and Elijah upheld the Law. Moses interceded for Israel, but Elijah interceded against Israel. Both men were prophets; but whereas Moses was essentially a thoughtful pastor, Elijah was essentially a thundering preacher. Moses brought down food from heaven; Elijah brought down fire.
The death of the widow’s boy touched the very heart of the prophet. Doubtless he had grown fond of the boy. “Give me thy son, he said in response to the widow’s cry. He gathered the dead boy up in his arms (we never read of him doing that before), and carried the corpse up the stairs to his room. He placed it on his bed. Then he prayed.
His prayer consisted of just a few words. It can be said in five seconds. Truly we are not heard for our abundant words. Prayer is not measured by its length but by its depth.
Then Elijah stretched himself upon the corpse. By so doing, he stood before God as a man defiled, for the Mosaic Law pronounced all who touched a dead body to be unclean. By this act the prophet, in effect, said to God: “O God, this boy is dead, and the Law can do nothing for him. The Law cannot minister life. I therefore disqualify myself, as a man of the Law, from being able to do anything at all for this boy.
If anything is to be done for this dead boy, then something above and beyond the ‘Law’ must take over. So I put this matter before you, not on the basis of Law, but on the basis of grace.” No wonder, within minutes, he was able to say to the widow: “See, thy son liveth.”
That is what we must do for our dead sons and daughters. We cannot legislate holiness or command our children to be good. Even the Law of God itself cannot impart life. But grace can, and does. Blessed be Godl!