Week 20—Tuesday 2 Kings 4:28-37
2 Kings 4:28-37
“THE CHILD IS NOT AWAKED”
We left off yesterday at the thought of the gradual identification with persons as Jesus more and more became incarnate as sinful man. It couldn’t be done all at once—born of a Virgin—finished! It began in a Virgin’s womb and ended in a tomb, and between the two there was a deeper and deeper identification, step by step. For thirty years he was identified with the Ordinary—a growing boy, a carpenter’s bench, a narrow village life, the pettiness of surrounding life. For thirty years he was baptized into the world’s toil. Then he began to be baptized into the world’s sin.
The account says that “when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized” (Luke 3:21). That means that Jesus entered a repenting stream of people coming to be baptized with a baptism of repentance—he entered as one of them. He who wore a stainless conscience took a baptism of repentance as though he too were a penitent sinner. John objected, but Jesus replied: “Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matt. 3:15). Here was a new kind of “righteousness.” The Pharisee was righteous by apartness from sinners, but Jesus showed the righteousness of identification, of being a part of sinners that sinners might be a part of him and his redemption.
In the account of Elisha and the Shunamite’s son lying dead in her home, Elisha sent a servant with a staff telling the servant to lay it on the face of the dead child. But the servant returned saying, “The child is not awaked” (2 Kings 4:31, KJV). Then Elisha himself went and put his face to the face of the child—eyes to eyes, mouth to mouth, he stretched himself upon the child. And the child came to life. Many prophets and philosophers had laid the stick of sermons and philosophical systems upon the face of a dead sinful humanity, but the dead soul of humanity was not awaked.
O Jesus, we thank you that you laid mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes, and soul to soul. The warmth of your love has awakened us. You have done what no one else could do—you have brought us life—life from your life. We thank you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: My identification shall not be a name identification, but a life identification.