Desperate Measures



2 Kings 6:24-33
24 Afterward Ben-hadad king of Syria mustered his entire army and went up and besieged Samaria.
25 And there was a great famine in Samaria, as they besieged it, until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and the fourth part of a kab of dove’s dung for five shekels of silver.
26 Now as the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!”
27 And he said, “If the Lord will not help you, how shall I help you? From the threshing floor, or from the winepress?”
28 And the king asked her, “What is your trouble?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’
29 So we boiled my son and ate him. And on the next day I said to her, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him.’ But she has hidden her son.”
30 When the king heard the words of the woman, he tore his clothes—now he was passing by on the wall—and the people looked, and behold, he had sackcloth beneath on his body—
31 and he said, “May God do so to me and more also, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders today.”
32 Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. Now the king had dispatched a man from his presence, but before the messenger arrived Elisha said to the elders, “Do you see how this murderer has sent to take off my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door and hold the door fast against him. Is not the sound of his master’s feet behind him?”
33 And while he was still speaking with them, the messenger came down to him and said, “This trouble is from the Lord! Why should I wait for the Lord any longer?”

Back in 1978 I was privileged to travel into what was then communist Russia. Having grown up hearing almost daily of the “Cold War”, I wanted to see it all for myself. One of the history professors at the University I attended took a group to Russia in January of my senior year and I snatched up this opportunity to visit a place I had heard so much about over the years. Part of the tour was a rather extensive stay in the city of Leningrad (today knows as St. Petersburg – the city’s name has been changed numerous over the centuries.) During WWII, Leningrad came under siege by the Germans for over 800 days. Those days brought Leningrad to her knees. There was no food, medical help, or other supplies needs to sustain life. As a result of this siege all of the dogs (and possibly other family pets) had been killed and eaten. When I visited in 1978, there were still very few dogs in Leningrad. This was such an odd factoid that it has stuck with me all these years and is rather haunting. I don’t know what it is like in St. Petersburg today; perhaps pets have made a come-back since those terrible days.

In our reading for today a similar event takes place but with much uglier consequences. While the Syrians were willing to leave Israel alone after their peaceful defeat by Elisha’s connection with God, they were still a warring people and headed into Samaria to conquer another land. As we know from earlier readings in the book of 2 Kings, Samaria was in a time of great drought and the last thing they needed was an invading army. During the siege things got so bad that people were willing to eat their own children in order to survive. The king is of course shocked and horrified to find such events happening in his own capital. This story shows the depths to which we will fall when desperation srikes. The king’s anger mounts but it is leveled at Elisha rather than where it belonged – on God. The king sends executioners after Elisha, but then has a change of heart and rescinds the sentence. Elisha knows all of this and sets up a barrier between himself and the executioner so that the king’s message can reach him.

It is shameful the depths to which we will drop when pushed hard enough. Here lies proof of the true depravity of man. Here lies proof that we are in desperate need of a Savior. We can be nothing but grateful to a God who has provided the way of salvation for a people in such incredible need through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

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