I’ve now made it to 2 Kings in my Scripture reading… Coming out the haze of rebellious king after rebellious king in 1 Kings has made me hungry to see God’s glory and response to the idiocracy of these wicked leaders. The beginning of 2 Kings is an incredible display of God’s justice in taking the life of the rebellious king after Ahab had died. Then, God’s power over death meets us with the prophet Elijah going on a journey to the Jordan River with his protege and spiritual son, Elisha. Elisha follows Elijah regardless of Elijah’s pleading for him to stay put. Elisha promises 3 times that he will follow and be with Elijah no matter what. THIS is an incredible display of the kind of love and covenanted promise that we see in lives of Ruth and Naomi. “Where you go I go…”. This kind of love leaves me breathless and thankful for the Lord’s knitting of hearts together. Then, we see Elijah taking his cloak off and parting the Jordan River with it so that Elisha and he can walk across to the other side. I found this incredibly intriguing, so I took to my trusty Matthew Henry commentary for 2 Kings chapter 2. Matthew Henry describes the Jordan River being a picture of the imminent death all humans must face, or the place where our self-reliance dies and we find deliverance. With Christ as our covering (the cloak that Elijah had carried and parted the waters of the Jordan with), HE HIMSELF makes a way to the other side where we meet Him forevermore! Elijah is then whisked up into Heaven, never seeing or tasting death himself. This is a picture for believers! Christ making a way for us to walk through death to meet Him in the Land of glory! I couldn’t help BUT write a poem about it:
The call of the saints
To Heaven’s glory land,
The way made for us
By Christ’s nail scarred hands.
Passing through the Jordan
Death’s final resting place,
The waters parting side to side
Where we’ll see His glorious face.
Through the Jordan we must pass
This earth’s final woe,
The sting of sin and death
As Heaven, through Christ, is now to us made known.
So, pass through these rough and murky waves, Dearest Saint!
For Christ strikes the water,
And parts them to make a way
To be eternally with our Father.
Look to Him who calls you
This our Savior and our God,
He comes on chariots of fire
For your soul He victoriously fought.
Heaven, come quickly, I pray
As I long to be reunited with those He found,
For now we experience suffering and loss
There our hope and joy abound.
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