We are told the Shunammite woman was 'well to do'. She seems to have had that wonderful gift of hospitality which can so bless other people. It blesses the prophet Elisha, for whom she sets up a small room in her house, with a bed, table, chair and lamp, so that he can be assured of a welcome and somewhere safe to stay on his many travels through the Israelite countryside.
Elisha desires to offer something in return and, being aware of her childlessness, predicts that she will soon have a son. This tests her faith severely - she can't believe it will come to pass. It's not that she doesn't want it - she wants it too much. Better not to hope than to be disappointed, surely?
She gives birth within the year.
But 'the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away', as the King James renders Job 1:21...A few years later the boy is in the field and suffers some sort of seizure. He is carried to his mother, in whose arms he dies shortly afterwards.
See, it's better not to have loved, than to have loved and lost. She was right.........
The Shunammite goes immediately to Elisha with what is essentially a spiritual battle raging inside her. Before God's unlooked for gift she had got used to that ache of childlessness. Why raise her hopes only to dash them? 'Did I ask you for a son?', she rages at the prophet. 'Didn't I tell you, don't raise my hopes?' (2 kings 4:28).
Elisha attempts a healing from a distance, sending his servant with his staff to lay on top of the boy. This doesn't work, so they all tumble into the house together and, leaving the others outside the door, Elisha goes in and lays his own warm body on top of the boy's cold one. Twice, pacing up and down the room in between. The boy sneezes seven times and opens his eyes.
The Shunammite is speechless. Those we love are in His gift always. We cannot control hope.
Second day of Lent and it's Sarah up next.
If women are increasingly postponing the age at which they give birth to their first child, none of us has anything on Sarah. She is introduced in Genesis 11:30 with the chilling words 'Now Sarai was barren...' and, in case we needed clarification, '...she had no children.' As far as the bible goes this has never been an obstacle for God - in fact it appears to be almost a qualification for women whose sons are later to assume major importance in salvation history. Is this to remind us that the initiative and the power to bring to birth is always God's?
Her long awaited son is named after her understandable reaction when told, at the age of 90, she will give birth within the year - i.e. 'you have got to be having a LAUGH.'
I take my hat off to Sarah - she is nothing if not robust. I'm not sure I would have the courage to laugh in the face of a heavenly messenger - John the Baptist's father failed to believe a similar angelic message and look what happened to him (couldn't speak for nine months.)
The conversation about Sarah's impending unlikely conception is actually quite surreal:
Divine Messenger (to Abraham) : 'I will return this time next year and Sarah will have a son.'
Sarah (eavesdropping through the tent flap): 'After I am worn out and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure?' (wonderful euphemism for 'I'm past all that business')
Divine messenger (ears like lasers): 'Why did Sarah laugh and say 'will I really have a child?'
Sarah: (lying) 'I did not laugh'
Divine Messenger: 'Yes, you did laugh.'
Long Pause.
You couldn't make it up if you tried.
So here's to Sarah, laughter and pleasurable surprises in old age.
