the christ – elisha connection

In 2 Kings there are some really interesting stories about Elisha. I’m pretty sure I haven’t really just read through this part of the Old Testament ever before. What is weird about it is that the stories about Elisha are so close to some of the stories about Jesus.

There is a story 20 loaves of bread feeding one hundred men. This is so similar to the story of Christ feeding the five thousand. It is really interesting that Christ would have done that same miracle. Maybe not that he did the miracle—everyone’s got to eat—but the inclusion of it in the gospels; that’s definitely no accident. It is definitely meant to add justification to Jesus as Messiah; Elisha’s act would have been in the minds of all the Jews of the time.

But what is even more interesting is that he doesn’t just do the same thing, he one ups Elisha. Instead of just feeding one hundred people with twenty loaves, he feeds thousands with simply a boy’s lunch. I have to say, that is super cool—just as the literary form of it, not even touching on the spiritual power of it.

Previously in the chapter in from 2 Kings, Elisha resurrects a small boy. But once again what is great is the contrast when Jesus does it. Elisha sends his servant with Elisha’s staff in hand. Elisha tells him to touch the boy on the head with it, but the servant comes back without success. So Elisha goes to the boy, and he ends up having to work pretty hard to revive that boy—he lays on top of the kid, walks around a while, then lays on him again. Jesus, by a huge contrast, simply speaks and it is done. He tells one child to just wake up, another time he isn’t even there and heals a boy.

I’m sure that I’m not the first person to see this. It is pretty obvious. But it seems strange that I don’t ever remember learning about this connection in all my years of sermons and sunday school lessons. My initial response would be to say that it is a result of the modern church’s failure to understand the Judaic message of Christ. {This sounds very offensive, and could easily offend some. I would understand, I am rather offended at myself for it. } It seems that many who teach from the Old Testament simply use it as a reference tool not as part of an integrated whole—in the sense of being one story, one covenant, one redemption. It is like God’s redemption will have to happen again for the Jews, as if they will need their own redemption story.

Katherine Grieb is right to point, early on in her book The Story of Romans, that Paul is very clear is expressing how Jesus is the fulfillment of the covenant with Israel; it is not like God was making a new covenant because the old one didn’t ‘work out’ like He expected.