Our Sermons

Bible Passage: 2 Kings 4:17-37
Pastor: Pastor Schlicht
Sermon Date:  March 26, 2023

Where did our optimism go? A recent study shows that 58% of Americans believe that the coming generations will have a lower quality of life than we do now. Considering all that we’ve been through in the past three years, the state of the economy, the declining levels of morality, and increased political polarization, it’s not difficult to see why people are skeptical of a better future. But what about you? Are you optimistic? I’m not just talking about the state of our country, but in general, how would you describe your attitude about life? Has the fear and fighting of our world dampened your joy a bit? Have the personal hardships you’ve endured left you pessimistic?

I think most people assume that it’s smarter to be pessimistic than optimistic. Disappointments are expected and so when they come, you can face people unembarrassed and act unsurprised. “I told you so.” It reminds me of a joke: Two men jumped off a building, one was an optimist and the other a pessimist. As they were falling the pessimist cried, “We’re as good as dead.” The optimist replied, “Well, it’s good so far!” There’s an aspect of optimism that is easy to think of as naive and foolish. 

But for a Christian, optimism is not a judgment of our present situation. It’s a concrete trust in the promise and power of God. Even when others resign, even when others see nothing good, we have the power to hold our heads high, a power to tolerate setbacks, a power that never abandons joy to circumstance. Certainly, there is a cowardly optimism that merely papers over problems and should be rejected. But, for a Christian, our joy and optimism is the health of our faith that the complaints of the world should not infect. If pessimism is a disease, Christians have immunity. There is always forgiveness, there is always a good God in control. Because there is even life for the dead! That is something we see illustrated powerfully in the woman from Shunem from 2 Kings 4.

She sat there, cuddling her little boy who says that his head hurts. She doesn’t know what is wrong, but she knows it’s serious. And what goes through her mind when his body suddenly goes limp? When she tries to wake him up but there’s no response? When she realizes that her only son is dead? Though most would have dissolved into a puddle of despair, the Shunammite woman springs into action. She goes upstairs and lays the boy on the bed of Elisha, the Man of God. You see this faithful woman liked to host the prophet Elisha at her house and had a room built just for him when he visited. So when her little boy dies, she takes him straight to the prophet’s bed, as if she were placing him into the hands of God himself. And then she runs out to her husband who is working in the fields and she asks for a servant and a donkey to take her to see Elisha who lives on Mount Carmel. Her husband asks why? He says. “It’s not the New Moon or the Sabbath.” (It’s not time for church!) And she replies with just one word. She says “shalom”, which literally means “peace”, but in context probably meant something like, “It’s all right.” She doesn’t tell him that their son is dead. She is optimistic in the truest sense. She has hope that the LORD can help even in death. So she deflects his question and tells the servant to drive non-stop to Mount Carmel, about 20 miles away. 

Would you be as optimistic as the Shunammite woman? Does your faith spring into action when suffering and hardship hit? It’s much easier to sit back in pessimistic resignation, isn’t it? Perhaps, we don’t want to be foolishly faithful. Perhaps, we have just been let down so many times, we don’t want to get our hopes up again. But, it’s sad how negative we become in much less dire situations than this. How quickly we shake our heads at this world, even though the LORD reigns over all things for the good of his church. How quickly we doubt his promises and assume that nothing good could come from a situation. How often do we ask for such little things in prayer because we lack the faith to trust God for greater things? How often do we impatiently resent the crosses he allows us to bear which are meant precisely for our spiritual good? We are Christians who live 2,000 years past the empty tomb of Easter, but sometimes we act like we’re stuck on the other side. We mope around and complain as if Christ were not risen from the dead. The apostle Paul wrote, “If only in this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.” My friends, that’s really what a pessimistic Christian becomes: pitiful. Someone who says they believe their God conquered death, but then lives as if he is powerless. That is pitiful and that is not what the world needs to see and hear from God’s people. The truth is that—without trivializing grief or hardship in the least—optimism is the only option for a Christian. 

Just like it was for that Shunammite woman. When she finally arrived at Mount Carmel, Elisha’s servant, Gehazi, asks her if everything is ok? He asks, “Are you alright? Is your husband ok? Is your son well?” And she replies again with “shalom”–”It’s all right.” Her faith refuses to answer the question. When she finally gets to Elisha, she throws aside all decorum and, clinging to his ankles, she urges him to come back with her to Shunem. Can you imagine what anxious thoughts must have accompanied her on that road? What strength of temptation to despair? And what would it have been like to get back home and watch Elisha close the door to that upper room with her son in it? What prayers did she say as she waited? Elisha soon called for her to come up and there standing before her was her little boy, as good as new, by the power of the LORD. 

Jesus himself said at the grave of Lazarus, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die.” This is the beating heart of our optimism as Christians, isn’t it? Ultimately no situation is beyond repair because our LORD gives life for the dead. Because in Jesus our sins are forgiven. Because “no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ.” How can our souls not smile when we know that Jesus has come that “we might have life, and have it to the full?” How can the joy of free salvation not overshadow the gloom of a greedy and obsessive world? We know that Jesus reigns. We know that he will come again. We know “that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” (Romans 8:18) We know that our tombstone will stand over an empty grave. What did Paul write in Philippians? “Rejoice in the Lord always, I will say it again, rejoice!” How’s that for optimism?

Or how about shalom, “It’s all right.”, like the Shunammite said. In the old King James Version it’s translated, “It is well.” You might be familiar with that phrase from a well-known hymn. The repeated refrain of  “It Is Well With My Soul,” was inspired by the Shunammite’s shalom. The man who wrote that hymn was named Horatio Spafford. He was a successful attorney and real estate investor who lost a fortune in the great Chicago fire of 1871. Around the same time, his four-year-old son died of scarlet fever. Thinking a vacation would do his family some good, he sent his wife and four daughters on a ship to England, planning to join them after he finished some business at home. However, while crossing the Atlantic, their ship was involved in a terrible collision and sunk. More than 200 people lost their lives that day, including all four of Horatio Spafford’s daughters. His wife, Anna, survived and upon arriving in England, she sent a telegram to her husband that read: “Saved alone. What shall I do?” Horatio immediately set sail for England. At one point during his voyage, the captain of the ship, aware of the tragedy that had struck the Spafford family, called Horatio to the deck and told him that they were now passing over the spot where the shipwreck had occurred, where his daughters were buried. Do you know what Horatio wrote that day: “When sorrows like sea billows roll. Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, It is well, It is well with my soul.” 

The Shunammite’s shalom was Horatio’s peace even when his children were not given back to him. Her word of deflection became his hymn of praise because Jesus Christ gives life for the dead. Because even though he didn’t receive them back on earth, he didn’t lose them. I think of another father, named Martin Luther, in his own moment of grieving for a daughter, who said, “I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.” This is our confidence in Christ! This is our hope in any situation. This is our eternal optimism. Our souls are in God’s hands. No matter what question the devil or sin brings into our life—even in the face of death itself—we can say, Shalom. “It is well with my soul.” Not as a deflection, but because it’s the truth. Amen.