The whole mantle thing is interesting. We use it like a symbol because it is a symbol of course. When we pick up the mantle of someone before us, be it Martin Luther King, Oscar Romero, Nelson Mandela etc we talk as if we take on some of them, we want to be versions of them and do a version of what they did. Little mirror images.
Hmmmmm…
Elisha was always meant to be his own person. He wasn’t ever meant to be Elijah. Continue the story, the vision, the calling, but not be him. Elisha wasn’t to be a version of Elijah. he was to be himself because the story had been passed to him, the Spirit, the word: he was to tell it, speak it, be it. It was a new era.
The mantle was a symbol, not of the person, but the Spirit of God (for mantle can be translated as spirit): the energy of God has been reborn in a new person. No clones here. And a double share? Well, yes! The echo and memory of the old invested in the anxiety and enthusiasm of the new. That is one heck of a lot of power: memory and enthusiasm. You can do a lot with that.
Hymns and songs that might inform this passage? Incidental music? How would you read the passage to make it more of an encounter with God?
Hmmmmm…
Elisha was always meant to be his own person. He wasn’t ever meant to be Elijah. Continue the story, the vision, the calling, but not be him. Elisha wasn’t to be a version of Elijah. he was to be himself because the story had been passed to him, the Spirit, the word: he was to tell it, speak it, be it. It was a new era.
The mantle was a symbol, not of the person, but the Spirit of God (for mantle can be translated as spirit): the energy of God has been reborn in a new person. No clones here. And a double share? Well, yes! The echo and memory of the old invested in the anxiety and enthusiasm of the new. That is one heck of a lot of power: memory and enthusiasm. You can do a lot with that.
Hymns and songs that might inform this passage? Incidental music? How would you read the passage to make it more of an encounter with God?
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