Dem bones, dem bones, dem miraculous bones

Can you point to the Scripture which relates the tale that what was contained in an ossuary brought someone back to life? That was the question with which Father Orthoduck left you all. The answer is found in 2 Kings 13:

Elisha died and was buried. … Now Moabite raiders used to enter the country every spring. Once while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a band of raiders; so they threw the man’s body into Elisha’s tomb. When the body touched Elisha’s bones, the man came to life and stood up on his feet.

Remember what Father Orthoduck told you yesterday. When they say that they were buying a man, the Bible does not mean that they were digging a hole in the ground. Rather, it meant that they were putting the man into either a mortuary cave or mausoleum-like structure so that the body might decay and the bones might be gathered later and placed with the bones of the man’s other ancestors. When the men saw the raiders coming, they threw the body into the nearest easily accessible mausoleum. Since Elisha was a prophet beloved by the King at that time, it is quite likely that it was an easily found imposing structure. And, several years must have passed because Elisha had decayed down to bones, but had not yet been gathered to his ancestors. It was here were the Israelites suffered a rude shock. The man whose body touched Elisha’s bones was resurrected!

But, there is another Scripture to which Father Orthoduck wants to lead you in order to make a point. It is from 2 Samuel 6:

David again brought together all the able young men of Israel—thirty thousand. He and all his men went to Baalah in Judah to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the Name, the name of the LORD Almighty, who is enthroned between the cherubim on the ark. They set the ark of God on a new cart and brought it from the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, sons of Abinadab, were guiding the new cart with the ark of God on it, and Ahio was walking in front of it. David and all Israel were celebrating with all their might before the LORD, with castanets, harps, lyres, timbrels, sistrums and cymbals.

When they came to the threshing floor of Nakon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled. The LORD’s anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down, and he died there beside the ark of God.

Notice a similarity between the two occurrences. Both the Ark of the Covenant and Elisha’s bones are holy. And, in neither Scripture does it mean merely “set apart”  for the Lord. Holy in both cases means that they are blessed of God in such a way that even without any faith both the bones and the Ark were able to affect those who touched them. While preachers love to argue that God struck Uzzah down directly in order to teach obedience to the decree that no one could touch the ark, in the case of Elisha’s bones, there is no such lesson to be taught. In fact, the lesson seems to be that the bones of holy people can become powerful relics!

The stronger lesson seems to be that the claim made by many Protestants, that holy only means set apart, and that God is only blessing obedience, but that a holy object is not, in and of itself, a vehicle of God’s grace and power, is not a Scriptural claim. In fact, the New Testament echoes the same viewpoint as Elisha’s bones when one reads in the Book of Acts about Saint Peter’s shadow healing people and Saint Paul’s blessed cloths also healing people. But, there is also a parallel claim to the Ark of the Covenant episode found in the New Testament:

So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. But if we were more discerning with regard to ourselves, we would not come under such judgment.

Notice that Saint Paul’s expectation in 1 Corinthians 11 is that the bread and wine after consecration are so powerful that, just like in Uzzah’s case, some who partook unworthily have “fallen asleep.” In other words the Body and Blood of Christ, just like the Ark of the Covenant, is holy and powerful, whether or not you are exercising faith at the time you partake of it. This passage is the parallel of the Ark of the Covenant passage.

What does this mean for us Orthodox and our practices?

===MORE TO COME ===