A Promised Son

On a flat rooftop in a small village, a woman stands looking at a little room she has just had built. A bed. A table. A stool. A lamp. Everything a travelling guest might need. She smiles. It's ready.

This story takes place in the northern kingdom of Israel, in the days of the prophet Elisha, who followed the great prophet Elijah. Elisha travelled up and down the land, teaching, helping and warning. One of his regular routes took him through Shunem, a village in the fertile Jezreel valley, below the hill of Moreh. In Shunem lived a woman the Bible calls a great woman, meaning she was wealthy and respected. We never learn her name. But we learn a great deal about her heart.

One day, as Elisha passes through Shunem, this woman urges him to come in and eat. After that, whenever he comes by, he stops at her house for a meal. Then she says to her husband: I can see that this man who passes by our house so often is a holy man of God. Let's make him a little room on the roof, with a bed, a table, a chair and a lamp. Then whenever he comes, he can stay there. Notice what she does not do. She does not wait to be asked. She sees a need, and she quietly makes room. So the next time Elisha comes to Shunem, there is a room waiting for him.

Elisha is resting in the little room, and he says to his servant Gehazi, call this Shunammite woman. She comes and stands at the door. Elisha says through Gehazi: you have gone to all this trouble for us. What can we do for you? Can we speak on your behalf to the king, or to the commander of the army? She answers simply, “I dwell among mine own people.” I'm content, she means. I have my people around me. I don't need favours. When she leaves, Elisha asks Gehazi, what then can be done for her? Gehazi has noticed something. She has no son, he says, and her husband is old.

Call her back, says Elisha. She comes and stands in the doorway. About this time next year, he tells her, you will hold a son in your arms. The woman can hardly bear to hear it. No, my lord, she says. Man of God, don't lie to your servant. Don't raise my hopes. Perhaps she had stopped hoping long ago, because hoping hurt too much. But God's word through Elisha comes true. The woman conceives, and about that time the following year, just as Elisha had said, she gives birth to a son. The woman who asked for nothing received the very thing she had not dared to ask.

Houses in ancient Israel usually had flat roofs, reached by an outside stair or ladder. The roof was useful space: people dried crops there, slept there on hot nights, and sometimes built a small upper room. Archaeologists studying Israelite houses have found evidence that many had a second storey. An upper room like the one the Shunammite built gave a guest privacy, cool evening air and a place of his own, without crowding the family below.

You'll find this story in Second Kings chapter four, verses eight to seventeen. Like Sarah, Hannah and Elizabeth, this woman heard a promise she could hardly believe. And at Christmas, we remember another family who looked for room, and found none in the guest room. So here is a question to carry with you. The Shunammite woman made room for God's servant before anyone asked. How could you make room for God, or for someone in need, this week?