We Have Good News

Four men in rags creep through the dusk toward an enemy army. They are not soldiers. They are not brave. They are just very, very hungry, and they have decided they have nothing left to lose.

The city of Samaria, capital of the northern kingdom of Israel, is surrounded. The army of Aram, from Damascus in the north, has camped all around it, and no food can get in. The siege has gone on so long that people are paying a fortune for scraps. The prophet Elisha has made a surprising promise: by this time tomorrow, food will be cheap again in Samaria's gate. A royal officer laughed at him. Even if God opened windows in heaven, could that happen? Now, outside the city gate, sit four men with leprosy, a skin disease that, by law, meant they had to live apart from everyone else. They are shut out of the city and starving.

The four men talk it over. “Why do we sit here until we die? If we say we will enter the city, the famine is there and we will die. If we sit here, we will die too. So come, let us go over to the camp of the Arameans. If they spare us, we will live. If they kill us, we only die.” It is not much of a plan. But at twilight they get up and walk toward the enemy camp. They reach the edge of it. And there is no one there. Not a single soldier.

Here is what had happened. The Lord had made the Aramean army hear a sound: chariots, horses, the noise of a great army. They said to each other, the king of Israel has hired the kings of the Hittites and the Egyptians to attack us! And in the twilight they ran for their lives. They left their tents, their horses and their donkeys, the whole camp just as it was. So the four men walk into a tent and find food. They eat and drink. They pick up silver and gold and clothing and hide it. They go into another tent and take more. It is like waking up in a dream.

Then one of them stops. And they look at each other. “We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news, and we are keeping silent. If we wait till morning light, punishment will overtake us. Now come, let us go and tell the king's household.” So, in the dark, they go back to the city and call up to the gatekeepers. We went to the Aramean camp, and there is nobody there. Only horses tied up, and donkeys, and the tents as they were. The king suspects a trap, so scouts are sent out. They follow a trail of dropped clothes and equipment all the way to the Jordan river. It is true. The people pour out and plunder the camp, and food becomes cheap in Samaria's gate, exactly as Elisha had said.

Why were the four men outside the gate in the first place? The law of Moses said that a person with a serious skin disease must live alone, outside the camp, until healed. Leviticus calls it living apart. So the first people in Samaria to hear the good news were the very people the city had shut out.

We have good news. You can read it in Second Kings chapter seven, verses three to sixteen. Four outcasts found more than enough and could not keep it to themselves. Centuries later, the first people to hear the good news of Jesus' birth were shepherds out in the fields at night, and they could not keep quiet either. So here is a question to carry with you. The four men said: this is a day of good news, and we are keeping quiet. What good news could you share this Christmas?