Brothers and sisters, our text this evening is a piece of light comedy in which nobody gets hurt and everybody gets a good laugh at the expense of two royal fools, a hapless army, and a servant who can’t see what his master sees. Contrast it, if you would, with the dark and heavy comedy of the next bit of text, where famine stalks the land, children are eaten, and destruction seems imminent. Yet both texts are actually comic, in terms of the deep structure of what that genre means. Comedy is quite simply a story which begins in pain and ends in joy. The believer’s life, therefore, is comic, while the unbeliever’s life is tragic. The books of Kings as a whole are a tragedy. They begin with joy in the reign of Solomon, but end with sorrow and disaster as God’s people go into exile. Yet within that larger narrative of tragedy the author has incorporated many comic incidents in which things go wrong but then go right again. Even at the book’s end, where tragedy predominates and the corpse of a nation lies on the stage, a note of hope is heard when the narrator concludes by telling us about the lifting up of Jehoiachin’s head. And of course, the Bible as a whole is a work of comedy, for though it begins in joy it quickly descends into pain and stays there until the coming of the New Jerusalem. We’ve recently talked about all of that in our morning sermons. For now, though, I want you to see the divine comedy of our text tonight. God surrounds His prophet and His people with protection. Trust Him on that.
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Caleb Nelson grew up in Ft. Collins, CO. Born into a Christian home, where he eventually became the eldest of 11 children, he has been a lifelong Presbyterian. He professed faith at the age of six, and was homeschooled through high school. He then attended Patrick Henry College...
