Our prophets of focus this Sunday are Elijah, and Elisha, as one passes on the mantle of prophet to the other, in the story that (I think) actually gives us that expression: 2 Kings 2:1-2,6-14.

It's a three act narrative as we receive it.  In the first act there seems to be a battle of wills between Elijah and Elisha, between the master and the apprentice. Elijah tries to shake Elisha off - perhaps wanting to protect him from seeing him taken to heaven, and sparing him the direct experience of the loss of a friend and mentor; but Elisha stubbornly sticks around.  He will simply not be left behind.  Three times Elijah tells Elisha to stay behind, three times Elisha refuses (we only get two of them in our reading because of the jump from verse 2 to 6).

In the second act, Elijah seems to give up, resigned to his apprentice's company, he leads him out across the Jordan river (parting it to the left and the right, so they can cross on dry land), back out of 'The Promised Land' into the wilderness of the Exodus, and it's there that Elijah is taken up into heaven in a whirlwind of fire, and Elisha cries out with... wonder? ...fear?  ....awe? 

And in the third and final act, Elisha takes up Elijah's mantle, which he'd dropped on his way up to heaven, and takes it upon himself.  Clothing himself not only in his master's coat, but in his ministry.  And with it he makes his way back through the Jordan (parting it again) to his prophetic ministry amongst his people.

There's a lot in this story - but perhaps one way to read it is as a very human narrative of change - of a moving from one authority to another, of stepping up, of becoming something newer and fuller.  In the first act we meet Elisha as a man who is stubbornly holding on to what he has, and what he knows.  He doesn't want Elijah to go - he knows that that is why he is trying to leave him behind, and he will have none of it.  So he clings.  And he clings.  And he clings.

In the second act, Elijah, seeing that there is no way he can shield his ward from the full drama of the change - and so he relents, and lets him experience the drama first hand; risking his exposure to the presence of God's power directly.  And in that moment Elisha responds, as many of us do when we don't want is happening, and there's no longer any way of avoiding it, by crying out... in wonder? ... in fear? ... in awe?

In the third act we meet Elisha trying to come to terms with what has happened.  He picks up the remnants of what was - his master's mantle, and tries to use it as he did.  He strikes the Jordan, and nothing happens - so he cries out, "Where is the LORD, the God of Elijah?" and strikes it again.  God's name carries power, and the waters part - but notice that even in this stepping into his future Elisha is holding to his past, it is the God of Elijah he still invokes...  he will need to learn to grow into his new role, his new way of being.

So change that is resisted, that is forcefully encountered, that is stepped into whilst holding on to some of the past as we find our feet in a strange new world... that's a narrative I'm sure we've all lived.

But look up for a moment from the human experience of the moment itself, and look a bit wider.  First ask, where is God's hand in all this?  The answer is over it all - from the first moment of this story, we know how it is going to end - it begins with 'Now when the LORD was about to take Elijah up to heaven...'  There is no doubt from the moment of it's beginning that God will see this through, that he is the Lord of history.  In other words, there is nothing in history, new or old, that he has not seen before, and will not see out.  The king of eternity is there always, and will be there always, and his plans will sustain and be sustained.

Now look at the setting - the movement across the Jordan river into the wilderness and back... that should be telling you this isn't the first or the last time this story is told.  It is over this river, from this wilderness, that the Hebrews settle the land.  It is through this river, into this wilderness that Jesus travels in his baptism.  And both of those experiences, too, are those of changing and becoming - moments of decision and identity that drive the story forward through history.  In other words, there is new in change.  It's happened again and again through time.  It is what history is made of.  It is normal.  It is life.  For things to stay the same?  That would be something new, a change indeed.

Finally, look at all that continuity - the repetition of place, the God who always is, the mantle that is passed, the calling out in memory of Elijah... and recognise that though Elisha is stepping into something new, it is not entirely alien and unknown.  It stands in line with what has come before, and it is even right to carry into it reminders of that fact - little touches of reassurance, anchors into the journeys we share with the past.

So where does that leave us?  For me, with the assurance that in all the confusion of day to day, in all the movements from one way of being to another, in all the discoveries about myself, others, and the world that change me, grow me and re-invent me... in all that confusion, I am not alone.  I stand in partnership, in companionship, in communion with every human being that has ever lived.  I can draw courage from the experiences of those who have come before - and can carry with me the best of what I have inherited.  And perhaps even more importantly, as I travel this road, I can do so secure in the knowledge that the God who was there before I set off will be there to meet me at the end, and be beside me all the way - unfailing, unchanging, entirely faithful.

Maybe from that I can draw the confidence to step forward every day not in fear of losing yesterday, but in the hope of discovering tomorrow.