The Tassel of His Garment

When my mother died, I kept her purse, a thing she was rarely without even after an enfeebling stroke. Somehow that cheap vinyl bag was part of her identity, an object that held memory and affirmed her.

I have her driver’s license, which somewhat horrifies me as I think she could have driven a car legally, even in her debilitated years when her eyes were fixed only on my dad, her Bible and her purse.

She recognized her cat, too, but that was about it.

When my dad died, I kept his driver’s license, too. We had asked him not to drive anymore after I had driven behind him once, watching him weave in and out of traffic. He acquiesced, however reluctantly.

He kept his driver’s license, though, because it was a way to prove his identity at the doctor’s office, the pharmacy, at the airport.

Identity.

It seems strange to me that a little plastic card proves who I am—that a government-issued ID gains entry, acquires discounts, allows me to work.

The 21st century identity is a piece of plastic.

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In the Ancient Middle East, blood covenants were common, the purpose of which was to establish between two individuals an agreement to swear fidelity to one another.

The pledging of the blood covenant consisted of specific steps, the first of which—and perhaps the most personal—was that these two individuals exchanged mantles.

A man’s mantle signified his identity; to exchange this article was to exchange identities, to pledge an oath to bond fully with the other covenant maker.

The mantle was an intimate article: it represented warmth, protection from heat, wind or rain. Many people had only one mantle and, unlike modern clothing, this single garment was a part of routine life.

A prophet’s mantle had even more significance. Elijah was known for his: he wore a very hairy skin which he bound at his waist by a leather belt. His mantle distinguished him; everyone knew Elijah when he appeared.

In a most distressing period of his life, sustained by the food the Angel of the Lord had given him, Elijah followed the Angel’s directions to traverse 40 days and nights, eventually arriving almost 200 miles away at a powdery unremarkable desert known as “the desert of the lost.”

This was Horeb, the Mountain of God, also believed to be Mount Sinai where Moses had been given the commandments to govern human behavior.

Once he reached Horeb’s cliffs, the climb was steep: in The Books of Kings, Cyril Barber says God brought Elijah, so tired and discouraged, to the mountain cave “to honor His servant by giving him a revelation of His power and awesomeness similar to that He had given Moses.”

If Elijah climbed this mountain in the afternoon, Barber says the “red granite walls” of Horeb would be like “climbing a mountain that was on fire,” lit by the sun’s glow. Fire imagery is often associated with God in the Old Testament and the Holy Spirit in the New Testament; to Elijah, this scene would have been both visually and spiritually inspiring.

Elijah reached the cave (the article the is in the original Hebrew text) to which God had directed him; the cave at the peak of the mountain is believed to be the same in which God had spoken to Moses six centuries earlier.

Exhausted from his trials, Elijah waited for the Lord’s word to come upon him.

Knowing the answer perfectly well, God asked Elijah, “Why are you here?”

The prophet answered, voicing his despair at his own inadequacy.

“Stand before me on the mountain,” God says.

And so the God of the elements passed by Elijah, first in a fierce wind, then in an earthquake and next a fire.

But Yahweh (who controls the winds and rains and all of nature) was not in the wind or the earthquake or the fire.

Instead He spoke in the sound of a gentle wind; at that moment Elijah dropped to his knees because he knew he was in the presence of God.

No man can look on God and live, so Elijah wrapped himself in his mantle and covered his face; encouraging introspection, Yahweh repeated the question to which Elijah offered the same answer.

A new mission was what the weary prophet needed and so God said, “Go. Anoint two future kings but also name your successor.”

Elijah needed a companion, and that need was fulfilled in the loyal young Elisha; Elijah found him working in his parents’ fields and wordlessly threw his hairy mantle over the young man’s shoulders, clearly anointing Elisha as his successor.

Thus Elijah’s ministry entered a newly productive phase and Elisha handed his mantle back for a time; both men spent the next ten years building a coalition of schools for hundreds of spiritual leaders to stand in the gap for the people of Israel in a dark and decimated nation.

(In truth, who wants to be a prophet, either foreteller or truth teller? What good news does a prophet bring?)

I am always a bit puzzled by the amount of detail the Bible includes in certain stories; the exquisite records of the lives of both Elijah and Elisha are especially eloquent.

When finally it was time for Elijah to depart, the young prophets all seemed to know, including Elisha, who did not want to hear it, saying “be quiet” to anyone who mentioned his mentor’s departure.

Perhaps to prepare the onlookers that Elisha was indeed anointed by God, Elijah performed one more miracle by using his mantle to part the waters of the Jordan River so he and Elisha could cross on dry land.

And then.

Was there ever an exit as dramatic as Elijah’s?

As Elijah and Elisha stood together, God clearly divided mentor and student as a fiery chariot and horses of fire “separated between the two of them” and swept Elijah into the storm, away.

And Elijah, whose mantle had fallen to the ground, was gone.

Elisha picked up the hairy mantle that for years had covered Elijah in his loneliness and deprivation, the mantle through which God had performed miracles, the mantle that had seen God as Elijah had covered his face with it in fear.

Elisha did not want Elijah to leave, moaning his farewell of “My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and its horsemen!” as his spiritual father disappeared into the clouds.

Yet Elijah’s power, his identity had passed through the mantle, so when Elisha struck the water of the Jordan River and called to God, mournfully and perhaps uncertainly, “Where are you, Yahweh?” the River parted, just as it had for Elijah.

Elisha too passed that day on dry ground, while the students watching across the Jordan River exclaimed joyously, “The spirit of Elijah rests upon Elisha!”

Do you believe this happened?

Have we not seen strange things in our time?

Will we not see more?

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In Numbers 15, God instructed Moses to tell the Hebrew men to attach tassels (tsitsith now called tzitzit) to each of the four corners of their mantles, their identities.

In this way, God reminded the wearer to stay faithful to the Word of God. God’s identity was always with them, no matter which way they turned.

To touch the hem of a garment, especially the tassels, was to touch the identity of the person wearing it.

This is why David regretted cutting the tassel from King Saul’s garment; this is why Ruth begged Boaz to cover her with the corner of his garment.

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The woman had been sick a long time with an issue of blood.

This made her ritually unclean, the Scripture records. For twelve years, physicians not only did not help her but also took all she had.

She did not want to disturb Jesus, certainly not to taint Him with her ritual impurity.

She just wanted to be healed.

“If I can just touch the tassel of his garment,” she thought, because all who touched it were made whole, “I too will be whole.”

Jesus knew this, for He said, “Who touched (Hebrew haptomai meaning to start a fire) me?”

Her faith, He said, in His identity had made her whole.

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I cannot stop the leaves from falling, or the lines from forming on my face or the planet from spinning out of control with rage.

Having been raised in the church, I confess I am at times somewhat cynical.

But I have concluded this one thing: Blaize Pascal was right.

In every one of us exists an infinite abyss that will fill itself with something, and our behavior is reflected in whatever fills that space.

Jesus.

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God is a God of order and balance.

Everything in the Old Covenant—every word, every number, every story—is part of a gorgeous cloth woven of scarlet, blue and purple that is sewn into a robe in the New Covenant that signifies royalty.

To read the Word is to touch the tassel of His garment, this garment that is His identity. *********** **River Jordan, Israel Painting by John R. Bergman c. 1980