Text – 1 Kings 19:1-8
Focus Text: verse 7
Theme: Journey is too great for you
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elijah – what an incredible man. Elijah is just one of those men of the Bible that really is an example of men among boys. Think of all of the amazing things Elijah did in his ministry. Elijah was the one who prayed and made it stop raining for three years. Elijah is the one who challenged the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel and after he wins the challenge by proving his God is real, he slaughters 450 prophets of Baal. Elijah is the one who will eventually be taken to heaven in a chariot of fire while Elisha, his predecessor, watches. Elijah is the man. In fact, Elijah is even mentioned several times in the New Testament. When Jesus is asking His disciples who people say He is, Elijah is one of the answers. And of course, when Jesus cries out from the cross one of the seven times, the religious leaders think he is calling out for Elijah and watch to see if Elijah will actually come. If you have ever had the opportunity to be a part of a legitimate Seder dinner, the dinner Jewish people still celebrate on the night of the Passover, it always ends with the youngest child at the table going to the front door of the house to see if Elijah has come. And when Elijah is not at the front door, they say, hopefully next year He will come. They are waiting each year for Elijah to come back for them. Elijah is a major figure not only in the Old Testament, but throughout the entire Biblical narrative. Elijah is the man. Personally when I compare myself to Elijah, I feel pretty worthless.
This morning Elijah is the main character of our reading from 1 Kings Chapter 19. This narrative comes right after the Mt. Carmel scene where God used Elijah to prove He is the one and only true God and that Baal is nothing but a worthless idol. Elijah not only wins the challenge but does indeed slaughter, massacre 450 men, 450 prophets of the false god Baal. Now King Ahab tells his evil wife Jezebel what Elijah has done. Jezebel who is always causing trouble for the prophets of the Lord, tells Elijah she is going to kill him since he killed the prophets of Baal. So Elijah flees for his life. Now this is not the first time Elijah flees for his life, nor is it the first time God directly intervenes to provide for Elijah as he is fleeing. Every time Elijah flees for his own safety, God always provides the food and water he needs. God has used ravens and widows to provide for Elijah. However, this time he sends the angel of the Lord to bring Elijah food and water. Elijah wakes up to bread and water and the angel of the Lord telling him to arise and eat. Then the second time Elijah wakes up to bread and water and the angel of the Lord speaking to him is what I really want to focus in on today. I want to focus in on this specific detail of the story because what the angel of the Lord says to Elijah the second time really struck me as interesting.
The angel of the Lord not only says, arise and eat this time, he also says, “for the journey is too great for you.” This is Elijah we’re talking about, the men among boys, the prophet of prophets. The journey is too great for him on his own, so God directly intervenes, sends His angel, feeds Elijah, and gives him the strength to make it to Horeb. And yet when we look at verse 4 of this very same passage, we see Elijah giving up, asking God to take his life. Elijah, compares himself his fathers, basically saying, “I am no better than anyone else who has lived, I am no better than any other sinner.” Elijah, the major figure in the Old Testament, feels worthless, like he has done nothing right and is asking God to just take him away. Now, I am no Elijah, but I have felt this way before. I have felt so worthless, so helpless, like no matter what I do it is not right anyway so I might as well give up. Have you felt this way? Have you ever felt helpless, hopeless, worthless, and just wanted to give up? Have you ever been at such a low point that you actually asked God to take your life away and just end it all?
I imagine most of us have. But whether you have experienced this or not, look at what God does and says to Elijah in that very moment. When Elijah is at his lowest, God directly intervenes and comes to him through the angel of the Lord. He feeds Elijah, gives him water to drink, not just once, but twice. And this is when God speaking through His angel tells Elijah, Arise and eat for the journey is too great for you. God knows what Elijah is thinking, He knows what Elijah is going through and He knows the journey is too great for Elijah to do this on his own.
Now you could take this extremely literally and say the forty miles to Horeb is too great for Elijah, but I believe God is speaking even more broadly and saying, I know this journey through life is too great for you. And I believe God says this to all of us in our times of doubt, our low moments. All those times where we too, just like Elijah fleeing for his life felt helpless, hopeless, and worthless. In our struggles, our failures, our low points, God comes directly intervening for us too and tells us, The journey is too great for you.
We live in a sinful, stressful, depressing world that constantly seems to be trying to break us. Watch five minutes of any news channel and you immediately are reminded of how sick, twisted, and corrupt our world is. Random shootings and acts of senseless violence, more laws making direct sin against God legal in our country, Planned Parenthood not only killing babies, but now chopping them up to make money off of them. And with all of the evil and corruption that is constantly happening all around us, it becomes too real for us when it begins to affect our lives. When life seems to be stacked against us and everything is falling apart right around us. These are the moments when we really feel like Elijah here. This is when the journey of life is too great for us. Because you see it’s not that the journey through life is impossible, but to remain faithful through that journey is the difficult part. There are a lot of atheists that make a great life for themselves. In fact sometimes it seems like the unfaithful, the ones who have nothing to do with church or God are the only ones who don’t have struggles in this life. But when God says the journey is too great for you, He means the journey of remaining faithful to Him in the struggles of life is too great for you. To face trials, temptation, hardships, and struggles and still through them all fear, love, and trust in God above all things is the part that is too great for us.
When life throws its darkest, toughest moments at us – this is when we feel helpless, hopeless, and worthless like Elijah. This is when we ask God to just end it, take us away, make the pain, the loneliness, the suffering end. When your husband or wife is diagnosed with cancer and you watch him or her go through the suffering of chemo knowing there is nothing you can do to help him or her. When a teenager is killed or dies un-expectantly and you can’t understand why so much of his or her life will never happen now. When you lose a child at birth and can barely bear the pain of holding your precious child that you will not get to watch grow up. When these dark, horrible, tragic, unexplainable, terrifying effects of sin, death, and evil rear their ugly face in your life, the journey of a faithful life becomes too great for us and we just want it to end rather than continuing to feel the pain, the doubts, the helplessness, and the hopelessness. The journey is too great for us and we give up.
However, God knows the journey is too great for us. Just as He heard Elijah’s prayer of doubt, prayer of despair, He hears our prayers. He hears our moans, our shouts of anger, our sighs of disbelief, our prayers of despair. And just as He took direct action, directly intervening in his life, feeding him to give him the strength to arise, to eat, and to continue on his way, God comes to us in those dark, suffering moments. He feeds us, gives us the strength to arise, to eat, and to continue on our journey of faith through this life. Last Sunday Pastor Ludwig gave us a great sermon on Jesus as the bread of life that is far better than any earthly bread. This morning’s Gospel lesson was again on John 6 and Jesus as the bread of life. God comes to us when we are weak, struggling, doubting, and gives us our bread of life, His very own Son Jesus Christ and tells us arise and eat. When we are weak and want to quit, God comes to us and gives us the strength of His Son, the bread of life. He knew this journey through life would be too great for us, He knew we could not make it faithfully to the end if we had only ourselves to depend on. This is why He directly intervened by sending His Son to be born in this world, make it faithfully through His journey in this life, only to be killed on the cross and rise again to new life. Jesus has conquered sin, life, and evil and now offers us His strength to remain in the faith He gives to us, and to forgive us for all those times we are too weak to remain faithful. God directed intervened to send His Son to be the Savior of the world, to be the bread of life so that now in all those times of weakness, struggles, trials and temptations, in the moments of helplessness and hopelessness, God who knows the struggles we are going through, God who knows the journey is too great for us gives us His strength in His Son, who is the bread of life. God directly intervenes in your life, telling you to arise and eat and gives you the strength you need to continue on your journey.
He comes to you in His word as you hear the Holy Scriptures read aloud here at church or when you read your Bible at home. He comes to you through the gift of your baptism which is still constantly working in you as the Holy Spirit lives in you and works to continually make you holy. He comes to you in the words of absolution that as they are spoken over you, your sins are truly forgiven and you are given a fresh clean slate and renewed faith to continue on in your journey. He comes to you through brothers and sisters in Christ who encourage you in your faith, who help bear the burden as they cry with you when you cry and empathize with your pain. And He comes to you in His very own body and blood, assuring you your sins are forgiven, renewing your faith that He really is with you, and giving you the strength you need for the next part of the journey. God loves you so very much and wants nothing other than to see you make it through this journey of life in the faith He has given you, that He continues to come to you over and over again, giving you the strength you need, giving you the Bread of Life, His Son, our Lord Jesus, because He knows life is difficult and that the journey is too great for you, so He gives you the strength you need, He gives you the assurance that He is with you, and He gives you the ability to make it to the end of the journey where He will be to welcome you into His loving arms. The journey would be too great for you if you were alone. But you are not alone because God loves you and is with you. Let Him come to you in His gifts of His Word, His forgiveness, His mercy, His grace and His love. Come receive His strength through the Bread of life, Jesus’ body and blood. And then continue on your journey of life knowing God is with you at all times, he loves you and gives you His strength to remain faithful until the end. In Jesus name, Amen.
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