Jim Gill June 10, 2007
“Sequels”
I Kings 17:8-24 Luke 7:11
INTRODUCTION
Sequels. Summer is a time for sequels…..Spiderman 3, Shrek the Third, Oceans13, (which is really a 3rd sequel because it started with Oceans 11). Apparently, producers now think that lightening can strike 3 times. Well I’ve seen Spidey 3 and Shrek the Third and frankly it makes me not want to even go either Oceans 13 or to The World’s End.
As I were reading through the Bible in 90 days from time to time I was struck at the number of times that Jesus did something that had been done before. The fact is, movie producers didn’t invent sequels, Jesus did. The only difference is that when it comes to movies, for the most part the sequels aren’t better than the original. But when Jesus does a sequel it’s way better.
Jesus was intentional about fulfilling prophecy. Throughout his ministry he was careful to be at the right place at the right time so that one day it would be written, “and so he fulfilled the words of the prophet…” He was fulfilling prophecy even before he was born by being born in Bethlehem.
Not only was Jesus was intentional about fulfilling prophecies that were spoken by the prophets about him. He went about doing things that the prophets before him had done.
The life of Elijah is filled with fascinating stories that in many ways foreshadowed what Jesus would come to do. This morning we’re going to read about two incidents in Elijah’s life. Hear the word of God from I Kings 17:17-24.
Have you seen the latest commercials for windex? In the old days Windex just had a slogan, “gets glass so clean it seems to disappear.” In the 21st century a slogan isn’t enough. In the 21st century we have talking geckos and cavemen. So Windex has talking crows. In our century’s Windex commercial, there are two ravens high on a tree limb on the lookout waiting for the man to walk into the glass patio door? One says, “Look here he comes again,” and the man crashes into the patio door, and slides down into a pile of person on the floor. The ravens crack up and the wife uses Windex to clean the glass again…so the husband can once again run into the glass that is so clean that it seems to disappear.
In a nation whose laws required its citizens to provide for the prophets, God used ravens. Ravens are known to be saucy, impudent, and noted for their thievery and dirty lifestyle. Ravens live off dead carcasses and steal food stored up by other birds and animals. They have no respect for any living creature. They are noisy and among the messiest of all the birds. Even people who like birds don’t like ravens. (Maybe it’s because all they ever say is nevermore).
Yet, God used ravens to feed Elijah. In our world people put out bird feeders, but in Elijah’s world, birds became prophet feeders. (I’m not going to go into how birds feed their young.)
God has a sense of humor. Over and over again God does the outrageous. God creates out of nothing. Outrageous! There wasn’t such a thing as a universe kit that had directions on the side of the box that said, “just add water. Outrageous.
When what God has created had gotten so bad God called a man named Noah to build a huge boat and start a 2x2 zoo. This was before anyone had ever even seen rain before. Outrageous!
God called 100 year old man and his 100 year old wife to start a family and promises that that man will be the father of many nations. Outrageous.
God called Samuel to anoint the runt of the family to be the next King of Israel.
God called Elijah to be a prophet, tells Elijah to pray for it not to rain and it doesn’t and then God makes his prophet eat like a bird from the beaks of birds. Outrageous!
But then the day came when even the ravens couldn’t find food. So God decided to do something outrageous again. God commanded a widow, which in that culture was one of the most helpless individuals on earth, to feed Elijah. God went from the most despised bird to the most socially despised person to be the source of Elijah’s provision. Widows were despised and destitute because in their patriarchal society, the husband was the sole provider and if a woman has no husband, she had no income.
So as directed by the Lord, Elijah, a Jewish prophet, walks into a Gentile town in the middle of a drought and comes from having to depend on ravens for his next meal to having to depend on a woman with no source of income. This woman is a widow, but not just any widow. She is a widow from the home territory of Jezebel the very woman against whose immoral lifestyle Elijah had been preaching. This widow is from the territory that has been the problem that has caused God to command Elijah to pray that it wouldn’t raid so that a drought would come as a punishment for the actions of Jezebel. Someone from the source of the problem is about to be a part of the solution! Outrageous.
Sometimes, God demonstrates his Lordship by providing for his people in ways that they might never expect. He uses things and people we might never dream of finding useful. Always remember, no matter how deep your troubles, how bitter your trials, or how great your needs, God will provide for you, perhaps in ways that you can’t even imagine. Faith is not measured by how we live in prosperity but by how we honor God in adversity. As St. Paul wrote in his letter to the church a Philippi, “My God will fully satisfy every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).
This widow was at the end of her rope. She was down to her last straw and it was about to break the camel’s back. She was about to prepare her last meal. But at Elijah’s instructions she prepares it and gives it away. What’s she got to lose? She’s a gambler.
Her gamble pays off. Not only is Elijah able to survive, but she and her son are able to eat many days from the little meal and oil she had left. Because she was willing to let go she and her son wound up on the receiving end of a miracle.
Yet, even though she experienced the miraculous provision of Elijah’s God, when he son became ill to the point of death that she immediately blamed the very God that had kept her from dying months before. She sounds like the Israelites who complained to Moses when they hit a snag in the desert. When her son falls ill and is not breathing she says, “What have I to do with you O Man of God? You have come to me to ring my iniquity to remembrance and to put my son to death?”
Elijah responded to her challenge and took her son upstairs to an upper room, cried out to his God, stretched himself on top of the boy 3 times and his life came back into him. What was the widow’s response?
“Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth”. She still hasn’t claimed Elijah’s God as her own, but she’s getting closer.
Scripture teaches us that God has a special interest in widows. Psalm 68:5 says, “Protector of widows is God in his holy habitation.” James 1:27 says, ”This is pure and undefiled religion, to visit orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”
Jesus cared for widows. In Matthew 23:14 he railed against the religious officials that, “devoured widows houses.” In Mark 12:43, Jesus commended a widow who put in the smallest of coins into the offering yet her offering was great because she gave all she had. And in chapter 7 of Luke’s gospel we find a story of Jesus also having compassion on a widow whose son had also died. Hear the gospel of our Lord from Luke 7:11-17.
Talk about one-ups-man-ship! Jesus made a habit of going beyond what had been done before. Jesus was well aware of the ministry of Elijah and of the story of his raising the son of the widow of Zarephath. Elijah raised a widow’s son hours after the son had died. Jesus raises the son of the widow of Nain was dead and on the way to the cemetery. It was a copycat miracle!
Sometime before, we don't know how long, this widow had stood by the grave of her husband and now the lifeless body of her only son was being carried out of the city. Only a widowed parent can know the grief that poor woman was feeling. As with any of the deep things of life, we cannot put her feelings into words, but we can appreciate her unutterable grief. No parent wants to live long enough to bury a son or daughter. The circumstances for something wonderful happening could not have been more forbidding. And that is what makes what did happen all the more wonderful.
The widow of Zarephath was blinded from her blessings because she was focused on her lack. She was ready to cook her last meal and die. The widow of Nain was besieged by her grief. She didn’t have a prophet to which she could cry out or blame. But in Jesus there was one even greater than Elijah.
In tough times it is easy to become distracted by what we don’t have and miss what we do have. The truth is, however, that people who attach their future to what they can see never go very far. When we attach our future to what God sees, we can go on forever.
There are times when our own resources are diminished. There are times when our strength is spent. There are times when all of the marvelous things which we know count for nothing. We are out of ideas. We are involuntarily disarmed, physically and mentally immobilized. The odds are against us and we are vulnerable on every side. There is no way we can overcome a hopeless situation. But God can.
Perhaps, even now, you are thinking of some situation in your life which you wish you had control over, but you cannot get hold of it. There is some decision which you cannot resolve. There is something you want to change for the better but you cannot. You are under the spiritual conviction that God has a plan for your life but you cannot bring it into focus? You are down to your last straw and it’s about to break the camel’s back.
When you find yourself feeling like that, remember the widows. Both of these widows had not only lost their only source of income in the deaths of their husbands, now they had lost hope of future income when their sons could come of age and begin to provide for them. They were hopeless causes. But God intercepts hopeless causes. God brings hope where there is none. With God, no cause is hopeless.
God has drawn us here to give us hope. No matter what we are facing it is hard to imagine a harder one than a widow who has lost a son. Whether it’s a matter of hours… or on the way to the cemetery God can still step in. And if God does not, then there’s always the hope of what happens on the way out of the cemetery. There is hope for life beyond that far outshines the most miraculous interventions or provisions we can imagine. For in Jesus, God has provided not only miraculous resuscitations, but the hope of resurrection.
Friday night I got a call from my mom. Once a month their Seniors group, called the Prime Timers, has a covered dish lunch and a program. My mom called me because their program had to cancel. She wondered if I could come and do a little something. My little something was to take a song sheet of those old gospel hymns and lead them in singing them for an hour or so. As we sang those old songs I was struck by the last verses. The last verses of every one of those songs, “When the Roll is Called up Yonder,” and “In the Sweet By and By,” “I’ll Fly Away,” talk about going to heaven. Those songs were written in a time when mortality was high. They were written in a time when you had as many children as you could because not all of them would live to adulthood. Those songs were written before modern medicine had replaced their fear with the expectation that through the miracle of drugs most everyone would live to see their 80’s at the very least.
But as we sang those last verses I was struck that we have a hope that is even greater than living to be 80. We have a hope that God provides even better than raven or widow caterers. We have a hope that sustains us even beyond what happens when Elijah doesn’t bring us down from the upper room and Jesus doesn’t interrupt our procession on the way to the cemetery. We have a hope that exceeds the expectations of any dramatization we could concoct and put on the silver screen. We have a hope of a life that will be even beyond “The World’s End.” We have a hope of a life that will be …..the greatest of sequels. .
Let pray. Lord of life and Conqueror of death, we do not expect you to give us the power to raise the dead, but you can share your compassion with us, so that our hearts go out to the bereaved. Use us by our presence, by our words of hope, and our gestures of helpfulness, to ease their sorrow, in your name. Unchanging God, Man of sorrows and joy, Life-giving Spirit, we rejoice that in your favor there is life. Tears may linger until nightfall, but joy comes in the morning. When you turn your face from us we are filled with dismay, but when in Christ you smile upon us we are clothed with joy. We strip off the sackcloth of despair and put on baptismal robes of righteousness and everlasting life.
Fill us with hope when things look hopeless. Teach us to trust you enough to give away the last of what we have. Surprise us by joining us in our grief and demonstrating your power over death and despair. Lift us up to believe beyond what our senses can ever tell us.
Hear us now as we lift the prayers of the people.
Amen.
