CHURCH
LUTHERAN
Our Savior's of Elderon
3rd after Pentecost (16) INI I Kings 17:17-24
Our Gospel lesson for today tells us about the time Jesus came to the town of Nain. As he entered the town a dead person was being carried out. He was the only son of a widow. When the Lord saw her his heart went out to her and he raised her son back to life.
In our Old Testament text for today Elijah raised the widow of Zerapath’s son back to life. These two events have a lot in common. The two persons brought back to life were only sons. The mothers of both were widows. In Zerapath God performed a miracle through his prophet, Elijah. In Nain God’s only son, Jesus Christ, performed the miracle. As a result people exclaimed: “A great prophet has appeared among us.” And: “God has come to help his people.”
These two great events and the circumstances surrounding them are much more than mere coincidence. They are related as are all God’s saving acts in both the Old and New Testaments. They point out a truth that runs like a golden thread throughout Scripture. That thread is the truth that God’s love lives, it’s alive it’s active and he wants all people to be saved.
If the human race were perfect and if it possessed all it needed for its total well-being then God’s life giving deeds wouldn’t be necessary. However, the truth of the matter is that mankind has countless physical and spiritual needs. Therefore on the bases of our text and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit today we’re going to consider:
GOD’S LOVE MEETS OUR NEEDS
First (1) let’s take a look at our needs as humans, both physical and spiritual. In the days of Elijah, the Phoenicians, along with the Israelites experienced a severe drought. With the drought came famine, a shortage of food, people went hungry. Hunger also threatened the widow of Zerapath and her son.
Zerapath is a small town on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea between Tyre and Sidon. God led Elijah to that town and to the widow. When Eljah got to Zerapath he found the widow gathering sticks to build a fire to prepare a last meal for her and her son from the handful of flour she had left. But by a miracle of God the flour in the jar and the oil in the jug never ran out. Thus all at the widow’s house, including Elijah had food to eat.
However, the miraculous solution to their food problems didn’t end the widow’s problems. The next thing she knew illness entered her home. Her son became very sick. He grew worse and worse and finally stopped breathing. Death had entered the widows house and snatched away her son just as it would the son of the widow of Nain many years later.
Death is one of the most severe afflictions that humans must endure because of the fall into sin. It lays a very heavy physical burden on us. It takes parents away and makes children orphans. It deprives a woman of her husband and makes her a widow. It reduces her to great loneliness and desperate circumstances by taking away her only son.
The widow’s loss of her son was made even more difficult because it laid a heavy spiritual burden on her as well. She lived among people who worshipped the idol called baal. The contest between Elijah and the prophets of baal made it very clear that idols cannot hear or answer people’s prayers and they certainly can’t help people with their needs. They can’t do anything for them!
False gods are only figments of people’s imaginations. They can’t give support to those who cry out to them, they can’t give any comfort, nothing. That’s why the widow of Zerapath was so upset. She had no visible or invisible means of support. This is obvious from her response to her son’s death. “What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sins and kill my son?”
She tried to connect her son’s death with Elijah’s presence in her home. She reasoned that since he was a man of God he might have come to bring down judgment on her.
At first it seems like she’s rebuking Elijah but it’s really a self-rebuke. She thought she was being punished for her sins. She had a guilt complex just like some people today do. When something went wrong in her life she looked inward to find the reason. Her conscience was suggesting to her that the loss of her son was a divine punishment for her personal failure to avoid evil and do good, a punishment for her sins.
The physical and spiritual needs within the heart and home of the widow of Zarapath is a picture of us today. We all have needs of body and soul. And when these needs aren’t met, when trials and troubles come into our lives we too often look inward, wondering what we did wrong, if we’re being punished for our sins. This is true for all Christians whether young or old, rich or poor.
It is said that after her husband, Prince Albert, died, Queen Victoria had his cloths laid out and a fresh basin of water brought to his room every day for years. She refused to accept the reality of his death.
Like the widow of Zarapath we all have spiritual needs. It’s still true that man cannot live by bread alone. Spiritual bankruptcy still exists in the hearts and homes of millions of people. There is confusion and anger, God is blamed others are accused and there is self-rebuke. This all adds up to a truth that you and I need to confront today. We all have physical and spiritual needs that must be met. Of course, that raises a question; how? How can these needs be met? The answer to that questions lies with God.
Because (2) it’s God’s love that meets those needs.
After her son died the widow seemed to be scolding Elijah. But then Elijah said to her: “Give me your son.” She did this and then Elijah carried the lifeless body to the upper room. This was a guest room which the widow let Elijah use for rest, meditation and prayer.
Elijah then laid the youth on the bed and prayed: “O Lord, my God, have you brought tragedy also upon this widow I am staying with by causing her son to die?”
If Elijah hadn’t said anything else it would appear that his response to the boy’s death was the same as the widow’s. But Elijah didn’t stop there Instead he went on to let God answer his prayer by performing a miracle.
He stretched himself over the lifeless body and prayed: “O Lord, my God, I pray let this child’s soul come back to him.” God granted his request and restored life to the boy. It was a lifeless corpse that Elijah carried to that room but it was a living, breathing son that he returned to the widow.
The life-giving love of God was at work through Elijah. He was an instrument of God’s love. This miracle was an act of God, the fountain of life.
This was the first resurrection of a human being recorded in the Bible. Many more were to follow. They all had one thing in common. They all pointed forward to the heavenly Father raising Jesus, our Savior, from the dead.
God had allowed Elijah’s faith to be tested on several occasions. He tested it once again with the death of the widow’s son. Would Elijah really believe that God would answer his prayer and restore life to the boy? Would he really believe that God was able to bring back the breath of life to one who was dead?
Elijah believed! He did not doubt! After all, hadn’t God sent him to this widow to reveal his grace and glory? Hadn’t God already performed a life-saving miracle in this house by providing them with food? Yes, he had! But to ask God to reverse the death process seemed like a far greater challenge to Elijah’s faith in the power and love of God. Yet Elijah was equal to the test. He trusted in God and God didn’t let him down. God gave witness to the prophet’s faith by granting his request.
This doesn’t mean we can expect God to restore life to departed loved ones if we pray hard enough and long enough over their corpses. God will raise them on the last day. But it does mean that God continues to love us. He blesses us with eternal life through his son, life in the fullness of his Word.
Through the Gospel and the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper the Holy Spirit has called us to faith in God’s son. The transition from unbelief to faith, from spiritual death to spiritual life, is just as great a miracle as making a corpse alive.
It was God’s will that his son should die to pay for the sins of the world and be raised again from the dead. God’s son, Jesus Christ, loved us and gave himself for us on the cross of Calvary. This is God’s life giving love!
God’s love, however, didn’t stop at the grave. That’s where it was fulfilled to the utmost. Justified and sanctified through Jesus, in other words forgiven of and washed clean of all sin in this life; we will be glorified in the life to come. We will be glorified in resurrected bodies similar to Christ’s glorified body.
This is the faith we confess with Martin Luther; “The Holy Spirit will on the last day raise me and all the dead and give to me and all who believe in Christ, eternal life.”
This is also the faith confessed by the family of a departed Christian resting in Mt Olivet cemetery at Hannibal, Montana. The headstone inscription reads: “When thou art refreshed by death, Christ will give thee back thy breath.”
In the widow of Zarapath’s house at least 3 people had reason to thank God. The son the prophet and the widow all could have joined in the hymn; “All that has life and breath, come now with praises before him.”
As for the young man, Scripture doesn’t record any words spoken by him. But we can be sure he was aware or was made aware by his mother that God had shown him special love by using Elijah to restore him to life. “I will call on him as long as I live” would have been a fitting response.
As for Elijah, these words are recorded: “See, your son lives.” It goes without saying that Elijah was thankful for the outcome in the widow’s home. He needed the assurance of the presence and power of God in the difficult ministry he had to carry out.
There were many challenges in store for Elijah. For example, the prophets of baal on Mt Carmel, followed by the flight to Horeb where he experienced utter fatigue of both body and soul as he lay under a juniper tree.
However, in all these challenges God sustained him. He took care of and provided for Elijah until he bodily took him into heaven. Then at the transfiguration of Jesus he appeared on the mountain with Moses. Elijah was clearly a type of Christ, the Master and Lord of life and death.
Now that her grief had been turned to joy because her son had been raised back to life, the widow said to Elijah; “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the Word of the Lord in your mouth is the truth.” These words that the widow spoke to Elijah were a confession of faith in the God who sent him.
We may be quick to think she should have come to faith sooner. Especially when you consider the miracle of providing food that had occurred. Yet, we need to remember that Elijah wasn’t sent to just any widow in Zarapath but to this particular widow. And the very fact she even listened to Elijah was a confession of faith. A weak faith, but still a saving faith. It was trust in God’s word of truth.
It is the faith that speaks when we by the power of the Holy Spirit take God at his word. It is the faith that speaks when we say from the heart; “Thy Word is truth.”
God is love and He is good. He is fully aware of our needs and he provides for us through the miracle of his divine providence. The same divine hand that provided for the widow at Zarapath also provided your breakfast this morning. God supplies us with everything we need.
God loves each and every one of you and me and he wants us to come to the knowledge of the truth and be saved. Through the Gospel he raises us who were dead in our trespasses and sins to new life in his son. And come resurrection day it is his love that will call us from the grave to have our gloried bodies reunited with our soul to spend eternity with him in heaven. What’s your response to God’s love? Are you thankful? Does he hear from you? He should! Amen
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