Trinity 15
Dear friends in Christ. Although the Trinity Season of the Church Year—the season that focuses on our Lord’s teaching— seems so long and without the concrete events like Christmas and Easter giving it focus, that is not really the case. There are themes—dictated by the readings—that unfold over several weeks. Right now we are in that part of the Trinity season that has the theme, that focuses on our new life of righteousness in the kingdom: what will our lives be like now that we are Christians? How will the righteousness that is now ours in Christ show itself in our everyday lives? As Christians, we have been declared righteous/ forgiven by God; by the Spirit worked gift of faith we receive the forgiveness of our sins and the perfect holiness of Christ; and because we have the Holy Spirit in us leading and guiding us there will be characteristics that will mark our lives.
One of those characteristics that will mark the life of the Christian is contentment. That’s what we hear in today’s Gospel reading, part of our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount: Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
As Christians, yes, we will be faced with various trials—even the normal day in, day our worries of everyday life. But we have the glorious certainty of who we are in Christ—God’s dearly beloved children and heirs of heaven. We know that things are now right between us and God and as His dear children He is looking on us in grace and love. Therefore we can live lives of contentment!
We, then, can follow our Lord when the devil tempted Him. Jesus had just been baptized and [Mt. 3.17] at His baptism the Father had said, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Right after that we read [Mt 4. 1-3]: Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
We, too, dear Christian, have been baptized. Clothed with Christ in baptism, with our sins washed away, there God claims us as His own dear children and is well pleased with us. But the devil wants to drive us into doubt and despair, to lead us to question whether God really is our dear, heavenly Father. With Jesus he came and said: If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread; with us we will be in some hardship, suffering something, confused/ struggling with something and the devil will come to us and try to get us to doubt/ question God’s thoughts and intentions toward us; he will try to get us not to be content. But with Christ, we respond back to the devil tempting us: Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Here is that characteristic of contentment—no matter what our circumstance, we rely on the Lord and His word to bring us through; we rely on His ggod and gracious will for us.
That’s exactly what we see in our text this morning! Elijah the prophet seemingly suddenly bursts on the scene and announces to the wicked and idolatrous king and people that as a result of their unrepented sin there will be a drought. Elijah must not only flee for his life from the king who wants to kill him, but Elijah, too, suffers from the drought. But the Lord in grace sends Elijah to a brook and commands ravens to bring him bread and meat twice a day. Then the brook dries up, but the Lord continues to provide for his prophet in a most glorious way and drives home the point that Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God—that is, that the Lord and the Lord alone provides for us and that is the key to that Christian contentment.
Our text: Then the word of the LORD came to Elijah, “Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” There’s the key point—God provides for us physically. It’s not that God created the world, got everything going and then just lets “nature take its course.” Instead, He is actively involved in providing and taking care of us, all of His creation. Here it was God’s intent to provide for Elijah through the widow— Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you –that is, the Lord would so move her heart to provide food to Elijah; and as a result, the Lord would, in grace, reward her by preserving her and her household with that never ending flour and oil; and through this the Lord would mightily bless and strengthen this woman’s faith so that in the end she would not only be saved physically from the famine but eternally in heaven.
Remember, there was that drought that not only affected Israel but spread north into what is modern day Lebanon. The condition of that drought was severe and the condition of the widow was dire: And she said, “As the LORD your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. And now I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die.” There was really no reason, humanly speaking, that this woman could expect to live much longer. By all reasonable calculations she only had enough for one last meal. Not only could the woman not expect to live much longer, but Elijah, by all reasonable calculations, could hardly expect this non-Jewish woman living in a region from where a lot of the idolatry that infected Israel had come from, to take food from the mouth of her and her son and to give it him, a prophet of the one true God. But nevertheless what do we read? She did just that! All these conditions—the drought, the foreign widow, the abject lack of food—drive home the point that it is God who is preserving the lives of Elijah and this widow and her household. If it were left to normal, natural conditions both Elijah and the widow and her household would have died. It was not brains or reason that preserved them alive but God’s almighty working and the fact that He preserves His creation. The fact that it was God’s good and gracious will to preserve them alive during the famine was why they survived. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. That’s why the Christian’s life is marked by contentment. We know that we are in the hands of our gracious loving God; we know that His will is best for us; we know that He is working out everything for our good—ultimately that we may spend all eternity with Him, the holy angels and all the saints in heaven both soul and body.
Elijah was preserved not because he was so smart that he went to this poor widow but he was preserved by the word of God—God told him to go there to that widow; and that word of God worked faith in Elijah’s heart so that he did it. That word of promise that Elijah spoke to the widow: “Do not fear; go and do as you have said. But first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterward make something for yourself and your son. For thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty, until the day that the LORD sends rain upon the earth.’”—worked faith in her heart to believe it and do it— And she went and did as Elijah said, and so was saved during the famine. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
The phrase every word that comes from the mouth of God is fascinating because it reminds us that the very fact that the reason food nourishes us is because God had appointed it to do so. At the original creation God said [Gn. 1.29-30]: And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. If God were to withdraw His word, food would no longer nourish our bodies. Only by His will and work does it. We are so dependent on Him and His creating word which still resounds today and is still effective today.
So as you see, our text drives home the point so clearly that it is God’s work that we live. The stark conditions in our text make us realize that He preserves us. There is no such thing as a “self-made” person. That we live and move and are preserved—that’s all God’s work. Yes, He blesses our efforts/ our work; but if He were not to bless our efforts, we would have/ be nothing. Wherever there is contentment, there is also humility. In other words, we can only be content/ satisfied when we humbly receive from the Lord’s hands what He gives us and recognize it all as a gift from Him—be it much or little; be it surrounded by much trial and hardship like it was with Elijah or not. Everything that we are/ have is all a result of God’s grace. And if that is the case for us physically, how much more so is it the case for us spiritually.
2. Spiritually, too, we are only alive because of the Lord’s word. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Think of those terrible drought conditions in our text. There was no way that widow and her son should have survived—they were literally down to their last meal. They very much felt their dire condition. That’s precisely how we feel when our consciences bother us by sin we have committed, when we look at our hearts and lives in the mirror of God’s holy law and see and feel nothing but our sin and God’s wrath over that sin. When that guilt over sin hangs over us, when we feel the devil accusing us of sin trying to get us to think that there is no help/ way out and that only hell awaits—we then long for relief: “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” We then long for every word that comes from the mouth of God, that is, we long for and receive life from the word of absolution /forgiveness that in Christ Jesus our sins are forgiven us; that He suffered God’s wrath over our sin; that by His holy life He gave that perfect obedience to the Law of God that God expects/ demands and that now through faith His perfect holiness is now ours as we give Him our sin and guilt. That word that comes from the mouth of God is the word of forgiveness and life!
Just as He told Elijah in his dire condition to go to the unlikely town of Zarephath to that most unlikely of persons—that widow preparing her last meal—so too for our spiritual life and for the preservation of that spiritual life the Lord tells us to go to the most unlikely place—to the word spoken in the absolution, to the word of the Gospel, to the water of holy baptism, to the bread and wine of Holy Communion. As we do so, and in faith hear and believe that in Christ all our sins are forgiven, that in baptism our sins are drowned/ forgiven and we are brought into God’s holy family, that we receive Jesus’ very body and blood with the bread and wine for the forgiveness of sin these spiritual blessings are ours! We are brought to spiritual life and preserved in that life.
Here in our text is a wonderful assurance—the Lord is faithful to His word. That’s why we can trust it; that’s why there’s life in it! And she went and did as Elijah said. And she and he and her household ate for many days. The jar of flour was not spent, neither did the jug of oil become empty, according to the word of the LORD that he spoke by Elijah. We can keep going back to our Lord’s holy word and sacraments for the forgiveness of sin and life they promise and give. They will never be exhausted.
We can trust in the Lord for all things as He provides for us both physically and spiritually. We do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. That’s why, humbly believing and receiving what God in grace gives us, we can live lives of contentment. INJ Amen.