God's Bread until the Famine Is Over

Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany

February 3, 2013

God's Bread until the Famine Is Over

1 Kings 17

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

In dealing with evil stubborn men, our Lord often uses miracles to get His point across. He told Moses to turn the Nile into blood to get the attention of Pharaoh. Today we've heard how He told Elijah to declare that Israel would be dry for years to get evil King Ahab's attention.

Let me tell you a little about Ahab. He was the son of an evil king named Omri. He grew up and chose to disobey God's command not to marry with the neighboring peoples. He married an evil woman from Sidon named Jezebel. With her, he began to worship false gods.

He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria. Ahab also made an Asherah pole and did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than did all the kings of Israel before him. (1 Kings 16:32-33)

He was the king who saw all his false gods and prophets fail to light an altar on fire on Mt. Carmel; shortly after their failure Elijah called on the Lord to perform that same miracle and He did—He sent fire from heaven to totally consume a drenched altar of stone. Later Ahab would allow his queen to murder a man named Naboth so that he could have his vineyard for himself.

Ahab was a man committed to being evil. And from time to time, God sent evil men like Ahab wake-up calls. This is the reason for the famine we read about today.

So here we are. It hasn't rained. God's prophet Elijah has been drinking out of a dirty creek and living off of the kindness of birds, somewhat like the days of manna and quail during the Exodus.

Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah: “Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. You will drink from the brook, and I have ordered the ravens to feed you there.”

So he did what the Lord had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook. (1 Kings 17:2-6)

But after a while the brook dried up because there had been no rain. And the Lord sent him to the land of Sidon, coincidentally the the homeland of evil Queen Jezebel. Elijah heads up the Mediterranean coast and goes to Zarephath. This is a town of non-Jews. They were not part of God's special plan to deliver over His only-begotten Son into the world for the sin of the world.

But the word of the Lord had come to this town. When Elijah asks a widow of the town for bread and water, she promises using the special name of the one true God that she has nothing to spare,

“As surely as the Lord your God lives… I don’t have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die.” (1 Kings 17:12)

I can't help but wonder if her words were an accusation. Word of Elijah's promise of famine to Ahab seems like it would have gotten around. Did she know right away that she was talking to the man who was the mouthpiece of judgment from God on the land? Did she know she was talking to the man who, from a certain point of view, had brought death to her son? Wouldn't she have wondered why she and her son were suffering because of the wickedness of someone else? And now here the very prophet who had brought famine to her town had the nerve to ask her for bread.

We see her trust in the Lord, the God of Israel, in that she doesn't raise these legitmate questions and complaints to Elijah. She simply does what he says. And in His mercy the Lord gave her what she needed without her asking—bread.

Jesus comforts all non-Jews (and Jews, too!) that salvation is not through your associations (your family or nation), but by His grace.

So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. (Romans 11:5)

This widow of Zarephath was not given bread because she had given bread to Elijah; she gave bread to Elijah because she had been forgiven by the Bread of Life.

Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty… I am the bread of life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” (John 6:35, 48-51)

Jesus Himself pointed out how His “bread” goes out into the whole world, not just to the Jews.

“I tell you the truth,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon.” (Luke 4:42-25)

To that widow He gives her miraculous daily bread and Himself, the Bread of Life for the forgiveness of her sin through His word of promise. He kept His promise of bread to her until the famine was over—and He kept the promise of forgiveness until the end of her life.

He gives us our daily bread and Himself in the blessed Sacrament and Word for the forgiveness of our sin until our famine is over. Our land has much food, but when it comes to wisdom and trust in Christ, we are living in a drought that is only going to get worse. Until it's over, we'll wonder why He's left us to suffer in this famine. And until it's over, He'll keep on sending us the bread we need for our bodies and our souls. And then one day the famine will finally be over.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.