The Life after Death :: 1 Kings 17:17-24
And the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know this that you are a man of God, and that the word of Yahweh in your lips is truth” (v 24).
Jesus Christ is the Lord of Life. No objections, right? In the beginning, he created life. He continues to sustain life. And in the end, he will resurrect and renew life. The eternal life is yours in Christ. We know this because God’s word is truth.
This truth is as plain as day in our Old Testament and Gospel readings, which are practically mirrors of each other. In our readings today from 1 Kings 17 and Luke 7, God sends forth his Word to intervene in the lives of grieving mothers to create saving faith, to give us life and to provide a glimpse of the resurrection into eternal life.
God’s Word, which is life, defeats death. And on this Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity, the news of this should be spreading like wildfire. The light of life defeats death. Death has no more dominion over you. Death is dead and dying. He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Hallelujah!
5. Sadly, the world around you is abandoning this faith in the resurrection and the life.
In the last ten years, the number of Americans who believe this truth of God, that the accounts of the resurrection of Jesus are completely accurate, has declined by 15 percent. Today, just 66 percent of Americans believe the truth that Jesus has risen from the dead.
Twenty percent of U.S. adults, including the president of Union Theological Seminary in New York, don’t believe in the resurrection of Jesus at all. And they call themselves Christians?! Thirty percent of people who say they do NOT attend Divine Services at least monthly also say they don’t believe in the resurrection of Jesus. And they call themselves Christians?!
Just as shockingly, eight percent of people who actually DO attend the Divine Service express the same unbelief. You know what that means, don’t you? There might be five of you here today who secretly don’t believe in the resurrection of Jesus, let alone the resurrection of the dead and life everlasting.
Repent every one of you and believe the truth of God’s Word. This I know ... He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Hallelujah! And he proves it in Word and sacraments.The idea that someone would say they are a Christian but doesn’t believe in the virgin birth or the resurrection of the dead, or that the sacraments give and sustain life, is truly shocking.
4. While it’s shocking, it is nothing new [that we deny the power of Word and sacraments].
The widow of Zarephath apparently didn’t believe it either ... even after ... according to the Word of Yahweh ... her jar of flour lasted for days and days and days, nourishing not only herself, but her son and Elijah (1 Kgs 17:16). That is undoubtedly one reason God sent Elijah to the Widow of Zarephath to begin with. The Gospel gives us saving faith that Christ is the resurrection and the life.
The Kingdom of Israel, which is not to be confused with the twelve tribes or the nation we know today, needed to hear this truth about the One True God ... that Yahweh is the God of Life. So, God had Elijah proclaim a drought as a penalty for Israel’s idolatry. Then he sent Elijah north to be sustained by the widow of Zarephath for days and days, even though she had only a handful of flour and oil for one last loaf of bread (1 Kgs 17:8-16).
3. It’s amazing how God’s Word and sacraments work in our lives, always providing.
Now, you’d think that this would have some sort of powerful effect on the widow of Zarephath in terms of coming to faith. But ... it didn’t.
You’d think it would have a powerful effect on us all. I pray it does.
You’d think that such a life-giving miracle of undeserved mercy and goodness would make the world clamor to hear more about this living God ... the God of Elijah. But sometimes we forget what God’s word and sacraments actually do for us. Then we start recalling how sinful our lives have really become.
Then it came to pass (after the widow and her family had been so miraculously saved by the Lord’s feast), that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill. And his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. And she said to Elijah, What’s [the deal between] you and me, Man of God? Did you come to me to cause the remembrance of my iniquity and to cause the death of my son? (vv 17-18)
Of course not! Elijah didn’t come with a word of death. He came with a Word of life ... the Word of Gospel. Elijah, one of the great forerunners, was called to turn us away from the Baals of the world, which are actually idols of death. He was called to turn us back to Yahweh who sustains life through the Word and Sacraments until that day when he raises all the dead in Christ and gives life to all who have faith in him.
Give me you son, he told the widow. And Elijah took him from [the widow’s] embrace and he ascended to the upper room ... and laid him on his bed. Then he cried out [in a prayer of lament to the Lord] ... and he stretched himself out upon the child three times. ... ‘Yahweh, my God, [he cried], please let this child’s [life] return to him again.’
And Yahweh listened to the voice of Elijah. And the [life] of the child returned to him. So Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper room into the house and delivered him to his mother. [Then he] said, Behold, your son is alive! And the woman said to Elijah, Now I know this, that you are a man of God, and the Word of Yahweh in your lips is truth (vv 19-24).
Brothers and sisters in Christ, are you recognizing what is happening?
THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS, THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE COME TO US THROUGH WORD AND SACRAMENTS.
2. This truth is fully proclaimed in this Service; Here, we are reminded our sins are remembered no more.
This is why we come here every Lord’s Day. God has heard your prayers. And he has come to you today to deliver to us his Gospel ... his Good News ... that forgiveness, life, and salvation are ours in Christ.
All of our readings especially remind us of this truth we all confess. ... That God is the God of Life. ... That He is the one who not only creates life but he renews our lives in him. He restores our lives. He nurtures and nourishes our lives. He feeds us Word and sacraments. And he uses these means to save us. He raises the dead ... first, through baptism, and finally at the final trumpet. He preserves us to do his good will. And he does all of this in his Divine Service to you.
Young man, I say to you, Arise! Jesus said as he touched death (Lk 7:14).
And just like that ... The Son is risen! He is risen indeed! Hallelujah! And this word about him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country (Lk 7:17).
Won’t you now spread the good news of how God is serving you, too?
Because we sin, we also face death just like those two sons in our readings. And this death brings hopelessness to the world. Your sin, my sin, all sin is the cause and the reason and the blame for all the pain and suffering and death in our lives and the world. And it causes people to look for their own gods ... their own Baals. That’s the deadly truth. As Paul said, the wages of sin is death (Rm 6:23).
But our God is the God of the living. He is the God of resurrection and life.
By being born of the virgin and living a life without sin, Jesus was able to do what we could never do ... to pay the price of our sin ... suffering and dying on the cross in our place. The author of life suffered all the wrath of God for you, and He died the death you deserve so that he could also rise from the dead for you ahead of the resurrection. You see, death is not the end.
1. The Word of Yahweh gives us life.
When Elijah’s widow saw the Gospel that her son was living and breathing, she knew ... without doubt ... that the Man of God who spoke in the stead and by the command of our Lord spoke the life-giving words of Gospel truth. More than that, she then remembered how the feast of bread she had enjoyed with her family was not just flour and oil but a life-giving sacrament meant to sustain us until our Lord comes on the clouds in glory. That should give you confidence to seek God’s sacraments always at all times, and thus proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
So rejoice in this truth as you step to the foot of the altar today! God has forgotten your sins and given you his righteousness on account of the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus ... on account of the baptism he poured out upon you ... on account of the absolution he spoke to you ... on account of the Supper he has prepared for you. Set your mind on these things above, for you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is your life appears, then you will appear with him in glory (Col 3:2-4).
Indeed, the resurrection and new life has changed everything.
Now to the one who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power that is working within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus into all the generations, forever and ever. Amen (Eph 3:20-21).