"Get Up, and Eat!"
The Rev. Dr. David M. Wendel
Saint Luke’s Lutheran
Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado
Lessons: I Kings 19:4-8; Ephesians 4:25-5:2; St.
John 6:35, 41-51
In our first reading, we
hear, "Elijah went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat
down under a solitary broom tree. He
asked that he might die, saying, "It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life…"
As you can hear, Elijah was, tired.
Indeed, he was exhausted! Around the
middle of the 9th century B.C., Elijah, the Israelite prophet, clashed with
Jezebel, the Israelite queen. Since
Elijah had defeated her pagan prophets on Mount Carmel, Jezebel was now
determined to be rid of Elijah once and for all! Sensing the queen's rage, Elijah ran, planning to go to Mount
Horeb--also known as Mt. Sinai. Elijah
walked a day's journey into the wilderness, we can surely imagine, looking
nervously over his shoulder, expecting at any minute for the armies of Queen
Jezebel to come barreling over the ridge, just behind him, swinging their
swords, raising their battle axes, whittling him down to size. Elijah feared for his life, and on the run,
he was running, frantically to escape the wrath of Jezebel. And so, finally, he
came, exhausted to the end of his first day on the lam, the day still hot,
under the middle eastern sun. And
Elijah came, and sat down in the only shade he could find--the shade of a
solitary broom tree. And there, he
asked that he might die.
"Enough!" he said, "enough! Lord, take away my life!
I'm tired of running. I'm tired
of being afraid. I'm done--let me die
here under this broom tree!"
What a sad and lonely place to be,
sitting there under that solitary tree.
A place most of us have been, at one time or another in life. A place some of us are sitting right now, I
imagine. Sad, lonely, exhausted. So sad, so lonely, so exhausted, it wouldn't
take much for us to shout, "Enough, Lord!
I've had enough! I want it to
end, now, however it has to!"
When you're struggling in your marriage, it's not uncommon to come to
the point where you want to say, "Enough, Lord…I've had enough…of talking
and counseling and trying!" When
you're unemployed, and you've sent out resume after resume, and the bills keep
piling up, most of us get to the point where we say, "Enough, Lord…I've
had enough!" When your kids, or
your teenagers just keep testing, and pushing, the limits, till you're
exhausted and don't know if you can get your kids to 21, which one of us, as
parents, at times, want to pull our hair out, and shout, "Enough, Lord--I
never knew it would be like this!"
Parenting, marriage, employment, alcoholism, drug abuse, financial
strains, family tension, illness--they
all can cause us to feel, sad, lonely, exhausted--so that we want to plop down
in the shade of a tree, and cry out, with Elijah, "It is enough, now, O
Lord, take away my life!" And
though we're not really contemplating suicide--though we're not really ready to
die…it can feel like it. We can be so,
worn out by life, that we're ready to be done with it all. Because, that is such a dark, forsaken place
to be. Because, when you get that
tired, and that burdened, and are that afraid…you really have a hard time
seeing your way out. And, when we're
that far down, in life--when we're sitting with Elijah under that solitary
broom tree--feeling like we can't go on, feeling like we're ready to give up…I
wonder…I wonder how it would sound to us, for someone, an angel, a pastor, a
friend, a confidant, to come and say to us, "Get up and eat." I wonder if we'd just laugh--maybe laugh,
uncontrollably--laugh in their face!
"Here I am, sad, lonely, exhausted…unable to go on, not sure I want
to go on, and you say, 'here, eat something, it'll make you feel
better." It sounds, excuse me for
saying so, like so many of our mothers, when we've been picked on at school, or
lost a big game, or flunked a test, and we come in, crying, and mom says,
"here, eat something, it'll make you feel better." And did it ever make us feel better? Did it give us strength to go on? Mostly, it distracted us. Mostly, it taught us unhealthy things about
pain, and sadness and food, making everything better. And, is that what the angel is trying to do, with Elijah, sitting
under that broom tree? Is the angel
trying to distract Elijah from his problems?
Is the angel trying to help Elijah mask the pain, saying, "here,
have a piece of cake"? That
doesn't seem to be what's happening there, between the angel and Elijah. There seems to be something, more spiritual
happening--something more, even, than food for a hungry stomach. Because as the angel speaks to Elijah a
second time, he says, "Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too
much for you." So, Elijah gt up
and ate and drank; and then, in the
strength of that food, Elijah went forty days and forty nights, to Horeb, to
the Mount of God. There obviously, was
something different about this food--that Elijah ate, and it lasted forty days
and forty nights! There obviously, was
something different about this food, given to Elijah by an angel, that gave him
enough strength, not only to get up, but to be able to journeying on, all the
way to Horeb! What kind of food would that be?
On the one hand, Elijah looked up, and voila, there at his head was a
cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water...where there had been none
before! On the other, there was
something about this food, that gave him nourishment, enough, in and of itself,
for him to complete his journey, though it took him more than a month. No mere earthly food could do that. No power bar, or sport drink could last that
length of time in Elijah's system--no MRE could sustain a man for forty days
and nights! Surely, this was some kind
of heavenly food--surely, God sent to Elijah, by the hand of the angel, some,
bread of life, such that whoever would eat of it, would never be hungry. Some bread of life, such that, whoever would
eat of it, would have the strength, to get up, and go on. And--wouldn't that be great? Wouldn't you like to get your hands on that
heavenly bread? It's no wonder that
when, in our gospel lesson for last Sunday, as Jesus spoke of that heavenly
bread, the crowds cried out, "Sir, give us this bread, always!" It's no wonder, when we sit with Elijah
under the broom tree, and see him eat the bread of angels, and get up, and go
in the strength of that food, all the way to Mount Horeb; when we see that, it's no wonder we ask
Jesus, "Lord, give us this bread always!" And as we sit, under the broom tree, sad, alone, exhausted--Jesus
answers us, saying, "I am the bread of life. I am the living bread, come down from heaven, so that one may eat
of it and NOT die! Oh, I hear
you," says Jesus, "I hear you, tired and frightened and worn out,
crying, 'Enough, Lord…enough…now, Lord, take away my life.' But,"
Jesus says, "get up and eat.
Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you." And then, Jesus gives us that bread from
heaven…Jesus gives us that heavenly food, which is, the living bread, so that
one may eat of it and not die. And He
is that living bread. The bread that He
will give for the life of the world, is His flesh. And he stands at the table, and says, "This is my body--this
is my blood. He stands at the table and
says, "I am the living bread that came down from heaven…that whoever eats
of this bread will live forever."
And then, he gives us the living bread, that is his flesh and
blood. He gives us the bread from
heaven, that is His incarnate presence, in the Lord's Supper. He gives us Himself, so that by feasting on
His presence, we will be strengthened for the journey. He gives us Himself, so that by eating of
the living bread from heaven, the journey ahead will not be too much for us. So that, as Elijah was able to eat and
drink, and then get up, in the strength of that food, and go all the way to the
mount of God, you and I will be able to eat and drink, and then get up, and
continue on.
And, you talk about "Good
News"! Is that not good news,
great news, the best news of all--that for those of us who are worn out,
exhausted, struggling in our marriages, in our families, in our job
situation; for those of us who are
alone, depressed, burdened; for those
of us who are feeling, "Enough, already, Lord!"…today, in just a few
minutes, we will be fed--with food for eternal life, and food for daily
living; with food that will carry us
on, and carry us through--the food that is, Jesus Christ, the living bread!
In the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.