The Food of Your Redemption ~ 1 Kings 19:4-8 ~ Eleventh Sunday After Pentecost ~ August 12, 2012

Last month during the children’s sermon, I told our young people that I used to skip breakfast.

I skipped breakfast because I thought I was helping myself.  First of all, I wanted to give myself fifteen or so extra minutes of sleep.  When I woke up, I wanted to get on with my day right away—and I considered breakfast to be an unnecessary delay.  And what was the harm in eating less?

Looking back, this was a sorry attempt at stress management.  Breakfast is the most important meal of the day—because a body needs nutrition to make it through the day.  That’s just common sense.

Yet, stress has a way of making common sense into non-sense. 

Stress is something that affects all aspects of our being.  We can feel it as a burn deep inside of us.  It keeps us awake at night; it inhibits our concentration; it drives us towards bad habits and poor lifestyle choices as a means of escape.

This whole concept of “stress management” can seem rather absurd—because so much of what stresses us is outside of our control. 

But sometimes, the pressure overwhelms us to the point that we believe there’s no way out.  We feel as though the whole world is closing in on us.  And we can’t go on.

This is the situation for the Old Testament prophet Elijah.

Elijah is on the run from Queen Jezebel, who was one of the most evil villains in the Bible.  Jezebel and her husband King Ahab were quickly turning God’s own people into a nation of idol-worshippers.

So God sends Elijah to call the people to renounce their idolatry and come back to God.  This eventually leads him to a showdown with the prophets of the false-god Ba’al—with the entire nation of Israel watching.  It was then that Elijah proved that God was real and Ba’al was a delusion.  Elijah then incited the people to kill the false prophets—and because of this, Jezebel was determined to kill him.

So Elijah’s hiding out in the wilderness.  And he can’t go on.  The journey has become too much for him. Elijah wants to die.

So God sent an angel to care for Elijah in the darkest moment in his life. 

And notice the way in which the angel deals with Elijah: He does not rebuke Elijah for his despair, nor does he chasten Elijah for refusing to accept this awful situation that has come as a result of his obedience to God.  The angel actually acknowledges that Elijah’s journey IS too much for him.  He won’t make it on his own.  That’s the truth. 

So the angel gives him food and drink.  That was God’s response to his crisis.  God didn’t change the circumstances that had brought him to such a desperate moment.  God did, however, give Elijah what he needed to make it through—food and drink.  God gave him food of his redemption.

This story really shows us why that cliché “God never gives you more than you can handle” doesn’t make sense.  For one thing, God doesn’t give us the troubles that send us into the darkest moments of our lives.  Elijah was on the run due to circumstances that God were not God’s will—namely, the idolatry of God’s own people.  And sometimes, life will be more than we can handle.  We can’t always rescue ourselves from life’s troubles, any more than we can save ourselves from death.  That’s why we need a Savior.  And God gave us Jesus to be that Savior; in life and in death.  Jesus meets us in our darkest and most desperate moments to lead us toward our redemption.

Jesus is here for you today—and this is his word to you: “take and eat; this is my body given for you.”  The food of God’s redemption awaits you—and the call for each of us today is to come and eat.  And while it may seem as though God is calling us to do something that is easy, God is calling us to do something that is quite hard.

For one thing, we must stop the frantic pace of life and take the time to just be in his presence.  We must give up trying it to make it on our own.

Secondly, we must be prepared for God to help us in ways we may not want him to.  God may call us to do things that are hard and that challenge us and maybe even intimidate us.  God doesn’t always take us out of the situations that trouble us; very often God’s plan is for us to overcome them.  This was definitely the case for Elijah: he would eventually have to go back home and face his enemies.  God’s way is not always the easy way—but it is the way that leads to our redemption.  By God’s abiding and unfailing grace, we shall overcome.  God’s power is best revealed in our weaknesses—for when we are weak, God will be strong.

So when Jesus says “take and eat,” we must eat!  When Jesus speaks, we must obey.  And when the pressure’s high and we can’t go on, we must surrender and “let Jesus take the wheel” as the song goes. 

“Let your battles be mine,” Jesus says.  He won the battle against death and the devil, and he’s here to deliver you from whatever battles you face.  And though you may stumble and fall, sometimes by your own fault, and other times for reasons unknown, you will never be beyond the reach of God’s hand.  When life gives you more than you can handle, Jesus will get you through. 

So eat, drink, and be glad—because your redeemer is here.