The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
In 1662, Johann Olearius wrote a hymn to honor a teacher, dear in light: the teacher Jonathan Scol, the director of St. Thomas School in the city of Leipzig. The hymn expressed deep sorrow and despair, a desire to die and to be with the Lord, away from the sufferings of this world. Now, we don’t know what kind of sufferings the headmaster of the school had suffered to earn such a distinction as a new hymn, especially a hymn that borrows from First Kings chapter 19. The title of that hymn expresses the same feelings that Elijah cried out in our assigned reading this morning. He uses the same words, actually, from Elijah’s lament. It’s translated here in verse 4 as “enough” — that is, “I’ve had enough.” But it conveys the sense of the English idiom “I have had it up to here.” We old folks, we know what that means. When my mom or dad said “we’ve had it up to here” — even though they were short people — it meant we’ve overdone it. Ironically, our hymn “I Am Content,” which we now know by that tune, is associated now with a tomb. Written in despair, it is associated now with an Easter hymn, a victorious Easter celebration. The hymn forms a true bridge between words of hopelessness — “I’ve had enough” — and the words of victory — “I am content,” which you just sang. In the original, the singer is weary and without hope. The singer wants nothing more than to die and be relieved of the burdens of faithfulness in an unfaithful world, among unfaithful people in the church. He wants an escape from sin and all of its consequences, both his own and those of the people around him.
Listen to the original lyrics. You won’t find it anywhere on the top ten of contemporary Christian music sung in so-called church services these days. This hymn went like this: “It’s enough, Lord, take my spirit.” The author sings of his grief that are, quote, “gradually tearing me apart.” “The poison of sin has all but smothered me. Nothing good in me dwells.” He feels as if he bears the cross, a cross that will break his back. “How heavy, O God,” he wrote, “how hard this burden. Many a night I soak my bed with tears. How long, how long must I yearn?” he wrote. “When is it enough?” The hymn ends with little hope. But like Elijah, the author must wait for God’s deliverance. The original hymn is almost completely without any Gospel or good news. And you probably don’t know the lyrics of the original, but you probably know the melody. It’s been used for different hymns throughout the centuries. The melody that you just sang — “I am content, Jesus, my Jesus ever lives” — is the original melody, except for the last couple of stanzas. In time, the melody of the hymn was given a new meaning: an Easter celebration, a gift, as if it was the gift of eternal life unto itself.
As for Elijah in the Old Testament reading this morning, he had just come back from a great and miraculous victory on Mount Carmel, in the face-off between the gods of Baal and the Lord God of Israel. A great pillar of fire had come down from heaven, called down by the prophet himself, Elijah, to consume the bull and the meat on the altar, the altar itself, the ground upon which it was built. And 450 of Baal’s prophets were put to the sword. Elijah and his God, Yahweh Elohim, had defeated all the false gods and the false prophets of Baal. Elijah was first filled with joy after the victory, and in the aftermath of Mount Carmel, he now expected God to deal a fatal blow to his mortal enemies: King Ahab, and especially the evil queen Jezebel, a murderous wife and queen of King Ahab of Israel. Elijah thought the victory would bring to an end the worship of Baal and gods. But Queen Jezebel didn’t see things that way. The defeat only hardened her heart, like unto Pharaoh, and filled her with a fierce resolve to have Elijah murdered. Verse 2: “Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, ‘So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them’ — one of the dead prophets — ‘by this time tomorrow.'” Elijah wasn’t prepared for this at all. He thought instead there would be easy street and victory celebrations over the false gods of Baal and the bad kingship of Ahab. But it was just the opposite. And Elijah was now tired of the whole affair. He thought the victory meant peace. He had done all the things that God had given him to do up to that point. He had done his part, fulfilled his duty, and now it was time to enjoy life — or so he thought. Instead, he’s in great danger. He has to retreat once again into the wilderness to hide from people who seek his life. To Elijah, it looked as if God lost all interest in the whole matter and left Elijah to fend for himself as a fugitive for the rest of his life. The God who had prevailed over the priests and prophets and gods of Baal seemed to have just washed His hands of Elijah. So Elijah himself felt betrayed, fed up, depressed, disillusioned. He had had it up to here. He had had enough. In the heat of the day, the prophet finds a broom tree and sat down in its shade. Verse 4: “And he asked that he might die, saying, ‘It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.'” Exhausted, he fell asleep.
Now look at it from the prophet’s point of view. He has endured years of deprivation, isolation, hiding, worrying, hunger, getting by on meager rations, and all the time knowing, over the years, that he was a hunted man, a man who had earned the hate of Queen Jezebel. Who among us, by the way, hasn’t had it up to here with one thing or another? One person or another? One job or another? One house or another? Who among us hasn’t had it up to here? We’ve had enough of one mess after another mess. We’ve had enough of family troubles. We’ve had enough of chaos, constant demands for our attention by one side or the other side. We’ve had enough of loneliness. We’ve had enough of people’s criticism and suggestions on how we ought to do, what we ought to do. We’ve been under that broom tree of despair ourselves, off and on, throughout our life. We’ve had rejections, feelings of loneliness, uselessness, washed-up-ness, ineffectiveness, weariness. We’d all like to do what God has given us to do, but the Jezebels, and our old sinful nature in this world — why, they always get in the way. Even worse, it seems as if when we cry out to God, God is powerless, distant, and disinterested in helping us. We feel like God is punishing us for some reason we can’t divine. In the past, though, God had always come through for Elijah. There was never a time when God hadn’t taken care of Elijah. This time, though, to Elijah, felt different. I mean, God had shown Himself to be faithful and caring toward Elijah throughout. God once used ravens to deliver bread and meat to Elijah in the wilderness. That system lasted for almost an entire year. When Elijah went to stay with the widow and her son for more than three years, her flour and oil never ran out, even amidst a serious famine. God was taking care of His prophet all along. But you could almost see the crisis of faith arising in Elijah when he was at Mount Carmel for the showdown between Yahweh Elohim and Baal. He shouted out to the people, “I, even I only, am left a prophet of the Lord, but Baal’s prophets are 450 men.” So when Elijah got to Mount Horeb, after his broom tree experience, he had to repeat this assertion in a different form, but the same idea, in verse 10: “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, thrown down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.” That’s Elijah’s way of saying what we often say: “I don’t deserve this kind of treatment. What have I done, Lord, that I should be disciplined in this way?”
When Elijah finally got to Horeb for his meeting with God, Elijah learned that he was not alone, that he thought he was, but he was not. God had preserved at least 7,000 faithful in Israel who had not bowed their knee to Baal. By the way, it’s a symbolic number, this 7,000. It symbolizes the faithful few in the Christian visible church who remain faithful to the Word and Sacrament ministry, who believe what the Bible teaches, who trust that the Law and Gospel of Jesus Christ will bring them unto the day of their salvation. God always has 7,000, the faithful few. And praise be to God, by His grace alone, Immanuel Lutheran has been a part of that faithful, that figurative number of 7,000 faithful, who don’t bow knee to the gods and fads of this generation. Elijah was not alone, and Jezebel was not his problem. God could and did deal with Jezebel in His own time, in His own way, and she came to a very brutal end. The problem wasn’t Jezebel. The problem was Elijah, and he took it with him into the wilderness. The problem with us is also us. We don’t trust God to do His work as we think it ought to be done. We don’t trust God’s timing or His ways in our life, His hidden will. We look only at the mess before us, without regard to the truth that the Bible teaches: that God works all things, even the deepest messes in our lives, to the good for those who love the Lord. While trying to deal with our situation, we cling to ideas and beliefs, habits and sins, that brought about the problem in the first place. Instead, like Job of old, we want God to explain Himself to us. We forget the lessons of the Book of Job, particularly the lesson in chapter 38, verse 4: “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.” God’s way of putting us in our place, and assuring us that He, in fact, is in control. He will work all things, that we see as good and bad, to the good, to them who love the Lord. And when we wonder why our lives are such a mess, we allow ourselves to be given to despair, because we think God has abandoned us. We think He’s punishing us for some hidden sin. But our God is a merciful God. His discipline is not without purpose, and His Word is not without power. He didn’t let Elijah die in the wilderness, because Elijah wasn’t done.
So the Lord sent an angel to Elijah under that broom tree. And behold, the angel touched him and said to him, “Arise and eat.” And he looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. And he ate and drank and lay down again. And the angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, “Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you.” We all, Christians one and another, you and me, are on a journey. It’s a journey that is more difficult and perilous than we often think. It’s a journey with one goal, as Dr. Hahn reminded me: to survive, and arrive at our heavenly mansion. We are but strangers here. Heaven is our home. And every step we make is to be toward that heavenly goal. But as you pursue this journey, you also have been given to eat and drink the meal that God has given to you, to eat and drink, and to rest in the rest that He has provided for you in His church, that is, worship. He has made you to know that you are not alone in this perilous journey. Without God-given food, rest, and company, this journey would be too great for you, and too great for me, because we have to battle sin, death, and the power of the devil. And unless we eat and drink the meal God prepares, we are wholly unequipped to face such things. It’s too much for us. This journey, it starts in the waters of Holy Baptism, and it ends with the resurrection of the dead on the last day. Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to Me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in Me shall never thirst. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.” And we wonder why we sit under broom trees, exhausted, depressed, lonely. It’s not God’s fault. He’s provided everything that we need. It’s our own fault. The food and the drink have been here all along, since Christ instituted it on the night in which He was betrayed. The angel bids us every Sunday morning: rise, get up, and go eat. And Jesus says, “Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Jesus, here in this place, offers true refreshment. Jesus is the Living Water. He is the living bread. He is the food and drink that came down from heaven, and He carries you through this journey, in this wilderness of the sinful world, to your everlasting life. “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.” Jesus is food to strengthen your journey. He is drink to refresh and send you on your way to the eternal life. He will fortify, nourish, build you up, so that you reach Christ’s holy mountain one day. And there, from there, will rise from the dead. The one who eats this bread, Jesus says, will live forever. There’s no other food like this in the whole world. Go to any restaurant you want on the planet, eat any meal. This is the only meal where you find Christ and the remission of all your sins. Every other food you eat is temporary. It still results in death. Only Jesus Christ is the food you eat unto eternal life. Eat of His bread, and you will live forever. And Christ’s church, it’s the dispenser of such food, where the people of God believe Jesus’ words: “This is My body, this is My blood, given and shed for you, for the remission of your sins.” The church is the eternal bread basket for the world, dispensing living bread to dying sinners, bringing them life with the life of Jesus Christ. The cross was Jesus’ broom tree in the wilderness, where He was abandoned by His Father, the sinless Son who took upon the sins of the whole world, to die for the sins of the whole world. The world’s salvation rested on His shoulders, and they were broad enough to bear. The sin of the world was put on His flesh, His body broken, His blood shed. He is your substitute, your sacrifice, and your food. Jesus says to us today: get up and eat. Believe in Me. Feed on Me. Eat My Word. Without Me, He says, your living bread, the journey is too much for you. Without your band of brothers in Christ, in the church, your journey too lonesome for you. But in the strength of this food, and the company of the saints, we journey from baptism to the mountain, in the wilderness, our heavenly home. We might tell God “I’ve had enough,” but Jesus comes to us: more than enough. In Christ, in the Word and Sacrament ministry of the church, all is forgiven, all is redeemed, for your good. Just like that old hymn that somebody pronounced correctly, that once sang of loneliness, hopelessness, uselessness, ineffectiveness, poison of sin, weariness, and your old sinful nature. Elijah said it in the Old Testament: “I have had enough.” But we sing: “We’ve had enough. We are content.” That old hymn is now a new song, reforged in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ: a hymn of Law and death turned to a glorious victory celebration of life in Christ. Elijah, the great prophet, cried out in despair: “Enough.” Now you and I cry out: “I’m content.” That’s the hymn: “I’m content, my Jesus still lives.” Stanza three: “I am content, my Jesus is my life, my radiant Sun of grace. His cheering rays, beaming blessings forth for all, sweet comfort, hope, and peace. The Easter sun has brought salvation and everlasting exaltation. I am content. I am content.” So get up and eat the Bread of Life. Get up and eat the living bread that comes down from heaven, and drink the blood of Christ that comes from heaven. Get up and live. Get up, trusting Jesus, who gives His flesh for your life and for your food, and in so doing you shall live forever. Amen.
May the peace that passes all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.