A group of thirty-five from St. Paul’s Lutheran
Church in Concordia went to Joplin the last weekend of June 2011 expecting to focus
on demolition work while they were there.
However, the group was excited to discover a treasure. During their work on one house, the homeowner
came and asked the group to help search for her a Bible that had been given to
her by her parents. She told us to look
in an area of her home that was once her bedroom and the group sifted through
the debris until finding her treasured Bible.
As I was going through some things in my office, I came across pictures from one of our congregation's trips to Joplin after an F-5 tornado struck the city on May 22, 2011. It was an opportunity for members of our congregation to show Christ's mercy to people in need. We had numerous teams travel to work with the saints at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Joplin. It was also an opportunity for me to provide support to my former college professor, Rev. Greg Mech, who serves as the pastor of Immanuel. Below is the sermon that I preached at Immanuel to encourage the saints. Thanks be to God for the strength that He provides for the journey!
In Nomine Jesu
Text: 1 Kings 19:1-8
Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he
had killed all the prophets with the sword. So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, “May
the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do
not make your life like that of one of them.”
Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he
left his servant there,
while he himself went a day’s journey into the desert. He came to a broom tree,
sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, LORD,” he
said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” Then he lay down under the
tree and fell asleep.
All at once an angel touched him and said,
“Get up and eat.”
He looked around, and there by his head was a cake of bread baked over hot
coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again.
The angel of the LORD came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up
and eat, for the journey is too much for you.” So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by
that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the
mountain of God.
Evans Monsignac was working as a
street vendor in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, when the earthquake struck the island
nation eighteen months ago. Evans was
pinned underneath the rubble of the buildings surrounding the marketplace. And there he was trapped amidst the screams
of the other injured and dying people around him. He said, “I couldn’t move. I just lifted up my eyes and prayed because I
couldn’t understand what was going on. I didn't
think of anything, just death. I could smell death from others - there were a
lot of people under the rubble with me but the screaming was one day only. Then
it was quiet. I prayed that God would
rescue me, give me life.” But help did not come on the first day. And help didn’t come on the second day even
after the cries of the others grew silent.
In fact, it did not come the
first week or even the second week or the third week. It wasn’t until the twenty-seventh day after
the earthquake, Evans was found and to everyone’s shock and amazement, he was
found to be alive. He had been there for
nearly four weeks, surviving on the unthinkable to give him minimal hydration. When the earthquake struck, he was a 150
pound man, but what they found was an eighty-eight pound skeleton. But the miraculous nature of his survival was
not lost on Evans. He said, "I was
resigned to death. But God gave me life. The fact that I'm alive today isn't
because of me, it's because of the grace of God. It's a miracle, I can't
explain it.”
Elijah
also was resigned to death. He felt that
there was no escaping the wrath of Jezebel and Ahab. He had fled from Jezreel, traveling to
Beersheba about a hundred miles by foot or beast. After reaching Beersheba, he continued on
day’s journey into the wilderness and stopped.
He stopped because he had enough.
He stopped because he was ready to die.
He couldn’t take it anymore. He
just couldn’t keep going.
What
about you? Have you had enough yet? Have you reached your limit? People of faith are not immune to fears and
doubts. Even Christian can find
themselves vulnerable to depression and despair. Christians are not invincible. Elijah had given praise to God as the
prophets of Baal failed and their bodies met with his sword. But things turned so quickly as Jezebel
promised his death in return. Elijah is
overwhelmed. He doesn’t know what to
do. He doesn’t know how he is going to make it. And so he lies down underneath the broom tree
as a man running on empty. He had been
emptied of faith, emptied of hope, emptied of joy.
But
the angel of the Lord comes and wakens him from his sleep and provides him with
the most basic of necessities – food and drink.
But a little bit of physical sustenance is not enough to rouse Elijah
from his depressed state. And so the
angel of the Lord returns once again and wakes him once again and bids him to
eat. But the angel pointedly reminds
Elijah that the journey is too much for you.
The angel’s words are not just dietary counsel like “eat your
vegetables” or “clean your plate.” And
they are not a further put-down heaped upon an already defeated man. The words of the angel are words of hope and
promise. The journey is too much for
you. But it is not too much for your
gracious God. It is not too much for the
God who is the source of all life, providing food where starving people have
already resigned themselves to death.
The journey is not too much for God who even raises the dead. Elijah had eaten the bread crumbs brought to
him from the ravens and the bread from the Widow at Zarephath from the jar of
flour that never ran out. And Elijah had
seen the power of God even raise the dead as he laid down on top of the widow’s
dead son and prayed that God would give life to the boy. Elijah had seen the amazing miracles of God
in His own life. The words of the angel
remind him of God’s amazing deeds of deliverance. The journey may be too much for you, but it
is not too much for your good and gracious God.
This
journey of life is long and hard, even without earthquakes and tornadoes. But especially at times of tragedy and loss,
even the most faithful of God’s people can feel overwhelmed. Though the journey is too much for us, God is
there to give us rest, to provide nourishment to body and soul. Over the past six weeks, at times you may
have felt overwhelmed. You may have felt
as if you have had enough. And yet, what
a blessing it is to see God’s gracious providing in bottles of water and jugs
of bleach, in boxes of granola bars and tubs of gloves, in Gators and Gatorade,
in Bobcats and Caterpillars. You have
seen doctors and nurses as instruments of God’s care. You see volunteers as signs of God’s love
and mercy. The journey is too much for
you. But you are not alone. God has not forsaken you. He continues to provide you with what you
need for the journey.
And
the chief way that God provides for you is here. Above all else, what you need for the journey
is the Word of Life, that Word that raises the dead, the Word that brings joy,
that Word that gives hope. Here week
after week, your pastor serves as God’s herald and messenger. Like the angel who appeared to Elijah, your
pastor proclaims to you the faithful promises of God. Here week after week, your pastor feeds you
with Jesus, the Bread of Life and Christ’s body and blood to give you the
strength that you need to continue on in the journey. Christians are not immune to despair and
depression, but thanks be to God, He uses others to point us to where our hope
is found. Our hope is always in the one
who not only raises the dead, who died himself and rose again as the firstborn
of the dead. Our hope is always in the
one who showed mercy to the hurting and the despairing. Our hope is always in the one who rescues and
who gives strength for the journey. Our
hope is always in Jesus and that hope will not disappoint us.
Five
years ago, I went to Guatemala with a team from our congregation. One of the things we did while we were there
was visit people in the squatters’ huts.
These are people who are not familiar with the creature comforts to
which we have grown so attached. There
was no air conditioning and no running water and at best, the roofs were made
of corrugated metal. We went throughout
the makeshift village and I would share God’s Word through a translator. After several visits, I had been using a
number of different passages, but I kept hearing one Spanish word in particular
repeated and I wanted to know what it meant.
He said, “Well you should know.
I’m only repeating to them what you tell me in English.” The word was “esperanza” and it means
hope. There in the midst of abject
poverty and what seemed to be the most dire and hopeless of settings, we can
still speak about the hope that is ours in Christ Jesus, a hope that will not
disappoint us.
Dear
friends in Christ, do not despair. God
is still the same faithful God, who gives us all that we need for the journey
and who keeps all of his promises. You can
join with Evans Monsignac and Elijah and all the people of God and declare,
“The fact that I'm alive today isn't because of me, it is because of the grace
of God.” May God grant you the grace and
strength you need for each day in the journey and when you are overwhelmed, may
He fill you with that hope that will not disappoint you, hope in Christ
Jesus.
Soli Deo
Gloria
Rev. Dr. Lee Hagan
July 10, 2011
Immanuel Lutheran Church
Joplin, Missouri
