Elijah is raised up as a prophet to the nation of Israel,
the northern kingdom and proclaims a prophetic word that there will be no rain
in the land until he says the rain will come.
This brings not only severe drought but famine on the land as the crops fail. For a time Elijah is fed by ravens and drinks
from a brook until this also gives out.
The Lord said He had commanded the ravens to feed Elijah and then says
to go outside Israel to Sidon, particularly to the city of Zarephath and there
He has commanded a widow to feed him. I
have a picture of a dry and dusty deserted town and Elijah meets a widow with a
small bundle of sticks and asks her for, of all things, water. Does he not know about the drought she must
be thinking but agrees to get the water.
Before she even gets out of hearing he asks also for food. Then she tells him of her own dire
situation. She believes enough to do as
he asks, make him something before she makes her own last meal. This Gentile woman shows hospitality in
spades! They enjoy the Lord's provision
for many days and then her son dies.
What is her reaction? She
believes that Elijah, for whom she has surely been abundantly thankful as she
was prepared to die with her son when he arrived, is to blame now for her son's
death. The provision is forgotten or
taken for granted now and her son's death is for her sin. She was ready to see him die before but now
life has resumed normality for a season and she is greatly upset at this
death. Elijah restores the son to her
and this becomes her reason to believe completely both in Elijah and the
Lord. Resurrection should do that.
I guess the compilers of the Lectionary found nothing
particularly interesting in the genealogy of Matthew 1 but there is plenty
there to appreciate if you take the time to work through it. (I'll do that in another blog.) These "wise men" from the east are
probably from Babylon, Chaldeans, and they were apprised of the sign of the
star from Daniel when he was there in exile several hundred years before. They would have preserved this knowledge and
looked for it because of the wisdom Daniel proved over and over in their
sight. He could not only interpret
dreams, he could tell the king what his dreams had actually been when they
could not and each time he did, he also asked the king to spare them. These wise men have seen what the Jews have
missed and they prove that even though they were not followers of Yahweh, they
respected Daniel and Daniel's God. Their
belief in that word was enough to set them on a journey to see this king and
worship Him. Sadly, they couldn't get
anyone from the Jews to go the few miles to Bethlehem to see Him also.
The example of Jesus in humility is, honestly,
unthinkable. Literally, it is not
possible to imagine that God became man and dwelt among His creation as one of
them. They couldn't believe that Jesus
was the Messiah, much less that HE was God incarnate. When He claimed equality with God it was
completely different from anything they could imagine. He wasn't equal to God He was, as the Creed
says, of one being with God. Why would
God condescend to our level and subject Himself to us? Love.
Let us not allow ourselves to be outdone by outsiders in worship of
Him. Elijah was sent to Sidon, to the
Gentiles who show the way of humility, serving him before self even to the
extent of possibly dying of hunger. The
wise men were, likewise, Gentiles who were the only ones to offer worship to
the king of the Jews. Let us offer our
worship and service to Him this day and never take Him for granted.
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