Trinity 16 2020
1 Kings 17:17-24
September 27, 2020
Zion Lutheran Church + Nampa, ID
The bad got better, and then it got even worse. The widow in our Old Testament lesson had just been the recipient of a miracle. If you remember from last week, she and her son were on their last meal, with a drought in the land and no hope of surviving. But then Elijah arises, sent by God, to receive food from her. Her flour and oil did not run out, but God provided for them until the rain fell again. God, the creator of all life, is also the sustainer of life. And then her son gets sick and dies.
The big question that rings out in this section is that of “why”? Why did the son of the widow die? God has miraculously provided for her and her son and Elijah in the flour and oil that did not run out. Why did God preserve the life of the boy earlier, saving him from starving, only to let him die?
His mother thinks it may be because of the guilt of her sin (iniquity). By this time she probably was a believer in God through the witness of Elijah and the miracle. But now in her grief she lashes out at the prophet, the man of God, believing that his presence has brought God’s wrath to her and caused her son’s death. God seems cruel.
We aren’t ever given a reason for the boy’s death, nor why God allowed it to happen. But we see Elijah acting out of compassion and pity, wrestling with God over this death. “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even up this widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?” Elijah doesn’t hold back his questions, nor hold back his confusion. He demands an answer from God. The bitterness of the moment forces him to pour out his heart to God, to approach Him in prayer, to complain over the evil and sadness that death brings.
All believers can do the same. God invites your prayers, not just for the good or needy, but also in your grief, over evil and sadness, even complaining to God. That is no sin is going to God when you experience unfairness, grief and sorrow, even anger. “Why? What did I do, God? What did You do?” Only partial answers can be given. But we do know God’s final answer to death: resurrection.
The prophet Elijah performs a miracle that has never been done before, to make a dead person alive again. He calls upon God and stretches out over the child three times, no doubt a reference to his belief in the Trinity, trusting that God would use him as an instrument to bring divine action, to bring life out of death. Resurrection is the God’s business. He is the Lord of life, after all.
This proves to the widow that not only is the Lord the God who provides food wherein the false idol Baal could not, but that He has power over death itself. In the Canaanite religion, Baal had to submit to Mot, the Canaanite god of death and the underworld. The widow is brought to even greater faith and a bold confession, a daughter of Abraham not by blood by faith in the One true God!
This miracle foreshadows the conversion of the Gentiles, and also the greatest prophet, who by His own authority raised the son of the widow at Nain. Not only did Christ deal with that death, but for a while this Son of God was dead as well. He suffered and died, not because of His iniquity and guilt, but for the world’s. Where is the outrage and the sorrow over this injustice? Not because an innocent man died at the hands of the authorities, but because of your sin. It was your sin that drove Jesus to the cross. God’s Word comes to bring your sin and guilt to remembrance that caused that death of God’s only begotten son.
And God’s answer to His Son’s death was the same as for the sons of the widow at Zarephath and the widow at Nain, but even greater. For Jesus was raised on the third day and by His resurrection He has killed death itself. Christ has been raised from the dead, He will never die again. Death has no more dominion over him. And because of Him, you who believe has spiritual life, which will never end, and your bodies will be resurrected perfect, and glorious and everlasting. That is God’s final answer to the “why” of evil, injustice, confusion; to death itself.
Yet believers will still die physically. Through you have total pardon for your sins through faith in Christ, your bodies will die as a consequence of sin and living in a sin ruined world. But it has no power, or permeance, over you. COVID is not a death sentence. Cancer is not a death sentence. Accidents and tragedy are not a death sentence. Because Jesus lives, you who believe in Him shall live. As our Lord says in John 11, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die.” (John 11:25-26).
The raising of the widow’s son beautifully foreshadows the resurrection of the dead, the resurrection we confess every time we say the Creed. At the return of Christ, those who are “For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep.” (2 Thess 4:14). He will transform these lowly bodies to be like His glorious body by the power that enables Him even to subject all things to Himself” (Philippians 3:21).
So when death comes, when evil and injustice and worry and confusion arises in life, call upon the Lord, grieve, but not as those who have no hope. Christ has taken away the sting of death for believers who know that at Jesus’ return on the Last Day death, death will be destroyed forever. Look forward to that glorious day of the Lord, the day of resurrection, and your eternal life, body and spirit reunited for eternity in the new creation.