Sermon - Lent Midweek 1, 2021

 

        Being a Christian and having the true faith of eternal life is the greatest and most joyous reason to celebrate and be glad! As the Psalmist sang: “Oh sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done marvelous things!... Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises!... Let the rivers clap their hands; let the hills sing for joy together!”

Did you hear what Jesus said earlier? “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” Do you want to have a close relationship with God? Then you got it! You’re Jesus’ brother or sister! You’re His immediate family and He is your brother. We don’t need to just sing what a friend we have in Jesus, but what a brother we have in Jesus. He is our own family, our own flesh and blood. 

What has our brother done for us? He’s given to us the sign of the prophet Jonah. “Just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” Christ has conquered death by His three day rest in the tomb. Just as Jonah was spit out of the sea onto dry land, so did Jesus emerge from the pit of death to the land of eternal life. 

Jesus is greater than Jonah, because Jesus is our brother. Since He is our own family, His victory over the grave is for us and grants us salvation! “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign,” but Jesus has given us a miracle better than any sign: He raises the dead to life! 

We believers have every reason to rejoice and be glad and wear a smile on our face and laugh in our hearts. It’s odd then that we’re so often filled with depression instead of giddiness. Consider the great prophet Elijah. Immediately preceding our reading this evening, Elijah had lived with the widow at Zarephath and her son, and God miraculously fed them during a drought with a jar of flour and jug of oil which never emptied. When the widow’s son died, Elijah raised her son back to life. Elijah confronted 450 prophets of Baal, and the Baal prophets made a spectacle of themselves and no miracle happened, while the Lord God worked through Elijah to perform a miracle in the sight of all the people. The people immediately fell on their faces and confessed: “The Lord, He is God.” Then Elijah slaughtered the 450 Baal prophets.

All of those mighty works of God had been done in the sight of Elijah! He brought many people to faith in God! He revealed idol worship for the sham that it is! But Elijah, in fear of wicked queen Jezebel, fled scared and hid under a tree. “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.” 

It’s strange to think of Elijah, the greatest prophet of the Old Testament, depressed and wanting to die. Didn’t he know that he was chosen by the Lord to speak God’s Word? Didn’t he realize the many miracles which had already occurred during his ministry? Did he forget that God cares for him and has preserved him amidst many dangers? Such is depression in the life of believers. Even those closest to God can be plagued with serious bouts of depression. 

In the midst of that depression, what does the Lord do? He sends His angels. “Behold, an 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.””

Though the journey is too great for us, God strengthens us with food and drink. The Christian life, as wonderful and joyous as it is, it’s a journey fraught with peril. Satan loves to capitalize on these perils by filling our hearts with deep sadness and despair, to the point where we wish we were dead. Depression is not your fault, nor does it make you less of a believer. So when you’re depressed, look and see that Jesus is your brother who knows your pain, God is your Father who sends His angels to minister to you when the road you walk is dark and the journey becomes too great.

The message of the angel is simple: “arise and eat.” The Lord God, our Maker and Preserver, He knows what we need and how to strengthen us for this difficult journey. The first thing the Lord does when we are weak is He speaks and commands us to stand. Like the sick and dead that Jesus healed, He commanded them to rise and walk. Jesus does the same for us when we are cast down.

This maybe seems insensitive to just tell people to be better, but we must realize that when Jesus speaks, His word does what it says. He tells the dead person to stop being dead, and they live! He tells us who are depressed to stand up, arise, emerge from our gloom and live! When Jesus speaks, His Word gives new life. Jesus isn’t just encouraging us, but when He speaks He’s making something happen!

When we’re depressed, reading the Bible is a very helpful practice, not just because it’s encouraging (and it is encouraging), but because when we hear God’s Word He’s actively changing us through that Word. When God says: fear not, arise, come follow me, peace be with you; He’s actively making those things happen in our lives through His Word. His Word heals us of our gloom.

The second thing that the Lord does when we’re weak is that He feeds us. This doesn’t just mean that He fills our bellies with tasty food, like when we just ate supper. Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. The Lord has food more important than what we shovel down our throats, rather He feeds us the bread of life! What is this bread of life but the Son of God! 

Jesus says that He is the bread of life. Jesus is the one who feeds us from His own body so that we may be strengthened for this long perilous journey. This great supper was revealed to mankind on the night Jesus was betrayed, and this meal has been eaten by Christians ever since. From the altar, God’s children, Jesus’ brothers and sisters, arise and eat this meal prepared by Christ Himself. The bread and wine are true food and true drink, which in the supper are Jesus’ body and blood. Here our souls are nourished and strengthened so that we may endure the great journey.

Just like the angels told Elijah to arise and eat twice, so do we see that must always arise and eat. Jesus’ speaking and feeding us isn’t merely a one time or occasional event, but it’s a regular habit we Christians follow. Since we are so weak, and the journey too great for us, we must always arise and eat the food our Lord sends. What a comfort it is for us Christians to know that though we be weak and plagued with depression, God ministers to us very regularly through His Word and His supper.