I Alone Am Left: A Meditation on 1st Kings 19, for the 11th Sunday after Pentecost

As the Church passes through the long season of Pentecost, questions of endurance and perseverance easily arise.  The Summer is hot, the labors are difficult, and there seems such a long time since the Holy Spirit moved us on Easter Sunday, or until we shall celebrate the joys of the Incarnation at Christmas.  This little time that we spend throughout the Church year is analogous to the much longer history in which we reside—where we the Church labor in the Law and Gospel of Jesus Christ, having been sent forth in the power of His Spirit at Pentecost nearly 2000 years ago, and yet awaiting the Second Coming of our Lord and the resurrection of the dead at the end of time.  Many generations have passed since the Apostles went forth by the power of the Holy Spirit, preaching repentance and the forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ Name, and we who have entered into their labors are not given to know how many generations may come after us, taking up the mantle of the Prophets and Apostles we have carried, so as to carry it forth until the end.  In reality, the people of God have been laboring ever since the Fall of our first parents, waiting thousands of years in faith and repentance for the first coming of Our Lord, even as the Church has labored for thousands of years in faith and repentance awaiting His final return.  Given the context of our labors and our waiting, it is good to pause and remember the virtues of patience and endurance, and from when they come.

In 1^st Kings 19, the great prophet Elijah is ready to give up.  Despite the great victory he has witnessed on Mount Carmel as the fire of the living God came down at his command, turning the hearts of the people away from Baal and back to their Savior, Elijah hears of the queen’s desire to kill him, and flees into the wilderness.  He despairs of his life, asking God to kill him, and lamenting that he alone is left faithful in the whole house of Israel. 

His is a sentiment the people of God often share.  Particularly in our own time, when business and information flow at the speed of light all around the globe, it is easy to think that the long labors of the Church are futile, or that there simply aren’t enough faithful people left for anything to make a difference.  Our government persecutes faithful Christians, even as the general electorate becomes ever more hostile to the Word of God.  Though Baal may not be commonly known in 21^st century America, the false gods of Darwin and Hawking are household names.  The people are easily swayed into believing that scientists and academics, with their political actors, will deliver them from the evils of poverty, pestilence, war, and even death.  These false gods are firmly rooted in the people’s popular culture, their schools, and their media, proclaiming a false gospel of hedonistic evolution.  The people have become willing prey for the demonic lies that they are simply animals striving to satisfy their animal lusts, where good and evil are really just relative experiences of pleasure or pain, convenience or inconvenience.  In such a mess as this, it is tempting for the people of God to abandon His Eternal Word, or to flee into the deserts despairing of their labors in so great a wicked maelstrom.

But to us, as to Elijah, the Lord comes through His ever present yet still and small voice.  The Holy Scriptures do not scream themselves from their pages, but rather work through the feeble eloquence of simple servants of that Word.  The Lord’s normal means are not shattering the mountains with His ferocious wind, nor burning the world with His consuming fire.  The Lord our God, King of the Universe, chooses to come to us gently, wooing us through the love and compassion of His Son.  Though He has all power and authority in heaven and on earth, our Lord comes as a servant of all, suffering patiently in His labors for the salvation of all mankind.  Not only was our Lord Jesus Christ working during the thirty three years of His Incarnation through Resurrection, but from the beginning of time to its end, He has made Himself the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  Our Lord Jesus, though He has a voice that brought all things into existence, sustains all things in His providence, and shall judge all things at their end, labors patiently, endures the pain of rejection and scorn, speaking in His still, small voice the Word of forgiveness, life, and salvation for all who will repent and believe in Him.

It is not Jesus who enters into the labors of His Church, but rather it is the Church who Jesus calls to enter into His labors, as He works for the reconciliation of all souls.  The labor of Jesus is sacrificial and selfless, patient and enduring, driven by love divine.  He does not tire nor despair.  He who is the Word of the Father, knows the power of His Word to bring life to the dying, hope to the despairing, peace to the anxious, joy to the sorrowful.  He knows full well, and beyond the measure of any man’s pondering, just how great and enduring are the Words:  your sins be forgiven.

As the Church continues in the labors of her Lord, she does not find her strength and motivation by looking to herself, or the example of the convoluted world around her.  She does not work the harder by thrashing herself under the Law, which points out to her the failings of her duties.  That holy Law which shows the greatness of God’s glory and the unflagging faithfulness of her Lord in all things, is not what gives her strength to follow in her Savior’s footsteps, for no terror or brilliance of the Law can bring forth the true divine love which alone satisfies the Law.  What gives the people of God their strength to endure, their patience in the face of all evils, their constancy in the rise and fall of civilizations, is the love of God in Jesus Christ which says to them:  Your sins be forgiven.  This Gospel of grace for the sake of Jesus’ suffering and death on our behalf is what calls forth the people of God unto faith and repentance, leading them into and sustaining them within the labors of Jesus as He speaks His still, small Word of redemption to the world.

Dear Christian, do you feel as Elijah did, that your labors are useless?  Does your patience wane and your endurance dry up in the heat of the noonday sun?  Do you wonder if you alone are left to bear the Word of the Lord?  Take heart, and hear once again:  Your sins be forgiven.  Your labors, weak and beggarly though they be, are worked by the hands of Christ.  Your patience and endurance, fragile and temperamental though they be, are sustained by the love of Christ.  Your bearing of the Word of God, piecemeal and ignorant though it be, is bound up in and sent forth by Spirit of Christ.  For it is not you who have chosen Jesus so as to strengthen your labors, but Jesus who has chosen you to enter into His—and it is Jesus who will give you all you need to accomplish what He has called you to do and to be, by the immeasurable sufficiency of His Eternal Word.

Be of good cheer, dear Christian.  Repent of your despair, your timidity, and your sloth.  Return once again to the still, small voice of your God, who speaks to you through his Eternal Son the Word which gives life unto us all, and endurance until the work of Christ is complete:  Your sins be forgiven. 

Amen.