You’ve all heard of the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, right? It’s a common way we explain that enormous gap that exists between winning and losing. It’s quite a different feeling being the general who accepts the enemy’s surrender than being the general who is doing the surrendering. It’s thrilling when the Packers had what seemed to be an insurmountable lead in the NFC Championship Game only to feel the agony of defeat as the ball bounced away from them. You’ve felt this in life too I’m sure… there’s quite a difference between hearing, “The cancer is in remission…” and, “the cancer has come back…” Sometimes it can even be that those moments of victory and defeat go hand in hand… you win the battle but you lose the war at the same time…
Now why bring this up…? Well, today we hear of a man named Elijah who was very familiar with the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat… And as anyone will tell you… and as you probably know yourself… the agony of defeat tends to stick with you longer than the thrill of victory… and it can beat you down and discourage you and frustrate you to no end…
The prophet Elijah had just been a part of an incredible victory right before the short account we’ll focus on in our text. He was a messenger of God to the nation of Israel during a time when the king and queen and most of the people had abandoned the true God. But just a short time before we see him alone in our text, Elijah was at the top of a mountain near the northern Mediterranean coast. On Mount Carmel Elijah had been prompted by God to challenge the
prophets of the false god called Baal to a test… If Baal answered his prophets’ prayers and sent fire to burn up a sacrifice then Elijah said it would be clear he was truly God. However if the LORD sent fire from heaven then the people needed to acknowledge the truth that the LORD alone was God…
Well, the LORD won that victory of course. And it was a thrilling moment I’m sure for Elijah. The people all declared their allegiance to the LORD. The prophets of Baal who had been leading people away from faith and into hell were cut down and destroyed. Elijah perhaps thought that this would be the watershed moment of his ministry… finally the people would return to the LORD and he could rest from a long and difficult career…
But that was at Carmel… now… now he was on the run again… and not only did he feel defeated, but that great victory on Mount Carmel must have seemed like a distant memory… all he could remember now was the look of rage on queen Jezebel’s face as she threatened his life… and as he fled south all he could think about was how he’d just spent the last three years on the run from wicked king Ahab who wanted him dead… had his labor for God and his people been pointless? Here he was again all alone… leaving his servant behind… he went on alone… no one with him… because no one else could understand… he had had enough. And as he collapsed under that scraggly desert tree he spit out a prayer as he dropped off to sleep… more like a resignation than a prayer really… “I have had enough, LORD,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” (1 Kings 19:4)
What is it that frustrates you? What makes you so sick and tired that you are ready to give up? To give up on others? To give up on life? To give up on God? Maybe, like Elijah, you’ve gotten sick of talking to people who don’t seem to listen. Your words to your spouse or you kids or your boss… they seem to fall on deaf ears. Maybe you’re ready to just throw in the towel on them. Maybe it’s because you feel the sting of persecution just like Elijah… perhaps no one is out to kill you… but the constant barrage of anti-Christian sentiment in our nation is maybe just grinding you down to the point where you feel like you can’t take it anymore. Maybe your frustration is with your body that seems to be falling apart… your vision or hearing isn’t what it once was… or you’re in pain most of the time… or your battle with cancer won’t quit… or you have to prepare yourself for yet another surgery… Perhaps what is really weighing you down is your unending battle with yourself… with another day of failure… another day where you do the thing you promised yourself you wouldn’t do again…
When we find ourselves beaten down by these things we can be very much tempted to do just what Elijah did… to run off and hide… to lay down and give up… give up on ourselves… give up on others… give up on life… even give up on God.
It’s important for us to recognize that when we start into these self-focused gripe fests and pity parties what we’re really doing is demonstrating a lack of trust in our God. If we trusted God with our whole heart we would never be bothered by the burdens of life… we would rest in knowing that our God was caring for us and using these things for our good.
And what should God do with us when we’re experiencing the agony of yet another defeat…when we’re frustrated with life and frustrated with him? Well… I suppose God should probably treat us the same way… he should be frustrated. Frustrated with our lack of faith even after all he’s done for us… he should be ready to say, “Enough! I’ve had it with you and your complaining. After all I’ve done for you… after all I’ve told you… and this is how you repay me!?” If we think about it we really have no reason to expect anything else from God… and yet what do we get from him? What did Elijah get? We’re told: 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.” (1 Kings 19:5-7)
What did Elijah find? What did Elijah get from God in return for his frustrations and fears? Well… Elijah found his griping met with grace… he saw his frustrations met with God’s faithfulness. And so do we… God comes to us, like he came to Elijah, and he give us bread for the journey. In Elijah’s case he really did give him some bread and water to strengthen him and keep him going… but he also gave him a word of encouragement… he told him to keep going… to go and meet with God at Mount Horeb where he’d be encouraged by his Word and his mercy. And our God does the same with us. He refreshes us with just the just right things to keep us going when we hit those low points on our journey through life.
We hear encouragement from a friend… an apology from a spouse… a word of appreciation from our boss or teacher… but best of all – best of all – God gives us the Bread that alone can fill our hunger and truly give us the strength we need to keep going… he gives us his Son… he feeds us with Jesus, the Bread of Life, who alone can give us what we need to forget the daily defeats and fears and frustrations that come with life in a sinful world.
We heard Jesus today in the Gospel Lesson describe himself as the Bread of Life… as food for the soul. And that’s just what he is. He nourishes us when we’re ready to give up. He reminds us that even if others don’t listen to us or care about us – he does. He comforts us with the promise that sickness and pain and failing health are only temporary burdens to bear, and that they are meant to remind us we were never meant to live in this world forever.
And perhaps best of all Jesus comes to us and feeds us with the truth that not even our sin can change the way he feels about us… even if our lives are a mess right now because of it. And that might seem too good to be true because we never experience such perfect mercy from other people… but I promise you it is true. Your failures, your fears, your frustrations, your sins – nothing can place you outside the sphere of God’s love or nullify your calling as his hold child.
And I can make that promise to you because God’s only Son made it a certainty. He came down from heaven and went through the difficult journey of life in this sinful world. He faced persecution… he had people refuse to listen to him… he got sick… he got tired… but he never ever gave up… he never gave up on himself… or on his God… or on his mission. And he never gave up on you. Instead he took all your fears and frustrations and failures… he took them to the cross where he experienced the agony of defeat for us… as he gave his body for the life of the world… and then he left all those fears and frustrations and failures of ours in the grave and rose in victory so that we could be certain of his promises and certain of our future.
And as we hear this precious good news again and again… we are nourished by it… we are nourished by him. Jesus is our food… our strength, our bread for the journey… until that journey ends and we reach – not Horeb, the Mountain of God, like Elijah did… but heaven… the eternal home of God where we will live and forever be sustained by the Bread of Life. Amen.