Lenten Midweek I
Adventures with Elijah: Elijah
and the Widow of Zarephath
February 25, 2026
Text: 1
Kings 17:8-24; Luke 7:11-17
Your Lord cares for you. See how this is illustrated in His loving
provision for the Prophet Elijah. And
not only the Prophet, but also the widow of Zarephath, and her son.
Even before we get to our text, see
how He cares for you by sending the Prophet in the first place. The days were evil. An evil king, Ahab, and his evil wife,
Jezebel, are leading Israel astray. The Baals. The Ashtaroth. Idolatry.
And all the wickedness that goes with that. The LORD cares for His people,
Israel. And He knows what they need. Drought.
Famine. Suffering. Why?
Not as punishment, but as a call to repentance. A call back to the one true God. Their God. Their LORD, who loves them. So He sends His man to announce it. Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe, in Gilead (1
Kings 17:1), this greatest of the Old Testament prophets, appears, seemingly,
out of nowhere. His entrance on the
world stage is as full of mystery as his exit in the whirlwind and chariots of
fire (2 Kings 2). His name means, “My
God is Yah!” Not Baal. Not Asherah.
Not anyone else. Yah! And that will be the sum and substance of his
preaching, life, and ministry.
God sends His Prophet to announce
disaster to Israel, to call them back to Himself, because He loves
them. And these things are written for your
learning (1 Cor. 10:11). They are
written to likewise call you to repentance, to forsake your idols, and
return to the one true God. Your
God. Your Lord. Who cares for you. Even suffering is an expression of His love
and care. The devil always has his own
nefarious purposes in disaster, of course.
But God has His, and His will and purpose in it is what
Jesus says of the Galileans whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices, or
those 18 on whom the tower in Siloam fell: Repent, lest you likewise perish
(Luke 13:1-5). He is chastening
you. His is disciplining you. Because He loves you (parents who don’t
discipline their children are not loving them).
That is your Lord’s care for you.
And that is why He sends the preacher to preach to you. Law and Gospel. Sin (and its consequences) and grace in
Jesus. Repentance and faith.
But to our text… See how He cares
for you in the way He feeds His Prophet.
Elijah is hungry, too. Because of
the drought and famine he announced. The
preacher always suffers with his people.
Especially when the people hate him, as Elijah is hated. But God does not leave him destitute. First, there are ravens feeding him, and a
little brook from which he drinks. That
happens just prior to our text. But
then, when the brook dries up, and all appears lost and doomed, we hear how God
provides. A widow. Not even an Israelite. A Gentile woman from Zarephath (incidentally,
the sending of the Prophet to a Gentile is also a picture of God’s care
for us, because it foreshadows the sending of Apostles and preachers to us
Gentiles!) Well, some help! She, herself, is destitute due to the drought
and the famine. She’s gathering
sticks. Has just a handful of flour and
a little oil in a jug. What is her
plan? A little cake for herself and
her son, that they may eat of it, and die! Now the Prophet wants a cake of it first? Who knows what ran through the woman’s mind? Probably many conflicting thoughts. But remember, the LORD tells Elijah that He commanded
her (1 Kings 17:9). And now, the Promise
from the mouth of the Prophet: “The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the
jug of oil shall not be empty” (v. 14).
So, she does it. And what
happens? The LORD keeps His Promise. As He always does. He is faithful. Elijah eats.
The woman eats. And the boy
eats. For many days. In devastating drought and famine. Because the LORD cares for them. And the LORD cares for you. You know it.
Who has fed you up to now? Who
has given you each day your daily bread?
Here you are, and you haven’t yet starved. See how your Lord cares for you.
See how He cares for you in
the boy’s illness and death. The woman
thinks He does not care. As we
often think when calamity strikes. And
as also often happens, she takes it out on the preacher. “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to
remembrance and to cause the death of my son!” (v. 18). Of course, that isn’t the case, and it isn’t
the case for you, either. But it
sure feels like it, sometimes, doesn’t it.
Behold for a minute, by the way, the
preacher’s love for his people.
The lament. “O LORD my
God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by
killing her son?” (v. 20). The fervent
prayer. “O LORD my God, let this
child’s life come into him again” (v. 21).
Elijah, “My God is Yah,” prays his own name: “O LORD my God… Yahweh, my
God!” See, he knows, if there is to be a
healing, a miracle, a resurrection from the dead, it will not come from
Elijah. It must come from the LORD. And Elijah casts it all upon the LORD his
God. And before we get to it, the
miracle that is the grand crescendo of our text, see how the LORD
cares for the widow, and for you, in this time of grief. And for the preacher, too. He hears their cries. He receives their lament. “(T)he LORD listened to the voice of Elijah,”
the text says (v. 22). And see how He cares
for the boy, and so for you, in death. “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the
death of his saints” (Ps. 116:15).
But then, what happens? As he prays, the Prophet stretches himself
upon the child three times… Now,
don’t miss this. He stretches himself
out. I suppose there is no way to
know exactly what that looked like, but I can’t help but think of it as arms
outstretched in such a way that Prophet and corpse are incorporated into
the sign of the cross. Cruciform. And what comes after the cross? You know.
And then, three times. Like the three days in the tomb. Like our blessed Triune God. Like the Name of the Holy Trinity
emblazoned on us in Holy Baptism, where we die with Christ, and are raised
with Him to new life already now, spirited with His Spirit
(the life, the breath comes back into us), sealed for the Day when the
Lord will raise our very bodies. See
how your Lord cares for you in the resurrection of the widow’s boy.
And we see it so clearly, don’t
we, in our Holy Gospel tonight (Luke 7:11-17).
Jesus is the Lord who cares for us, now come in our flesh. And He is the Lord who stops death in its
tracks. Who takes our uncleanness
and death into Himself (He “touched the bier” [v. 14]). Who commands, “Young man, I say to you,
arise” (v. 14), and that is just what happens. The dead man sits up and begins to speak (v.
15), and the Lord… who cares for the young man… and cares for the
young man’s mother, a destitute and grief-stricken widow… gives him back to
his mother. See your Lord’s care
for you in this episode. For He will
command you to arise one Day, and that very soon. And you will sit up, and begin to
speak. And then, particularly for all you
Christian parents who know the unspeakable grief of your own child’s death…
look what joy and hope He gives you by what He did for the widow
in Zarephath, and for this widow in our Gospel: He gave her child back to
her.
Because He is the Son of a widow. And He died. And His mother saw it with her own eyes. But after three days, what? He rose from the dead. And He was given back to His
mother. And to us all. See your Lord’s care for you in the
death and resurrection of this Son.
Death defeated. Your sins
forgiven. Justification and eternal life. That is how your Lord cares for
you. And now you are an
Elijah. You confess, and you pray, “My
God is… not whatever stupid idols I’ve been harboring, but… Yah!... The Lord who cares for me.” In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X,
and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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