[On the morning of this New Year's Eve, on which we have awakened, I would like to tell God's message to us by underlining some of the words of the story of Elijah, this very human story, by underlining some of the details.It is not a very refreshing sight that the story presents to us. In the barrenness of the desolate wasteland stands a single stunted little juniper tree or bush, a small plant with half withered, sparse branches. Beneath it sits a man with his head on his knees. A symbol of despair and abandonment. You can see that he is completely exhausted... He's lost his strength, his courage, maybe even his will! This man has had enough! He's stuffed. His pithy features are dishevelled with fear and perplexity. He's dead tired! He's tired of life. He wails softly, "Lord, I've had enough! Take away my soul. Let me die, please!
Today they might say: he's had a nervous breakdown! Elijah, the mighty, powerful prophet, the man of God?! Yes, that's him! The lazy, the soft, the good-for-nothing people, the shirkers of work and responsibility, don't break down. Only the overworked, the overstretched string snaps. Elijah was just like that. Indeed, he was exceedingly zealous for the Lord. It was not even 24 hours ago that he stood on Mount Carmel, face to face with all the people, with God alone! When he called down that particular fire from heaven to shame the pagan gods and idols... He stood there like a rock, like a hero of God, like a living divinity before whom all groaned and bowed down. And now he sits in the dust like a piece of misery! Yes, it happens sometimes that for years one can keep up a great pace, stand his ground in the struggles of life, do a great job, stand his ground heroically - and then suddenly he collapses, exhausts himself, feels he can take no more, that he has had enough.
I feel, my brethren, that this discouraged, weary man, this broken man of God, is close to us. Even if not to the same extent as in the case of Elijah, weariness is a symptom that is the most common feeling of modern man today. For life itself is a wearisome thing. We live at such a pace that not only the old but also the young are tired, both physically and mentally. According to psychologists who know our times well, the most common type of person today is the tired person, the overworked person, the overstressed person! If we were to look sometimes into the invisible baggage that a person carries, we would be amazed at the burden he has to carry! How can he bear it? How is it that he has not yet collapsed under it? And now, here we are, the door of a new year is opening, who knows what this door will open, how will we bear the new burdens, tasks, problems? Perhaps it is best not to think about it!
But in Elijah's case, there was something else, not simply that he was tired of life. Elijah was full of anxiety and complaints and bitterness because he saw that his work was fruitless, that he was tired, that he was living in vain. The people had forsaken God, the prophets had been killed, and he was left alone: what was he to do? Service to God had become empty, aimless, hopeless! So he says, "Enough, Lord, take my soul! This is the depressed, slackened state of mind of the believer, the people of God. And it is also typical of Christianity today, and of us as believers. We are just dragging along, bitter, disillusioned and unproductive, unimaginative, uninspired in our faithful life. We may see that we are called to do more than we can accomplish in Christianity, but we are discouraged that we are few in number, fewer and fewer. What are a few people to do with the whole world? Then I am discouraged at the sight of inefficiency, at the growing spiritual resistance, at the growing spirit of unbelief, of denial of God, at the intrusion of our own family... All our efforts, prayers and efforts are in vain. Is it even worth fighting the tide? Would it not be better for us to say, as Elijah did, "enough"? I'm fed up with the life of a believer, it's not going to get us anywhere!? So many have given up the faith, is it not time for me to give it up too? Yes, there is such a spirit, such a weariness in the children of God.
This poor Elijah gives the impression of a very broken man. And do you know what is good about this brokenness? It is to complain to God of his sorrow, to say to God that he can bear it no longer. That is good. Because everyone can tell God everything! It's up to him to complain, even to argue! Before God, it is free to be tired and exhausted. When a man comes before God, he does not necessarily have to be big, strong, heavy. Even a strong, hard man is allowed to weep bitterly before God.
Hear, then, weary men: God will not punish you for your weariness! Nor hath Elijah reproved you for it. He knows best, for we know from his Word, that even the best of men grow weary. Every person who struggles and works has moments of depression, times when he or she becomes depressed. It is a very deeply human thing. The best thing to do is to crawl before the Lord and give Him a good squeeze!
If you no longer have the strength or the will to fight, you still have your knees! Kneel before the Lord! Elijah is said to have "lain down". Into the dust! Oh, if those who feared him on Mount Carmel the day before yesterday could see him now! Is he only such a weak man? But weakness is no shame before God! Wretched is the man who has never been broken, weak, wretched before God! Don't be ashamed to be broken, to weep when you are alone with God! It is good, very good.
Look, the story continues, "And behold, an angel touched him." And behold, it's like a big, jubilant, happy exclamation: behold, something unexpected happens, something surprising! This man has plunged into his bitter impossibility, he is completely lost, he is just waiting for the end. Behold, above this despairing, dark human life, plunged in deathly sleep, there is the hand of God, the saving, helping hand of God! Because that is what this is about, that is the essence of what is happening here. In and through that angel, God touches Elijah. The angel there is the hand of God! God is reaching out his hand to this broken man. That angel there is a manifestation of God's presence and help.
Do you sense how much good news there is in this for all tired, lonely and desperate people! Behold, God reaches out his hand to the drowned man. God reaches out to you, his hand is upon you! The people? They hardly reach out to such a man. "No one reaches out his hand to me"-but many times have sad men in distress said this! And even if one did reach out... Oh, how short and weak this hand! It cannot help! Don't expect it from people, that's not what you need! For, behold, God is reaching out to you! God is in your desert!
For Elijah, the angel of God's hand was a figure of an angel. He touched Elijah with it. And if you want to see the hand of God reaching out to you in its fullness, do you know where to look? Look into the manger of Bethlehem, at the tiny hand of Mary's little child: behold, this is the hand of God! Or even more powerful: go with him to Calvary and look up at the cross, at the nailed hands of Jesus crucified. These are the hands of God! With these hands God comes to our aid. These hands reach down to the lowest depths of life, to the most desperate situations. These hands reach out to everyone, even to those who feel that they are no longer worthy, able or willing to live like Elijah!
My brothers! On the morning of this new year, I proclaim to you that God has reached out his hand to you in Jesus Christ. God is here with you! With us! With us! Even when we turn away from him, he reaches out to us! Even if we take our hands out of His, He reaches out with those outstretched hands, grabs us, draws us to Himself - with a love that will never let us go! He wants us to be strengthened, to get up, to go on, trusting, hoping, happy - to live! "Get up!" says the angel. Get up! Elijah cannot take off his robe. He does not say when it is enough. When God says enough is enough, then Elijah can stop. But not now! God still needs Elijah, this weary man. Elijah has a job to do, he can't rest yet. He cannot sleep, he cannot die! "Wake up," says the angel. Wake up! Eat! He puts food before him. Right next to him, he only has to reach out his hand. But he must stretch it out and eat the food. No one else can do that for him. If he doesn't do even that - reach out for the food, put it in his mouth and swallow it - then Elijah will perish beyond repair. Then Elijah is truly finished. So he must eat! That food has power! But that food must be eaten!
Eat, says the Lord, even today, on the threshold of the New Year. What? Well, Jesus once said, "My flesh is meat, and my blood is drink. So He is the nourisher of life! Receive Jesus as food and drink. Read the Bible, listen to the Word, take communion, pray in such a way that you may receive Jesus as food, and in this way you may process Him as food.
Do you think that He walked the way from heaven, through death, to the resurrection and back to heaven so that we might have some kind of spiritual enjoyment here in the church on Sundays? No, but so that we can go on by the divine life force that He has poured out in us. And on a path beyond our strength! 'Eat, for you have a way above your strength,' says the angel to Elijah. Yes, Elijah obviously experienced the miraculous power of this food physically, he endured the journey for 40 days to Horeb. But he was actually changed inwardly by it, for he had not seen the meaning of his life before. He was completely burnt out inside, and now this food has strengthened his soul, it has made him a new man! That's the great thing, that you can be renewed from the inside, so that you can endure even in the most impossible situations. In fact, it goes on in a joyful, blessed way!
So eat! Every day when you wake up, eat again! Eat Jesus! Whoever takes Christ into himself in this way, a miracle happens. He regains his meaning, his content, his strength, his joy of life! And then His power will do what your own human ability cannot! For the life of Christ! To the service of Christ! To Christ's love, sacrifice, victory! For all the tasks of the whole new year!
See how boldly and surely Elijah goes on, who just now was dragging himself and falling down! And now he goes on for forty days and forty nights... By the power of that wonderful food!
And so we can go on into the new year, with the strength of that wonderful food! So let us reassure one another with song:
Brothers and sisters, let's go boldly, the night will soon fall,
In this earthly wilderness It is a great danger to stop.
So let us find the strength to hurry on to heaven
Not to rest before the happy goal.
Canto 455, verse 1
Amen
Date: 1 January 1963.
Lesson
Jn 6,47-56