Sermons 2024

Sermon Outline
    3.    Exit Elijah but not finally.
    2.    Enter Elijah to herald Christ.
    1.    Enter Christ into our world and lives.

JESUS’ ENTRANCE BRINGS ONSTAGE ALL THAT THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS ANTICIPATED.
 

Sermon
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. 

My dear beloved flock, the text for our meditation today is the Old Testament Lesson of Second Kings, chapter two, verses one through fourteen.
 

Boys and girls, I pray that you are doing well today. Have you ever been annoyed by constantly being asked a question? I know I have. You ask a lot of questions, many times without waiting for an answer. In our text for today, we see Elisha being annoyed with the constant reminder by the Sons of the Prophets that Elijah was about to being taking from him. He says to remain quiet about it. He does not want to be reminded about that fact. Yet, Elijah is taken from him in a whirlwind. How does Elijah’s departure help us today? How does that point us to Jesus? Ponder those questions as you hear the rest of the sermon. You may go back to your seats and those who love you.

3. Exit Elijah but not finally.
 

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts. (II VII)
 

So says Shakespeare in As You Like It. But one player on this world stage made his exit and then waited for his entrance while many acts were completed. Elijah’s “exit stage left” was well cued. Poor Elisha was harangued with it. The sons of the prophets who were in Bethel came out to Elisha and said to him, “Do you know that today the LORD will take away your master from over you?” “Yes, I know it; keep quiet.” The sons of the prophets who were at Jericho drew near to Elisha and said to him, “Do you know that today the LORD will take away your master from over you?” “Yes, I know it; keep quiet.” Elisha knew too well that his master and mentor, the prophet Elijah, must be taken from him, but he was in no mood to hear it. “Yes, I know it; keep quiet” (vv 3, 5).

Even more remarkable than the way his departure was heralded was the nature of his leaving. For perhaps only one man had previously left the world’s stage in a similar way before him, and only one since. Back in history, before history as we know it, there was a man named Enoch. Now while Genesis tells us of all his ancestors and descendants that so and so’s days were so many years and then he died, it does not say this of Enoch; rather, it says, “Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him” (Gen 5:24). But all others died. That was the nature of their exit from the world’s stage. That will be our exit too, if the play still runs at the end of our days. But Elijah took his bow in a different way. “And as [he and Elisha] still went on and talked, behold, chariots of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it and he cried, ‘My father, my father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!’ And he saw him no more” (vv 11–12a).
 

Elijah did not die, and his part on this stage was not yet finished. So while he was poised in the wings and dozens of generations came on to perform their own parts—while the monarchy of Israel rose and fell; while the kingdom divided and the people were scattered; while the Assyrians and Babylonians came and went; while Greece encroached and Rome overcame; while one prophet after another (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and a full supporting cast) took center stage to deliver the lines prepared for them—Elijah was not forgotten. Although his leaving is recorded early in 2 Kings, still, even in Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament canon, in the last chapter, in the second to last verse, we are left with this reminder: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes” (Mal 4:5).
 

2. Enter Elijah to herald Christ.
 

History continues to unfold upon the stage. There chaos, wars, still waiting for Elijah to come. We cannot see the plot advancing. We cannot hear the author’s words. The director’s hand is obscure. Until, way backstage, a player enters, a figurative Elijah. A player we know as John the Baptist. He enters in the ordinary way, being born of a woman. This woman was uncommonly old when she bore him, it is true, and even before his birth, he made his first contribution. For while he was still growing in his mother’s womb, he suddenly perceived that the coming of the great Day of the Lord was very near, as near as his mother was to her cousin, Mary. And he leaped for joy as they conversed. 

Later, John was driven to speak the divine lines which spoke of repentance and the kingdom of God. And it happened again: that same presence that had made him leap in the womb passed near him, and he called out, “The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn 1:29). He dressed for his part, in camel’s hair and leather girdle, unmistakably the costume of Elijah. So people asked him, “Are you Elijah?” He said no and continued to speak as only a prophet can, to take his exit as prophets tend to do, prematurely and by violent hand.

What John felt from his mother’s womb, what he shouted about as the Lamb of God, what everything he ever said and did was getting ready for, was this: the author himself was taking the stage. From the beginning, the production had been ruined by the scandalous improvisations of every actor, their senseless and arrogant departures from the directions in the script. What was so beautifully conceived and written was unfolding as a shambles at the hands of its incompetent performers. “Get this sorted!” was the forerunner’s message. “Straighten it out, because the one who is ‘the Author of life’ is visiting.”

1. Enter Christ into our world and lives.

Enter the Author of life, even though He is the Author, he did not simply take the role of a fellow player; he emptied himself to become one, and did so in every way—except he did not share their aberrant disregard of the directions scripted for them. Now he knows the plot better than any, he who responded at length to the one who came before him—the one who leaped for joy to feel his presence, who declared him to be the Lamb of God, and who prepared his way and died at the hand of a weak and incontinent wretch taking the part of a king. 

That one, the one who came before, whom they knew as John the Baptist, “That one,” said the Author of life, “if you are prepared to accept it, that one is Elijah who is to come.” Not, I think, Elijah called in from the wings; no, that must wait just a few more months. But John’s role was clear: he came on to begin the final act, to announce the arrival of the King and Lord and Savior in the costume of humanity and humility.
And finally, the wait was over. On a mountain. Peter, James, and John with Jesus. Enter Moses—the Lawgiver of old, the character who led his people from slavery, their guide and mediator with God. Enter Elijah. At last the prophet of old, the one who will be sent, before the final act. And Jesus for a moment de-masked, seen without the costume of his humility, outshining the sun, and overshadowed by the cloud of divine presence and the voice of his Father, “This is my beloved son, listen to him.”

And then, the most important thing of all: “And suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them but Jesus only” (Mk 9:8). If the entrance of Moses and Elijah was important, their exit was more so. For their departure means that Law is over and prophecy is past, and truly God is doing a new thing. These were only temporary. “As for prophecies,” said St. Paul, “they will pass away” (1 Cor 13:8), and with Elijah we see their passing. As for the Law, “the law,” he says, “was our guardian until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith” (Gal 3:24). The Law was never going to be the decisive thing on this great stage. So the guardian went, and with Moses we see its passing. Neither the prophetic words of the script, nor the directions of the Law instructing our performance, are the decisive twist. But the new thing is announced on the mountain of the transfiguration. As Law and prophet depart, One remains “This is my beloved Son.”

And from there, the beloved Son, the Author of life, continues His divine action at a place called the Place of a Skull, where he took his exit in grotesque suffering and abject humiliation, made all the more bitter because he carried no deficiency in his own performance, but shouldered the deficiency of every other twisted soul, right down to mine.

But the transfiguration hints at something more. There we saw Jesus in his glory; at least Peter, James, and John did, just for a moment. But it was a glimpse of what was to come. I mentioned earlier that we know only of the enigmatic character of Enoch leaving the world apparently without death before Elijah, but that there was one after him. Elijah waited for centuries before he was called back onstage; Jesus, only days. And before long, Peter, James, and John, as well as the rest of the disciples, saw Jesus again, having been killed in agony and shame, rising in triumph and in glory. And so he remains, never to die again, and although he had to leave this stage again, as did Elijah, ascending to his Father, Jesus, as He has promised, will return for us.

And if it is so that “all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players,” as we have made our entrance on the same stage after all these things, what is our part? We have a role and a purpose, and it is this: In the words of Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians: “In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph 1:11). There is a script. We are the players in it. Our role? To live for the praise of his glory. “[He has made] known to us the mystery of his will,” it says, “according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph 1:9–10).

JESUS’ ENTRANCE BRINGS ONSTAGE
ALL THAT THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS ANTICIPATED.

And when our exit shall come, there will be a place for us in his purpose and his will. It will not be, like Elijah, to walk again on this world and in this life, but to live for the praise of his glory, where he is forever. 
 

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard, and keep, your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.