I don’t remember very much what things I did in children’s Sunday School as a little boy. But very bizarrely, I do remember one thing. I remember coloring a drawing one Sunday what looked to me like an old man feeding birds. (Keep in mind this is years before I became a reader of the Old Testament.) I had no clue what was the story behind the picture. I didn’t know why there was a drawing of an old man next to birds. Many years later, I learned that the story behind the drawing came out of 1 Kings 17, and that the name of the old man was Elijah. I learned also that the man was not feeding the birds, but the birds were feeding the man! I learned also that the birds were ravens, and ravens came only in black, right down to their legs, and I had colored them with bright colors.
As a prophet of God in Israel, Elijah appears in quite a few interesting stories in the Bible. What stories do you remember about Elijah? One day, he said some not so nice things to King Ahab, so King Ahab didn’t like him very much. Later on, Elijah met a woman from Zarephath. Even though there was a famine in the land and she barely had enough food for her son and herself, she gave some to Elijah. God miraculously provided food for all of them that day. Another day, Elijah also engaged in a face-off with the prophets of Baal. He prepared an altar with two bulls, but put no fire to it. He challenged Baal’s prophets to call on their god to burn up the altar, and he called on the Lord to do the same, and whoever burned up the altar with fire, he was the real deal. Nothing happened when Baal’s prophets called on their god. But the Lord sent fire down from heaven to burn the two bulls, the wood, and even licked up the surrounding water in the trench. This sounds like a story that happens only in Hollywood action movies. And there are more interesting Elijah stories than these.
But more than anything, what I remember most about Elijah is that he didn’t die. I said in a memorial service for a friend recently that everyone dies. Everybody dies in this world. Not Elijah. The Bible says he was scooped up into heaven in a fiery chariot, and that makes him unique among all the characters in the Bible.
Elijah was an important name in the Old Testament. But did you know his name didn’t go away after we leave the OT? He came back in the New Testament. If you have read the New Testament in its entirety, you might have noticed that Elijah came up more than just a few times. Did you know his name appeared in all four gospels? But did you know it appeared in Romans and James, too? I had forgotten about that.
Do you remember that at Jesus’ transfiguration, Moses and Elijah appeared in front of Peter, James and John?
Matthew 17.3–4
And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him. Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, I will make three tabernacles here, one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
Moses appeared at Jesus’ transfiguration, and I cannot say I am surprised by that because he was, after all, the prophet par excellence in the Old Testament. He led the Israelites out of Egypt. God gave the Ten Commandments to no one else but him. So, I get it about Moses. But why Elijah? I have always found it fascinating it was he who appeared alongside Moses at the transfiguration. Do you suppose the reason has something to do with the fact he didn’t die but was carried into heaven?