“It’s a Miracle: Elijah and the Ravens”
I Kings 17:2-7
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
Some of you are old enough to remember a horror film, back from 1963, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It’s called, The Birds. It’s been ranked as the seventh-scariest movie of all time.
It begins as a young woman, played by Tippi Hedren, meets a lawyer, played by Rod Taylor, in a San Francisco bird shop. He’s there to purchase of a pair of lovebirds for his sister’s eleventh birthday.
But when he learns the shop doesn’t have any, the woman is kind enough to buy a pair from another store and deliver them to his house. And as she delivers them, then walks away, a seagull swoops down and attacks her.
And that’s when things start to go from bad to worse. Before long, all kinds of birds begin to attack—sparrows, crows, even chickens. They smash through roofs, break windows and even manage to start a fire.
And after a whole lot of cawing, clawing and screaming, the story ends as the young woman and lawyer drive away as thousands of birds are watching.
We have a fascination for birds. Even today, those of you with a smartphone might have a game called, “Angry birds.” (Hopefully, none of you are playing it right now).
And the Bible talks a lot about birds too. Jeremiah chapter 8 says, “The stork in the heavens knows her times, and the turtledove, swallow, and crane keep the time of their coming.” Jesus said in the book of Luke, “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God.” Dig a little deeper and you’ll find talk about pigeons, hawks, owls, ostriches, roosters, chickens, and eagle’s wings. Even when Jesus was baptized, the Spirit descended on Him in the form of a dove.
And in our message today, it’s all about ravens.
What do you know about ravens? Now I’m not talking about the Baltimore Ravens or even Edgar Allen Poe’s raven. That’s something else. I’m talking about Bible ravens.
If you didn’t already know it, ravens are big black birds, kind of like crows, except bigger, a whole lot bigger. Their wingspan can reach fifty inches across and their bodies are two feet long. That’s a big bird.
They’re found anywhere from the arctic to the deserts of North Africa to the islands of the Pacific. Their feathers are black, glossy and beautiful.
Those who study birds say ravens are extremely intelligent, one of the smartest of all creatures. In the wild, they’ve been known to steal fish from fishermen, to push rocks down onto people so they won’t bother their nests, and to play dead beside a carcass just to scare other birds away from their delicious feast. They’ve even been known to mimic human speech.
But the one thing for which they’re best known is that they’re scavengers. They eat dead meat. They’re the buzzards of the Biblical world. Flying garbage disposals. That’s why Noah sent one out before his ark landed on solid ground. And that’s why Jesus said in Luke chapter 12: “Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, nor store away in barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”
Their name has even managed to creep into our language. If you’re feeling really hungry, and can eat almost anything, you might say you feel “ravenous.”
And since ravens will eat almost anything, that’s why the Lord put them on the list of unclean, detestable birds. Don’t eat them. Don’t touch them. Don’t have anything to do with them.
Can you imagine? “Why don’t you come on over to my house this Saturday night and we’ll have some fried raven and mashed potatoes?” I didn’t think so.
They’re unclean. No respectable Jew would ever eat one, and neither would we.
Which takes us to the words and to a miracle found in I Kings chapter 17. Listen to this: “Elijah went and lived by the brook Cherith, east of the Jordan. And the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook. And after a while, the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land.”
Let’s step back for a moment to see what’s going on.
The story opens as God sends his prophet Elijah to confront King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. These two, the Bible says, did more evil in the sight of the Lord than all those who were before them. They worshipped false gods, Baal and Asherah, the gods of rain and thunder and lightning, and hated the God of Israel. They were as wicked as wicked could be.
And that’s why the Lord sent His prophet Elijah.
They must have laughed. “Elijah the Tishbite? You’re telling us what to do? You’re a nobody from nowhere. You just better run along home, wherever that is, where you belong!”
Still, Elijah stood his ground and said, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives…there shall be neither dew nor rain, except by my word.”
Then off Elijah went to hide in the wilderness.
So there he was—God’s man, God’s prophet, in enemy territory, hiding in the wilderness.
There was just one problem. Where would he sleep? What would he drink? And, most importantly, what would he eat?
And that’s when the Lord began to perform a miracle, an amazing, awesome, never before seen, miracle. Of all things, the Bible says, “The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening.” For three and a half years, three thousand meals (!), the ravens brought him bread and meat to eat.
Is it any wonder that birds would do God’s bidding?
It shouldn’t be. A monster fish once swallowed a man named Jonah, flies and frogs, locusts and lice destroyed Egypt and lions crouched at Daniel’s feet. At Joshua’s request and at God’s command, even the sun and the moon once stood still. Of course, birds would do His bidding!
But why ravens? Are you kidding me? They’re wild, unclean, scavenger birds, even poorer than Elijah was! They’d sooner feed themselves and their young than bother with some man of God.
And why not send a robin or a meadowlark or maybe even a carrier pigeon? Makes a lot more sense to me! Why did it have to be wild, unclean, scavenger birds?
Because we have an amazing God.
Isn’t that what Paul once wrote to the Corinthians? “God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before Him.”
As one author put it: “God consistently uses what we believe to be less than, different, unworthy, unclean, sinful, and cursed to not only be a part of God’s community, but to sustain God’s people and to participate in their salvation.”
Remember? The people of Israel were to hate the Moabites and have nothing to do with them, until God brought one, a woman named Ruth, into the family of Israel and the lineage of Jesus.
And when Jesus began to preach and teach and choose those who would follow Him, He chose fishermen, a zealot and a tax collector to share the good news about Him. And who came to save that poor beaten man lying on the side of the road? A lowly, despised Samaritan.
And when He chose to save us, how did He accomplish our redemption? Not by flashy gold or sparkling silver, but by a cruel, ugly, wooden cross.
As Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “God chose the foolish things to shame the wise and the weak things to shame the strong.”
Can there be a greater Savior than Jesus?
It was October 4, 1918, in the midst of World War I, and a battle was raging in the Argonne Forest. Three hundred men were already dead or wounded, while another 194 were trapped on the side of a hill, with no food and no ammunition.
And as the afternoon dragged on, the men were fired on not only by the enemy, but by fellow troops that didn’t know their location.
So what could they do? Who would save them?
That’s when their commander, Major Charles Whittlesey had an idea. He wrote a note and tied it onto the leg of the only homing pigeon they had left—Cher Ami, French for “My friend.”
This is what it said: “We are along the road parallel to 276.4. Our own artillery is dropping a barrage directly on us. For heaven’s sake, stop it.”
And as he set her loose, up she flew, with bullets zipping around her--twenty-five miles in twenty-five minutes. And, in spite of being shot through the breast, blinded in one eye and a leg hanging only by a tendon, she delivered her message, covered in blood, and saved the lives of the 194.
But our Savior Jesus has done more for us, far more than any bird ever could. In the words of Paul to Titus: “He saved us, not by what we have done, but by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior.”
What a wonder, dear Father, that You would use lowly, despised, unclean scavengers to do Your will. We pray that, even today, You would use even us as we share the good news of Jesus. We pray in His name. Amen