Holy Prophet Elijah -- Live By Fire

On this day, the Church remembers the Holy Prophet Elijah who lived roughly 900 years before the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ at a time when the people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel were being led astray from the worship of the true God by King Ahab and his foreign wife, Jezebel. Saint Epiphanios of Cyprus described the birth of Elijah in this way: "When Elias was born, his father Sobach saw in a vision that handsome men greeted him, they swaddled him in fire and fed the fiery flame."

This account tells us that the fire in the Prophet Elijah was not his own, but that it was a gift of God given to Him in order to achieve God’s purposes. This is important for us to remember, whom God calls, He equips. We must also note that fire is not merely a metaphor, it is our understanding of Who God is -- “Our God is a consuming fire,” as Saint Paul says in his epistle to the Hebrews. God wrapped the Holy Prophet Elijah in Himself, and fed Him with Himself. The fire that is around Elijah, and in Elijah is the Lord Himself, and it is by this Divine Fire that he lived and worked wonders in this world. 

We too are born into fire, wrapped in fire, and fed with fire in Holy Baptism and in our partaking of the Eucharist, but it is not enough to simply be exposed to the fire, we must live in it and by it. The Holy Prophet lived by fire, not just outwardly, but inwardly. As much as we might look at him standing up to Ahab and Jezebel, testifying of the True God, or calling down fire from heaven, or slaughtering the false prophets of Baal and see him as outwardly fiery, we also need to remember his inward fire -- his fervent prayers to the Lord or his fasting, eating only what the Lord sent to him by the raven. He was unwavering in his faith in God, and so the fire continued to burn within him. We are given practical advice on how to live in this manner in the Epistle of Saint James this morning. 

Saint James tells us that when we are suffering, we should pray. Sometimes our suffering pushes us into God’s arms, but other times it attempts to pull us away. It warms us by giving comfort, or it burns away the temptations besetting us. So in all suffering, we should seek God. 

He tells us that when we are cheerful, we should sing psalms. We will be tempted to see every good thing as something we earned or worked for. But whenever we are happy, whenever joy enters our hearts, we should thank God for that spark that can be fanned into greater and greater flames if we also protect it and cherish it.

He tells us that when we are sick, we should call the elders of the church “and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up.” When we are sick, when our fire is in danger of going out, we must call those with greater faith than our own to borrow from their fire. 

He tells us to confess our sins that we might be forgiven and healed. Our fire might go out if we neglect it, but our sins will actually extinguish whatever fire is left in us. 

Finally Saint James tells us to turn back the sinner from his sins and errors, saying that “if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.” When we help others to keep their fire burning, we become like fire ourselves.

One of the more famous stories from the life of the Holy Prophet Elijah involves a kind of duel between him and the false prophets of Baal to prove whose god was the true God. They each fashioned altars and placed a sacrifice on the altar. Then they each called on their god to send down fire from heaven and consume their gifts. The prophets of Baal called on Baal all day and into the evening, crying out and even cutting themselves in order to get his attention, but to no avail. The Prophet Elijah, offered his sacrifice the one true God and to make clear the great works of God, he had them dig a moat around the altar, and to pour water on the sacrifice, and on the altar, and filling the moat with water -- four large jars of water filled three times each. And yet at his prayer, God consumed the sacrifice, the wood for the sacrifice, the stones making up the altar, and all the water.

Our God is a consuming fire, an all consuming fire. And for this reason, it matters how we live. Saint Paul told us in the first epistle to the Corinthians: “ no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one's work, of what sort it is. If anyone's work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.”

If we live aflame with zeal and the love of God, then it is constantly revealed to us what kind of building we create. If we build with impermanent materials like wood, hay, and straw then we can expect that they will burn up every time they come in contact with the consuming fire of God if not in this life, then at least in the Kingdom to come. Those of us who have been baptized into Christ are born again by water and by fire. We are offered up as living sacrifices to God and we don’t need to fear that water can quench our fire, we don’t need to doubt that God can make us a holy fire. Saint Peter in the gospel this morning walked on the surface of the water as if it were dry land, and only when he doubted did he begin to sink. Our Lord asked him, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?" The Prophet Elijah did not doubt because the fire that would burn up the sacrifice was the same fire that wrapped him from his youth and fed him, the same one that he protected and fed himself. The water did not quench his fire, but made it burn brighter for all to see. 

Finally today, we remember that the Prophet Elijah did not die, but rather it was a fire that took him up into heaven, and we remember that a life lived by fire will carry us up into the heavens. Just as the flames leap upward unaffected by gravity, as the smoke ascends from earth to heaven, the flame of God, the consuming fire, once it has transformed us and made us like Him, will carry us upward to its source. But even in his ascent into the heavens, the Prophet Elijah left his mantle to Elisha and a double portion of his spirit. He ascended leaving the gift of this fire to his successor. When the Holy Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist John was born, it was prophesied that he would go forth in the spirit and power of Elijah. Both Saint Seraphim of Sarov and Saint Spyridon of Tremithus are compared to the Holy Prophet Elijah. The fire of the Godhead that is shared with us, which operates in us, and transforms us, which carries us up to the heavens, is not taken away when we go away, but continues to work and operate in, and to transform all those who follow after us. 

So cherish the fire of your baptism, feed it with the fire of the Eucharist, care for it in every condition of your life, don’t let it be quenched, but let it burn so intensely that only what is good and holy remains, let it draw you up to Christ our God, and by your prayers and your help encourage this fire in everyone around you.