Saint Elias: Prophet and Miracle Worker

Saint Elias: Prophet and Miracle Worker

 
 “For if the mystery concealed of old is made manifest to the Apostles through the prophetic writings, and if the prophets, being wise men, understood what proceeded from their own mouths, then the prophets knew what was made manifest to the Apostles.” - Origen of Alexandria, c.184-c.253AD

“Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab: “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve…” - 1Kings 17:1

 
Introduction:

 
It is a common tradition of the Eastern Christian Churches, Catholic and Orthodox, too often refer to the major patriarchs and prophets of Judaism before Christ as saints.  Also, often they are referred to by their names as they appear in the Septuagint (Greek Version) of the Old Testament; in this instance he whom we usually call Elijah in English, is Eliyyahu in Hebrew and Elias (Ηλ?ας) in Greek, the name meaning,“Yahweh is my God.”

The memory of Saint Elias is dear to the Maronite Church and its faithful, for Lebanon being a biblical land, the personages of the Sacred Scripture are not figures of a distant past and a distant land, as we often feel in America. Rather, for the Christians of Lebanon today, they were men and women who lived among our ancestors, walked upon our land, and were heralds of God’s revelation here.  For example the Monastery of Mar (Saint) Elias in the area of Hadchit is thought to have been visited by the great prophet himself.

  From this perspective we can better appreciate the unity of the Old and New Testaments, as a unitary revelation, the Sacred Scripture.  As Luke illustrates in the appearance of Jesus to his disciples on the road to Emmaus: “Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the scriptures” (Luke 24:27).   

The feast day of Saint Elias in the Maronite Church is the twentieth, of July.  

Elias the Prophet:

Saint Elias flourished during the reigns of Kings Ahab and Ahaziah in the northern kingdom of Israel. This would place his life within c. 900 - c. 801 before Christ. The message of his prophetic ministry can be found in First Kings, chapters seventeen through nineteen, and in Second Kings chapters one and two. 

Elias is counted with Moses as the two greatest prophetic defenders of the worship of Yahweh; for both proclaimed that it was forbidden to worship other gods in any manner.  While strict monotheism in the philosophical sense did not exist in Judaism until the Babylonian and subsequent Second Temple Period; Moses and Elias are indeed practical monotheists, for the people chosen by Yahweh as his own, were not to consider or worship other gods.  This is beautifully illustrated in First Kings, chapter eighteen, where Elias shows how powerless the prophets of Baal are when confronted by himself as the sole prophet of Yahweh:

Elijah approached all the people and said, “How long will you straddle the issue? If the Lord is God, follow him; if Baal, follow him.” But the people did not answer him.  So Elijah said to the people, “I am the only remaining prophet of the Lord, and there are four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal.  Give us two young bulls. Let them choose one, cut it into pieces, and place it on the wood, but start no fire. I shall prepare the other and place it on the wood, but shall start no fire. You shall call upon the name of your gods, and I will call upon the name of the Lord. The God who answers with fire is God.” All the people answered, “We agree!” - 1 Kings 18:21-24

 
The prophets of Baal are not able to bring their god to consume their sacrifice, no matter how hard they tried, even to the point of slashing themselves with swords and spears.  Then Elias, reminiscent of what Moses did during the Exodus said to the people:

“Come here to me.” When they drew near to him, he repaired the altar of the Lord which had been destroyed.  He took twelve stones, for the number of tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the Lord had said: Israel shall be your name. He built the stones into an altar to the name of the Lord, and made a trench around the altar large enough for two measures of grain.  When he had arranged the wood, he cut up the young bull and laid it on the wood. - 1 Kings 18:30-33 

 
When all was ready for the sacrifice Elias called upon the name of the one true God, and said:“Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command.  Answer me, Lord! (1 Kings 18:36-37).  The Lord came and consumed in fire, the offering of Elias, and the people of Israel cried out,“The Lord is God! The Lord is God!” (1 Kings 18:39).  

Later, Elias again had to defend the sole worship of the God of Israel from their King Ahaziah, who sought the power of a foreign god to heal him of an injury incurred from falling from a roof.  Ahaziah sent out detachment after detachment of soldiers to kill Elias, but each time the Lord struck them down.  Finally, Elias went and confronted the king:

He declared to the king: “Thus says the Lord: Because you sent messengers to inquire of Baalzebub, the god of Ekron—do you think there is no God in Israel to inquire of?—you shall not leave the bed upon which you lie; instead you shall die.”

Ahaziah died according to the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah. Since he had no son, Joram succeeded him as king, in the second year of Joram, son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah. - 2 Kings 1:16-17 

 
Elias, the prophet of the one, true God was also one through whom the Lord worked miracles, so that the people would know that they were God’s chosen ones.

Elias the Miracle Worker:

During the punishing drought in Israel, Elias was sent to a widow and her son at Zarephath of Sidon, who had almost nothing left to eat.  He asked her to make him a cake of the little flour and oil she had left.  He told her not to fear, that God would take care of her and her son:

For the Lord, the God of Israel, says: “The jar of flour shall not go empty, nor the jug of oil run dry, until the day when the Lord sends rain upon the earth.” She left and did as Elijah had said. She had enough to eat for a long time—he and she and her household. The jar of flour did not go empty, nor the jug of oil run dry, according to the word of the Lord spoken through Elijah. - 1 Kings 17:14-16     

 
Later the woman’s son stopped breathing and it seemed as if he were dead.  The prophet called upon the Lord God for a miracle:

He called out to the Lord: “Lord, my God, let the life breath return to the body of this child.” The Lord heard the prayer of Elijah; the life breath returned to the child’s body and he lived.  Taking the child, Elijah carried him down into the house from the upper room and gave him to his mother. Elijah said, “See! Your son is alive.”  The woman said to Elijah, “Now indeed I know that you are a man of God, and it is truly the word of the Lord that you speak.” 1 Kings 17:21-24

 
The final miracle of God given to Elias was at the end of his earthly life, as he passed the mantle of prophetic ministry to his disciple Elisha.  

Conclusion:

When they had crossed over, Elijah said to Elisha, “Request whatever I might do for you, before I am taken from you.” Elisha answered, “May I receive a double portion of your spirit.” He replied,“You have asked something that is not easy. Still, if you see me taken up from you, your wish will be granted; otherwise not.”  As they walked on still conversing, a fiery chariot and fiery horses came between the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind, and Elisha saw it happen. He cried out, “My father! my father! Israel’s chariot and steeds!” Then he saw him no longer. - 2 Kings 2:9-12

 
Saint Elias was one of the most dynamic prophets of ancient Israel.  Like Moses a defender of faith in Yahweh, like Isaiah and Jeremiah fearless in his prophetic vocation.  He is a “type” of the apostles of the Lord Jesus; we see the spirit of Elias in the Acts of the Apostles and the fearless martyrs of the Christians of the first centuries of the Church.

- Rev. David A. Fisher