How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!” (Isaiah 52.7)

As many of you know I was blessed eight months ago to go to Bangladesh. It wasn’t a church mission trip. It was a trip to see our daughter, Sabrina, who was at that time in the Peace Corps. Although the trip didn’t allow a stop in Cambodia like I had hoped, it was an incredible trip. Much of what I saw and experienced parallels what we may hear from our guests today.

Bangladesh is one of the poorest if not the poorest country in the world today. It is a mass of people wishing they could have one tenth of what we take for granted. It is a Muslim nation so they can’t easily have what we often take for granted- Christ.

The capital city of Dahka is crowded and dirty. The streets are filled with a mixture of new world and old. There are rag pickers next to men on cell phones; there are SUVs and motorbikes crowding the roads with hundreds and hundreds of rickshaws. Everyone has a horn and they aren’t afraid to use it. All the vehicles burn as much oil as they do gas. When traffic grinds to a stop the beggars go vehicle to vehicle. Being a Muslim nation you don’t see many women, especially unescorted women, out in public unless they are very poor.

In the midst of this was Sabrina. Was it difficult; was it hard? Yes, but still there she was living in a place, in a culture that was foreign to everything she’d known and she was doing what most people could not do. She wasn’t the little girl who went off around the world eighteen months ago; she had become a confidant young woman. However, she had those days when she needed to be held, cared for, encouraged. We had many long phone calls and letters.

Then as now when I looked at her I was reminded of the Twilia Paris song, “The Warrior is a Child.” The lyrics go like this: “People say that I’m amazing, strong beyond my years but they don’t see inside of me, I’m hiding all the tears. They don’t know that I go running home when I fall down. They don’t know who picks me up when I fall down. I drop my sword and cry for just a while ‘cause deep inside this armor, ‘The warrior is a child”. The one who really picked Sabrina up, far beyond what her mother and I could do for her, was her Jesus. He came to her and was there with her by and through His Word. Many times I reminded her of God’s promise: Never will I leave you never will I forsake you. (Deut 31.6)

In today’s Old Testament lesson we hear of the great prophet Elijah. What you may not know or maybe have forgotten is that this story from our Old Testament lesson follows Elijah’s victory over the prophets of Baal. Elijah had challenged the prophets of Baal to see whose God was the one true God. In dramatic fashion Elijah’s’ God- our God- had rained fire down on the sacrifice of Elijah. He was victorious! You may want to read about it in 1st King’s chapter 18 but after that victory you’d think Elijah would be unstoppable, full of faith and Godly bravado, but he was forced to flee from those who want to take his life for humiliating their gods. In today’s lesson we find him in the desert beneath a broom tree just wishing to die- I have had enough. Lord. Take my life. This is all just too hard!

Elijah is in need of being picked up- renewed- restored. In our lesson we hear that the Lord provides rest and nourishment. How many of us need that rest, real soul replenishing rest… and nourishment ….and encouragement and renewal?

This past Wednesday night, I shared a message that God gave us the Sabbath in large part that He might refresh and renew us. He gave us the commandment to gather every seven days so that He might as was illustrated Wednesday “rub and massage our feet….rub and massage the feet of our heart and of our lives” by and through His Word and Sacraments.

How many of us are in need of being renewed not by the things of this world but by the hand of God? How many of us have sought “pick me ups” out there- buy this, go there, try this or that and come up empty? How many of us could use the Word of God washing over us and renewing us? In the Psalm we heard today: This poor man called, and the Lord heard him; He saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and He delivers them. Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him. Elijah needs and receives that renewal and God offers it to those who take refuge in Him. He offers it to us.

One of my jobs when I stayed with Sabrina was to wash the dishes. I would squat down and wash the dishes in a dish pan in a floor sink in the cooking room. There was a turquoise blue faucet in the wall that supplied our water, not hot, not cold just lukewarm water. One day as I was washing the dishes Sabrina came in and told me that the water might get a little soapy or brown because the man who cleans the water tank on the roof was here to clean the tank. I was pleased to hear that the supply tank was cleaned and was even more pleased to hear that it was cleaned a couple of times a week.

My joy was short-lived when I found out that the way he cleaned it was by crawling down inside it. You see, all streets are dirty and dusty and your feet up to your knees become quickly covered with dust and the dirt that comes from living in the third world. In days to come I found myself looking at the feet of the men who walked by. Some had sandals, others did not. Their feet were wide and spread out from not wearing shoes, they were dirty and dusty. I wondered which feet had been in our water supply tank.

Many of us might find that story stomach churning and we’d resolve never to drink that water or never go to a place like that but what about the people who are born there- the people who I saw bathing in the green ponds, as well as brushing their teeth, washing their clothes and collecting water for cooking. They are there; they don’t have a chance to go elsewhere. Worse yet they live in a place without the Gospel. They live in places where the water has been fouled by false teachings and misleading prophets. The people in Sabrina’s little town, like the people in Cambodia and other places, need someone to bring them the clean, pure water of the Gospel. Jesus said to the Samaritan woman: Everyone who drinks this water (you have) will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. (Jn4.13-14)

One of the many feet that stopped at Sabrina’s door was the milkman, but not a milkman like we think of. This milkman carried a large silver colored pot with a long neck on it and a silver colored cup as a stopper. He carried this pot full of milk on his head as he went place to place. At her doorstep he would measure out the two cups of milk which she would strain into her pot. She would immediately take it to the kitchen, boiled it, restrained it and put it in her little refrigerator. (Even intermittent electricity and refrigeration are a wonderful luxury.) It was good to have milk. We were blessed that he came to our door.

There is another blessing that is greater than milk, it is of course the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the message that The Father so loved all of us here in places like Colorado and around the world - places like Africa, Cambodia, and Bangladesh that He sent His only Son that who so ever believes in Him not just as a Holy Man or Prophet but as God in flesh appearing- God living and dying for the sins of the whole world- (whomever believes in Him) will not perish but have eternal life. (John 3.16 & 1 Jn 4.2, 3)

Many lives may be hard and harsh now but one day for those who believe in Jesus as He claimed to be- the Son of the living God- there is a better place, a wonderful place prepared for them and us. On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples- a banquet of aged wine- the best of meats and finest of wines…The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces…On that day the people will say, Surely this is our God; we trusted in Him and He saved us. (Is 25.6, 8a, 9)

But St Paul writes, How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the One of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them. And how can they preach unless someone is sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news.” (Rms 10.14-15)

We are blessed to have heard the message of the Bethlehem stable, the cross and the empty tomb. We are blessed to have had faith created and sustained by and through the working of the Holy Spirit. Let us pray that we would be moved to live lives that share those blessings and the message of Jesus with others here and around the world.

Amen