Elijah, and the reality of life with God

1 Kings 19:9-15a

9 At that place [Elijah] came to a cave and spent the night there. Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 10 He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”

    11 He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind, and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake, 12 and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire, and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. 13 When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 14 He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” 15 Then the Lord said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus;”

Psalm 42:1-5

1 As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.When shall I come and behold the face of God? 3 My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me continually,    “Where is your God?”

4 These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I went with the throng and led them in procession to the house of God,with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.5 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me?Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.

Elijah found himself alone, hiding in a cave.  He is God’s prophet, and he is afraid. A couple of chapters earlier he arrived on the scene to announce an impending drought, after which he went out into the wilderness, where he was fed by the ravens.  But when the stream from which he drank dried up, he followed the Lord’s command to go to the village of Zarephath where a widow would feed him.  Upon finding her he said, “‘Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.’ But she said, ‘As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die.’”  This is, as you can see, a grim situation.  But she does as he commanded, then her flour and oil was miraculously sustained, providing enough for them all to eat.  But then the son gets sick and dies, and the widow despairs that Elijah ever appeared in the first place.  Elijah then took her son and laid upon him, desperately crying out to God to bring the boy back to life.  His prayers were answered.  

Then in the next chapter, at the direction of God, Elijah goes to confront Ahab, the king of Israel, who - under the influence of his wife, Jezebel - had come to worship Baal.  It was Jezebel calling the shots, it seems, and she had instigated the killing off the Lord’s prophets, leaving Elijah the last one.  Still, Elijah summons the courage to demand that Ahab assemble the 450 prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel, where Elijah issued a challenge to determine who’s God was real.  He and the prophets of Baal were each to slaughter a bull and call to their respective god/God to send fire upon it to see who would answer.  The prophets of Baal cry out, but nothing happens,  hen they start cutting themselves and bleeding to elicit a response, but none comes - at which point Elijah began to mock them, suggesting that perhaps Baal is asleep, or on the toilet, 

When it was his turn, Elijah repaired the broken altar to the Lord, slaughtered the bull, and ordered it be drenched in four jugs of water.  After giving the gathered crowd a lecture on their apostasy, he cried out to God and such fire descended that the whole offering was consumed.  At this point the people cry our the Lord is God and they seized the prophets of Baal and Elijah killed them all there.  (This was a different age.)   

Soon thereafter, the drought ended and the rains came upon the land.  Ahab reported to Jezebel what had happened and she swore that she would kill Elijah, who then fled to the wilderness and sat under a tree.  There “He asked that he might die, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.””  He then fell asleep and was awoken by an angel who had brought him food and water.  It is at this point that the passage we read takes up the narrative.  

Among the many reasons Elijah’s story ought to interest us is that it defies what we think life with God would or should be like - or if we’re hardened skeptics of the possibility of a life with God, it at the very least defies how we expect the Bible to portray life with God.  Here was a man to whom God spoke, who was called by God, who faithfully did what God commanded, who experienced and even performed miracles - and he was miserable.  God had miraculously preserved his life but Elijah would’ve preferred to be dead.  It’s all to much to bear; in the cost/benefit analysis the balance tips heavily toward the cost. 

This is quite different than how we tend to portray life with God.  To the extent that Christians are concerned with persuading people of the truth of their message, there is the natural inclination to make that message as appealing as possible, to make it attractive in the marketplace of ideas.  So we tell others - and we tell ourselves - that life with God brings joy and happiness, peace and satisfaction, every good thing.  It’s an ineffective strategy to inform people that life with God might make you want to die.  

It seems to me that a big problem for Christianity today is that we only have one way to talk about life with God.  And this creates a problem, for either we experience the dissonance between how we talk about God and our actual experience of God, forcing our outward expression to misrepresent our inward reality, or if we acknowledge that dissonance, it typically causes us to give up on God-talk altogether.  For how can you talk about life with God when it seems your life is much more characterized by God’s absence than God’s presence, when you feel defeated rather than victorious, when despair crowds out hope?  

The thing is, the Bible gives us more than a few resources to address this very question.  We read part of Psalm 42 in which the psalmist declares, “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” This sounds like a pious kind of thing to say, but it’s also a statement of lack, of that thirst not being quenched, of being like a deer who cannot locate a stream.  “When shall I come and behold the face of God”, the psalmist asks, which, again, while a statement of desire for God also communicates that this desire has been unmet.  And indeed the psalmist has been assailed, crying himself to sleep at night, mocked by enemies who ask “Where is your God?”, for whatever God is supposed to be doing doesn’t seem to be happening.  There is no deliverance.  He asks himself, “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me?” The answer is obvious, but the question really seems to be why things are the way they are?  Why is comfort so elusive?  And so he attempts to rally his own faith, declaring, “Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.” 

One of the curious aspects of Elijah’s story, from a modern perspective, is that all the miracles don’t really seem to make much a difference to him.  He’s been fed by the ravens and the angels, he raised a kid from the dead, he’s seen fire descend from heaven, and yet he still finds himself fearful and alone.  God asks him what he’s doing in the cave, and Elijah responds that he’s the only prophet left and they’re trying to kill him.  That he’s talking with God apparently brings little solace.  Then God, seemingly sensing the depth of Elijah’s need, declares that the Lord is about to pass by - that God intends to reveal God’s self to Elijah. 

Those of us who long to know God, or who long to believe that God is real, or who wish they had more faith tell ourselves that if only we had some experience, some time God definitively appeared, then we would believe, then all are doubts would be allayed, our fears dissipated.  The memory of that encounter would be enough to sustain us; in times of trouble we could always recall when God had actually showed up.  But Elijah found himself at the point of despair despite having had repeated encounters with God; these past experiences on their own were not enough to sustain him.  God is not to be found in the wind, or the earthquake, or the fire, or in any other earth shaking event.  God shows up in the silence.  Except that it seems God doesn’t really show up any more than before, posing again the same question to which Elijah gives the exact same answer.   And then God tells Elijah to keep going.  

One moral of the story is that to be faithful is never to say, “I know God” but to thirst for God even as that desire remains unquenched, as you drink your own tears.  One tension inherent to the Christian life is that it is only the living God who can satisfy us, and yet in this life God so often seems hidden.   To be Christian is not to have found God in the past, but to seek the living God - and once we have caught a glimpse only to be satisfied with more and more until one day we behold not in a mirror dimly but face to face.