Friday, June 10, 2022
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
I long to see your face, O Lord
Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. At Beersheba he left his servant and went a day’s journey into the wilderness.
My friend Larry, former pastor in Indianapolis, himself journeyed alone into the Painted Desert in Arizona. He lost his father, and he grieved. He wanted to sing his lament. He walked into the desert and pitched his tent. Larry sat there, probably thinking of Elijah, and prayed.
Elijah sat under a broom tree and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.”
Larry waited on God, like Elijah. Clouds scuttled over him, but there was no rain. When he listened at mid-day, he heard nearly nothing. But at night, as the sun went down, he listened and heard everything. Animals howled, plants creaked, longing for a drink. Larry felt afraid at night. But still he sat there outside his tent, sat for hours in the darkness.
An angel touched Elijah and told him to eat the hot bread, which he had not baked, and to drink from the jar of water, which he had not filled. He slept, ate and drank as the angel instructed him. And then he traveled forty days and forty nights into the depths of the desert, until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God.
Centuries earlier Moses received the tablets of the law from Yahweh in this place, this Mt. Horeb (this Mt. Sinai). The Israelites camped at the foot of the mountain and soon, while he was away, built their golden calf. They betrayed Moses and betrayed their Yahweh Father. Now Elijah came up to this mountain himself, deep in the heart of the desert. He found a cave and took shelter.
But not for long. He heard a voice calling to him.
Go outside and stand on the mountain, Elijah; the Lord will be passing by. Then a great and powerful wind tore apart the mountains, but the Lord was not in the wind.
Larry told me his senses were heightened as he sat outside his tent, and everything he heard or saw frightened him. At even the slightest breeze, blowing through his hair, his muscles tightened.
After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.
What is Elijah thinking? Does he even care? Why is he high up on the mountain anyway? His mind must be spinning. Surely he remembers the power that passed through him when the fire burnt up the altars and the cut-up bulls and even the poured out water all around the stones. God was all over that power. But now God was not in the fire.
After the fire there came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it he pulled his cloak over his face and went out. He stood at the mouth of the cave. “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
Elijah did not acknowledge the leading and sustenance of God. Instead, he exercised his bitter, self-centered fear.
The Israelites have rejected your covenant and put your prophets to death. I am the only one left.
God might have rolled his eyes. But he also gave Elijah three specific instructions, three anointings to accomplish, including one for Elisha son of Shaphat, “to succeed you as prophet.” Soon Elijah would rest.
Elijah received his instructions, walked down the mountain, and carried them out.
After three days, Larry rolled up his tent and his bedroll, said goodbye to his father, and walked out of the desert.
I believe that I shall see the bounty of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord with courage; take heart, and wait for the Lord.
(1 Kings 19, Psalm 27, Philippians 2, Matthew 5)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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