Wednesday, June 12, 2024
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Elijah speaks, at the end of three long years of drought
How long will you straddle the issue? If Yahweh is God, follow him. And if Baal, then follow him. But the people did not answer.
You can bet they talked among themselves, muttering, where neither the king nor queen nor prophet could hear. In the corners of the taverns and behind the green door, they said stuff. It might not have been edifying. The lowest common denominator didn’t take long to reach. Gossip, discouraged in the book of Proverbs, abounded.
In the mutterings, greed replaces gratitude. Fascination is lost, fear takes its place. The children, trusting, assume the best, until their parents, betrayed, teach them to expect the worst.
Whatever hopes that Yahweh has for his children to learn how much they are loved, are dashed.
Elijah is one of Yahweh’s children too, of course. In the course of his long life he has suffered much, and gradually his own childlike instinct toward gratitude, confidence, hope and fascination erodes. His own people don’t trust him. His king and queen are afraid of him and want him dead. God doesn’t say much to him nowadays. Elijah needs a win.
So Elijah said to the people, “I am the only surviving prophet of the Lord. Baal is worshipped by 450 prophets. Give us two young bulls, and let them choose one and I the other.
The people knew about blood sacrifice. But here they were, watching a contest of sacrifices. The bulls were killed, drawn, and quartered, laid upon the altar of Baal and the altar of Yahweh.
But start no fire. You shall call on your gods, and I will call upon the Lord. Then the God who answers with fire is truly GOD.” And all the people shouted, “Agreed!”
Elijah was alone. He gave the 450 prophets of Baal first place. They began to call on Baal.
From morning to noon, they wailed, chanted, cried and prayed, “Answer us, Baal!”
Certainly there was also music, and perhaps dancing, as there was when the golden calf had appeared suddenly made from earrings. Revelry from morning to noon, while Elijah stood by, silent.
But there was no sound. And Elijah said, “Call louder, for he is a god and may be meditating, or may have retired. He may be on a journey. Perhaps he is asleep and must be made awake.”
Perhaps getting desperate as the sun reached its zenith, the prophets took to cutting themselves, adding their own blood to that of the bulls. This in fact was part of their ritual, it insured a personal commitment on the part of the priests. They had skin in the game, or … blood. Now in the hot sun at the end of three years of drought, this blood, which required replacing, mattered to those priests. Hurry up, Baal.  Can’t you see we’re dying here?
Noon passed and they remained in a prophetic state until the time for offering sacrifice.
But there was not a sound.
No one answered, and no one was listening.
This is one of the best stories in the Bible. What happens next, and then on the following days offers us a way of life, really, that God wants us to adopt. He wants to include us in his way of life, which he made for us from the beginning.
So come back tomorrow, and for the rest of the week, for several more showings of the power of God, working through Elijah the prophet.
O Lord, my allotted portion and cup, you it is who hold fast my lot. I set the Lord ever before me; with him at my right hand I shall not be disturbed.
(1 Kings 18, Psalm 16, Psalm 25, Matthew 5)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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