Solace in the Storm: 1 Kings 19:1-18 - All Saints Sunday

One of the most exciting events during my elementary school years happened when we got a visit from Dennis Bowman, the weather man from channel 11.

I remember the whole school watching his helicopter landing on the ballfield, and with the TV cameras rolling, we followed him into the gymnasium where he taught us about the weather. 

Back then, he gave all his weather reports outside, no matter how bad the weather was. 

You wouldn’t think being a weather forecaster was a dangerous job, but it certainly is when they’re made to report live in the middle of hurricanes, with the winds so strong that they can’t even stand up straight, and so loud that you can barely hear what they say. 

The power of such storms, such as Hurricane Melissa which struck Jamaica this week, are such that it’s not enough to seek shelter to be safe. You need to get as far away from that storm as you can—if you can…

In today’s reading, the prophet Elijah finds himself in a storm so powerful that the winds split the mountains, and the ground beneath him shakes. After the earthquake comes a fire, as if a volcano burst from the ground. Then, the most terrifying thing of all occurs: total silence: silence that Elijah would’ve interpreted as death. Not that he wouldn’t have welcomed it…

Elijah had just been branded public enemy number one by Queen Jezebel, the evilest woman in all the pages of Scripture. She and her husband, King Ahab, rejected the true God and sat atop the cult of Baal and Asherah, two fertility gods who were worshiped through vile, disgusting acts of perversion and human sacrifice. Elijah challenged 950 prophets of the false god Ba’al and its wife Asherah to a showdown with his God, the one true God, with all Israel watching. Elijah exposed the gods and their prophets and their gods as frauds, and the people struck them all down. But the queen and king were not about to tolerate this public humiliation, which is why Elijah is hiding out in the wilderness. 

There, we find Elijah a broken man. All he had to show for his courage, his faith, and his obedience was a death sentence. He’s praying for God to take his life, because it would be far better for him to die there than to die at the hands of Jezebel.

But an angel appears to Elijah and tells him to get up, eat and drink. He does, and he’s sustained for the next 40 days. At the end of those days, Elijah takes shelter inside a cave, where the Lord asks him, “what are you doing here, Elijah?” Elijah voices his complaint to God, which God answers by commanding him to ascend Mount Horeb, the same mountain where God appeared to Moses. When the Lord appears, there’s wind, earthquakes, and fire—just as there was with Moses. 

Then suddenly, there’s total silence. God speaks. Not in wrath or anger, but with gentleness and grace. 

After all, Elijah has not been disobedient. Elijah needs rest comfort. Elijah needs rest. And God isn’t finished with him. God sends him on his way to anoint two new kings and the prophet, Elisha, who will succeed him. And Elijah will arise and do everything God has commanded, based upon the word God had spoken in that place. God spoke, and the person who was emptied and broken is now full of grace and hope and purpose.

What I love about this text is how God used Elijah’s human needs to draw near: his need for food, his need for water, his need for rest, and his need for hope. How easy it is, amid chaos and danger, to become so anxious and frantic that your body gives out you, or you suffer a nervous breakdown. It’s not a moral failing to be exhausted and broken. We all have our limits. And you’re not sinning against God when you cry out (as Elijah does). God will answer in a quiet, gentle voice: “get up and eat. Drink. And then, go in the strength and the grace that I will give you.”

It is only when we are empty in ourselves that we can become full in Christ. This is the blessing of brokenness.

The broken do not stay broken in Christ. The wounded do not stay wounded in Christ. We arise for a new vision, a new purpose, a new life and a new way forward.

Remember how Elijah cried out, “Take my life, Lord?” The Lord did—and gave him a new one. 

God’s not finished with you until you enter the gates of his kingdom. God’s mercies are new every morning, God’s strength goes with you through the day, God’s peace guards you at night. 

What is your brokenness? What wounds are you bearing today? What fear or terror has made your life unlivable?

Give it to the Lord. Rest in his goodness.

Then, arise and go ford in the strength God gives you.

 

1 Kings 19:1-18 (NRSVue)

Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. ² Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.” ³ Then he was afraid; he got up and fled for his life and came to Beer-sheba, which belongs to Judah; he left his servant there.

⁴ But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.”⁵ Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, “Get up and eat.” ⁶ He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. He ate and drank and lay down again. ⁷ The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, “Get up and eat, or the journey will be too much for you.” ⁸ He got up and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God. ⁹ At that place he 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; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram. ¹⁶ Also you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel, and you shall anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place. ¹⁷ Whoever escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall kill, and whoever escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall kill. ¹⁸ Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.”