The God of Elijah

sermon by Torin Eikler
I Kings 17:1-23,19:1-19
Fourth in series: "God's People in the Hebrew Scriptures"

Though the prophet Elijah does not have a book of his own, he is unquestionably one of the most entertaining prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures that make up our Old Testament. His story is told in the books of the Kings that chronicle the time between the division of Israel into a northern and a southern kingdom in 922 BC … and 587 BC when the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem marked the end to the “golden age” of the chosen people. Elijah, himself, lived and right in the middle of that period and prophesied to three of the kings who turned the northern kingdom to the worship of the Canaanite god, Baal. In the course of the six chapters in which he appears, he experiences and accomplishes more than most of our other characters do in their whole lives.

He predicted a drought and its ending as well as the death of two kings. He carried out a duel in divine power with 500 priests of Baal and had all of them put to death upon his victory. And, he delivered general critiques on the apostasy of the nation.

As a result, he had to flee to the wilderness at least three times: once to the wilderness where he was fed by ravens and then guided to the door of a poor widow where he performs a resurrection; once to the desert where he was fed by the hands of angels before trekking forty days and nights to a cave on Mount Horeb where he encountered God in the “sound of fine silence;” and once to the hill country where he brought down fire to consume fifty hapless soldiers and their commander … twice before going to condemn king Ahaziah to death.

Finally, Elijah goes on a whirlwind tour of Israel with his successor, Elisha, and I mean that literally. The two of them were actually carted around the country by whirlwinds before landing on the banks of the Jordan. There he parted the waters with a touch of his cloak, and while the two men were walking along on the other side, a chariot of fire came and carried him into heaven.

Quite a busy guy! … But such was the life of only prophet of the true God to survive Jezebel’s rule as Queen.


Of all his adventures, the text that Jacob sang for us today is probably the one most often heard in sermons. It is the part of the story where Elijah runs to the desert to escape Queen Jezebel’s wrath after destroying her royal priests. There he laments the hardships of his life and pleads with God to let him die. In response, he is given Angel food … cakes of bread and jars of water to strengthen him for the journey to the mountain of the Lord. There he hides in a cave through a stone-splitting wind, a bone-rattling earthquake, and blood-boiling fire until the sound of fine silence coaxes him out to speak with the still, small voice of the Lord.


I imagine the whole experience was quite harrowing for the prophet. Such a hot, dry trek through the rough land of the wilderness that lasted as long as the flood could not have been easy. Throw in all the dangers of wild animals, the trauma of hunger, and the incredible sense of alone-ness, and I suspect Elijah was regretting his request for death or at least wishing that it would have been granted in a much easier fashion. And given his attitude – both at the beginning of the story and in the way he speaks to God on the mountain – one would expect a divine rebuke to come along at any moment. Instead, God accepts him as he is – anger, depression, passion, faith, and fear all rolled up together – and meets him there in his wilderness.

Jesus said, “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will opened to you,” and I know of many people who have experienced this to be true. In times of dire need or even in the midst of everyday life, they have asked for help from God and received exactly what they needed: angels appearing to help change a tire or the chance appearance of a stream of water in front of someone lost in the desert or a miraculous recovery from terminal disease. Elijah doesn’t even ask. He doesn’t knock. And he certainly doesn’t seek. If anything, he closes his eyes for fear that he might find. Yet he receives what he most needed: food to eat, angelic company to encourage him, and the promise of a partner to help him in his work.


In my own experience (and that of many others) thing don’t work quite that way. I’ll admit that I don’t often resort to asking God for help. I tend to trust to my own efforts or find my own way out a mess instead. Yet in the times when I have been at the end of my rope and turned to God, I have never heard the voice of an angel or felt the hand of God reach out to support or save me.

Despite what many people say, I don’t think that shows a lack of faith on my part. Nor does it imply that God is fickle or doesn’t really care most of the time. In fact, I think it’s exactly the opposite because the other side of my story is that each time I that I asked (and many, many times when I didn’t) I did receive. Friends have shown up to help me out of my depression. Travelers have stopped to offer me a ride and gone out of their way a half hour or more to get me home. Strangers opened their door to me in the middle of a "blizzardy" winter’s night while I waited for the wrecker to come and tow my car. And, in the midst of the most dangerous situations in my life, there has been a feeling of calm and peace that has settled over me, reminding me that God is with me always.

What does that mean? How do I … how do any of make sense of experiences like those? I don’t know. I don’t know if we can make “sense” out of them because in a very real way, God resists our attempts to limit the way we experience her presence. God came to Elijah in the parching hunger of drought, in the purging fire of righteousness, in the upending power of the whirlwind, and in calm sound of fine silence. God comes to me in a sense of quiet stillness. And God, I believe, comes to all of us in the hands and hearts of those around us.


There is a joke about a devout man who was caught in a flood. He climbed to the roof of his house to escape the rising water and began to pray to God to save him. The water continued to rise, and some short time later a neighbor came by in his fishing boat. He stopped and called to the man on the roof to come down so that he could ferry him to safety, but the man refused, saying, “The Lord will save me.”

Some hours later, the water had begun to pour through the windows on the second story, and the man once again prayed to God for salvation. Soon, a small ship found its way to the house, and the people on board tossed a rope onto the roof so that the man could climb on board. The man calmly got up and threw the rope back to them, saying, “My God will save me.”

When the water had reached halfway up the roof and was just ten feet below the man’s feet, he knelt on the peak with his head bowed low, beseeching God to rescue him from certain death until the sound of an approaching helicopter caught his attention. The rescue crew lowered a ladder to the roof and shouted for him to climb up, but the man waved them away, shouting that his faith would save him. Shaking their heads in disbelief, the crew relayed the message to the pilot, and they flew off in search of others in need of help.

Eventually, the water swept the man away to his doom, and he found himself standing before God with just one question burning in his mind. “Lord,” he said, “I prayed to you for help three times. Why didn’t do anything.”

God replied, “What do you mean. I sent you two boats and a helicopter.”

In my life, God has chosen to work through others rather than through miraculous manifestations of divine power. My guess is that has been true for most of you, too. It was also the experience of the early Anabaptists. As they sought relief from persecution and the threat of death, they found the homes of others – Anabaptist or not – open to them. There are stories of soldiers and community leaders who turned a blind eye to their presence or even gave them help when asked though doing so could mean death or imprisonment for them. These experiences, together with their understanding of Jesus’ teachings led them to value the practice of caring for one another as a central part of the discipleship of the faith community. They came to rely on each other and trust that they would receive the care of the God who was always with them even if it was through the hands of strangers.

Elijah experienced that reality too. When he first found himself in the wilderness fearing for his life, the ravens fed him, but he didn’t remain there. He was sent back to civilization when his stream dried up to seek the help of an unknown widow in the town of Zarephath. The widow and her son took him in. They fed him the last of their food only to find that her stock of flour and oil was continually replenished for three years until the drought ended. And in the end, Elijah cared for the widow in return, giving her back her son who would provide for her in the time to come.


What the story of Elijah’s life illustrates … what the early Anabaptists understood … and what we recognize in our own experience when we pay attention is that God is there for us. God surrounds and supports us wherever and whenever we find ourselves in need. It may not come in the way we expect it to or even in a way that we really want it to. It may come in the form of a minor or major miracle. More often it comes at the hand of a brother or sister or friend or stranger who reaches out to us with compassion and, by their actions, invites us to reach out to others in turn

I think that’s the way God works … by bringing people together to love and care for one another. I think God knows that that is the way to heal the brokenness within and between us … to bring reconciliation and renewal to all of humanity. I think that’s why God came to us as Jesus … to show us how powerful that kind of love can be and to invite us to follow his example … to become God’s people with hearts full of compassion and lives embodying loving care for all God’s children.