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Monday 9 December

Elijah in the cave

By Janice Moore

1 Kings 19.11-13

The first and second books of ‘Kings’ presents us with a series of kings who reigned after King David. Shown pitted against them are a series of prophets whom God has called into that office to be his voice against the kings’ idolatry, social injustice and their abandonment of his covenant.

A lone, prophetic voice must tell ‘truth to power’ and call the king and people back into God’s covenant relationship. The life and role of a prophet is, therefore, rife with tremendous risk and danger. The prophet Elijah erupts into this context in Chapter 17 of 1 Kings.

Immediately, from this introduction until this chapter and extract, there follows an action-packed narrative that records miracles achieved by God, through Elijah’s words and actions, which point forward, in a direct line, to the New Testament prophets, John the Baptist and to Jesus. These include God’s authority over life-giving rains, his authority over life and death (in the raising of the widow’s son), and over all false gods in Elijah’s triumphant victory over the prophets of Baal.

Elijah is present and seen in conversation with Moses and Jesus at the Transfiguration. He’s referenced in all four Gospels and in Paul’s letter to the Roman fledgling church. What a powerful, prophetic voice and a mighty man of God! and yet what a very recognisable human testament. It moves me to read of a practical and tender God who is shown in full knowledge of Elijah’s feelings of failure and of his desire to escape the cost of his prophetic calling. As his ministry begins, he sends ravens to feed him.

Hearing his cry of despair at Beer-sheba, an angel gives him provisions and, in this extract, as a fearful Elijah cowers in his cave, he says that he will meet with him, outside his cave. As the great drama of elemental forces rage outside the cave, we’re told that God was not present in these. Instead, when the tumult subsides, comes ‘a sound of sheer silence.’ God’s voice calls to him and says: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”.

In my own life, like Elijah, God in Jesus calls to me by name; to come out of my self-constructed ‘cave’ of fears, and asks me, in the ‘sheer silence’ of his loving and merciful presence: “What are you doing here?”

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1 Kings 19.11-13

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; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.

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?’