Elijah in the Wilderness

December 14, 2022 – John of the Cross

Elijah in the Wilderness, Herman van Swanevelt

The lesson for John of the Cross comes from 1 Kings 19. To summarize, Elijah has just won a fire-making contest to demonstrate that the God of Israel was the one true God and also ordered the killing of four hundred prophets of Baal. Jezebel, the evil queen consort of the evil King Ahab, gets wind of this and promptly threatens Elijah’s life. He therefore flees into the wilderness, asks God to kill him, and promptly falls asleep. He is awakened twice by an angel, who essentially force-feeds Elijah food and water; that nourishment sustains him for forty days and nights until he comes to Mt. Horeb, the location at which God provided Moses with the Ten Commandments. At Mt. Horeb, he takes a nap. “Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’”

The prescribed reading ends there, but the story goes on to recount Elijah’s encounter with God. Elijah tells God that he is the only remaining true believer, as all the Israelites have deserted the worship of God. God lets Elijah know that he’s dooming for no reason and directs him to anoint Elisha as his successor.

Elijah has completed a great triumph, demonstrating that God is the God; yet at the first sign of adversity, he falls into a deep fit of depression. Asking God to die, falling asleep, having to be prodded to eat: not to psychoanalyze someone who lived well over 2000 years ago, but this is very much depression. And they didn’t have Wellbutrin back then, so that’s no help. Elijah is depressed because he believes that he’s the only true worshipper of God left in all of Israel.

This is wildly contrary to the actual facts in evidence. The first thing: Elijah knows better based on his prior interactions as recorded in 1 Kings up until now. Just at the beginning of the previous chapter, Elijah chats with Obadiah. The text states that Obadiah “revered the Lord greatly” and that he protected a hundred prophets of the Lord from Jezebel’s planned mass execution of believers. So there’s at least 102 folks; it is not the case that, as Elijah claims, he alone is left. The second thing: Elijah had just successfully ordered the seizure and killing of four hundred prophets of Baal. One man cannot kill four hundred men on his own; you have to have some help at least to keep them corralled so they don’t escape. There were probably a fair number of people involved in this episode whom we would count as worshippers of God.

Nonetheless, Elijah believes that he is alone in the world. To snap him out of it, God asks him that famous question: “What are you doing here?” God asks us that same question: what are we doing here? And it can be taken in myriad ways. What are we doing to advance the Kingdom of God today? What are we doing here just lying on the floor, doom-scrolling and clutching the dog for comfort? Just as he did Elijah, God gives us tasks: anoint Jehu as king of Israel, make disciples, take your Wellbutrin. 

Things aren’t as bad as they seem; there were in fact 7,000 worshippers of God in Israel.

We are living in an uncertain time in history. Russia continues to occupy Ukraine; the situation in Tigray continues to be dire. Closer to home, my mind is still reeling from the Moore County power grid attack; that these terrorists would cause great economic harm to an entire county and, in many cases, physical harm to its inhabitants is scary. It seems probable that it was all to make a point – a wrong, discredited, bigoted point – about a drag show and the LGBTQ+ community. Just today, there was another arrest of a January 6 insurrectionist. The far right feels persecuted, which drives them to extremist actions.

In reality, the structures of our government give the far right an outsized voice. An electoral college misfire in 2016 led directly to the appointment of three people to the Supreme Court who do not reflect the values of the majority of Americans. The mere existence of the Senate favors small states, which right now tend to be more right-wing. Put simply, Democrats have won the popular vote for President in seven out of the last eight elections, but you sure wouldn’t know it from the way our government functions (or doesn’t).

Nonetheless, we should not and cannot doom. Psalm 121:7 states, “The Lord shall preserve you from all evil; it is he who shall keep you safe.” We must go forward without fear and do the work that God has given us to do. Take your Wellbutrin and march on.