Scripture: A Prophetic Showdown
1 Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword.
Today’s story opens amid an intense conflict between the prophet Elijah and the king and queen of Israel, Ahab and Jezebel. Ahab and Jezebel are perhaps the most notorious royal couple of ancient Israel. When Ahab becomes king of Israel, the storyteller comments, “Ahab…did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him” (1 Kings 16:30). Later, when Ahab marries Jezebel, the daughter of a Phoenician king, he begins to worship a major god of the Phoenicians, Baal. He even builds a temple to Baal, this foreign god, in the capital city of Israel (Samaria, at the time).
As a prophet of the Lord, Elijah pronounces God’s
displeasure at Ahab and Jezebel’s behavior in the shape of a great drought over
Israel. The culmination of this drought is a grandly staged showdown. In the
one corner is the challenger, Elijah, the prophet of the Lord; in the opposite
corner are the prophets of Baal, the reigning god in the land (1 Kgs 18:20-40).
They both prepare an altar for sacrifice and then wait to see upon which altar Baal
or God will send fire. When the fire of the Lord falls upon Elijah’s altar, the
people fall on their faces and acknowledge that the Lord is God. The scene ends
rather gruesomely, as Elijah rounds up the prophets of Baal and kills them.
Needless to say…I don’t see Christ anywhere in this final deed of Elijah. I can
only conclude it is a symptom of a disease that has overtaken all the people,
even God’s chosen prophet. The disease is thinking that right justifies might,
that being on God’s side means being in control. The symptom is vengeance. Jesus
clearly shows us the diseased nature of this thinking, as he repeatedly
refrains from acts of vengeance, choosing instead to forgive his enemies and to
pronounce peace upon the world even after the world has crucified him. That is
the only way real, sustainable healing will come about.
In any case, God is faithful and will not leave a diseased people—or prophet—to rot. God insists on redemption, on healing, even here. Let’s see how.
Scripture: Elijah’s
Great Sadness
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 (that is, one of the prophets that Elijah killed) by this time tomorrow.” (Here we can clearly see that vengeance begets vengeance.) 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.”
If you had seen Elijah a couple of chapters earlier, this desperate man in the wilderness would be almost unrecognizable. Earlier, Elijah was bold and confident, unafraid to speak God’s truth in the face of violent tyrants, undaunted by a life of subsistence amid a crippling drought in the land. But here, now, the same man is wracked with fear, consumed with self-doubt, even wishing to die. In modern psychological terms, we might say that Elijah suffers from an onset of depression. If so, his example would serve as a healthy reminder that all of us, even a man of God such as Elijah, are subject to debilitating feelings of great sadness and insecurity. We can do all the right things and still find ourselves in not just a funk, but a deep, seemingly inescapable pit.
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.”
In this tender scene, we can see God caring for Elijah in a gentle manner that acknowledges his woundedness and offers the first steps toward healing. Feelings of great sadness and self-doubt lead many people to stop caring for themselves in the even the most basic of ways. Sleep, food, drink…these things are neglected (or overdone). But God’s angel patiently ensures a healthy regimen of all three for Elijah. It’s back to basics. Sleep. Food. Drink. You are worthy of care.
Perhaps even more important, however, are the angel’s final words: “Or the journey will be too much for you.” This potentially daunting phrase is also charged with purpose, a key ingredient to abundant life. Earlier Elijah had despaired of having any purpose left; he had discounted himself, “I am no better than my ancestors” (1 Kgs 19:4). But the angel insists that Elijah is not done, not finished. There is a journey ahead. God needs him. God believes in him.
The same may be said of each and every one of us. God needs you. God believes in you.
Scripture: The
Divider
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. (Forty days and nights in the wilderness. Does that remind you of anyone else? Before Elijah, of course, there were the Hebrew people who spent forty years in the wilderness. After Elijah, there is Jesus, who begins his ministry only after he has spent forty days in the wilderness. The common thread among these three stories is that the wilderness is a place of divine encounter and transformation. We wait to see how Elijah will be transformed.) 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.”
“What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1 Kgs 19:9). Again and again in scripture, we find God asking people simple questions of self-reflection. “Where are you?” God asks Adam and Eve. “Where is your brother?” God asks Cain. “Where are you going?” God asks Hagar as she flees into the wilderness. God does not ask these questions for the sake of learning information but rather for the sake of inviting us to be honest with ourselves—honest enough that we might recognize our limits and our need.
Notice how Elijah answers by listing all his achievements and blaming everyone else. “I alone am left,” he laments, giving voice to the isolation that drives all of us deeper into despair. In my opinion, “I alone am left” is at the very root of Elijah’s sadness and despair.
The word “devil” derives from the Greek word diabolos, which can be translated as “to divide” or “to separate.” Which suggests the underlying motivation of the devil. It is not about a battle of good versus evil. It is not about getting people to do bad things. The devil is the Divider. The Isolator. The devil’s underlying motivation has to do with a sense of a separation from God and others. The devil bears and generates an attitude of isolation that drives us into despair and diseased thinking.
We might notice a contrast between Elijah in the wilderness and Jesus in the wilderness. Jesus repeatedly anchors himself in the sense of God’s abiding presence. He roots himself in the divine affirmation that he heard at his baptism, “You are my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased.” Instead of living in despair, he lives in the glow of God’s tender smile. This is not to fault Elijah or to condemn him for being sad or depressed. (I truly believe Jesus himself may have felt a similar way, much later in his ministry, in the garden where he sweat blood and wept before God.) I only make the contrast to suggest the difference between disease and health. The point is not to say to Elijah, “Just trust in God, and you’ll feel better,” but instead to suggest that healing is sometimes a wilderness journey and it takes time and grace and the help of others to even perceive God’s presence and begin to trust again. Which is just we see in the next few verses….
Scripture: Seven
Thousand Others…
11 He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” (For those who are interested, this scene closely resembles a scene in Exodus where Moses appears to have been granted a glimpse of God’s backside.) 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.
This is the verse that is famously translated in the King James and elsewhere as “a still, small voice.” The Hebrew words and syntax render the phrase open to different translations, conferring on this verse a very appropriate sense of mystery. Whatever exactly is being said, we gather that Elijah encounters God not in some magic climactic moment (“the kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed”—Luke 17:20) but in an utterly still, quiet moment of honesty.
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.” (Same question as before. Same answer as before. Healing takes time. God does not give up; God is patient.)
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.”
God’s instructions to Elijah are, on the surface, very practical. Do this. Then do that. Then do this. But these pragmatic directives bear within them a treasure of grace. Two things in particular. First is the sense of purpose. As God hinted at before, there is a journey still ahead of Elijah. God needs him. God believes in him.
But second—and this is so easy to miss—God reveals to Elijah that, contrary to his repeated laments, he is not alone. There “seven thousand [others] in Israel” whose “knees…have not bowed to Baal” (1 Kgs 19:8). God counters Elijah’s “I alone am left” with, “No, you’re not! There are 7,000 others with you.” Against the whispered accusations of the devil, the great divider and isolator, God assures Elijah that he is not alone.
“One Christian…”
Today is All Saints Sunday. Saints are not perfect people who have done big things. They are people like you and me who happen to reveal God’s perfect love—usually in the little things, in glimpses we catch here and there.
When we lose a personal saint in our lives—a loved one in our family, a dear friend—it can feel like wandering in the wilderness. We might encounter a sadness or even depression such as Elijah encountered.
What I gather from today’s story is that such an experience is not the sign of a deficient faith but is in fact divine. God is with us in the wilderness, showing us the most tender care. Here, make sure you sleep. Here, make sure you eat. Here, make sure you drink something. And here, I need you to get up and keep walking—I believe in you! There is something I need you to do!
The process of healing from any loss or any disease is rarely straightforward. In the Hebrew mindset, forty signified something like a season. Forty years in the wilderness meant a season in the life of a people—that is, a generation. Forty days means a season within an individual’s lifetime. Grief takes a season. Healing takes a season. Some seasons are longer than others.
And what threatens our healing more than anything is what we hear in Elijah’s lament, “I alone…” That is the voice of the great Divider, the great Isolator, the one who leads us deeper into despair and disease. There is a saying that was popular among the early followers of Christ: “One Christian is no Christian.”[1]
It is good for us to be together today. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses (Heb 12:1), yes—including our loved ones who have passed in the last year. But just as importantly, we are surrounded by living saints. By each other. Fellow Christ-followers who share our sorrows and our joys, who keep us company on the journey as we heal and grow together.
Prayer
Who meets us in the wilderness
With great attention and care—
When we feel alone
In our sadness, in our disease, in whatever ails us
…
Turn our eyes
To the companions you have given us,
Faithfully given in the past, faithfully given in the present,
That we might be strengthen in love. In Christ, who gathers us into your one family: Amen.
[1] J. D. Walt, “Unus
Christianus—Nullus Christianus: One Christian—No Christian,” https://seedbed.com/unus-christianus-nullus-christianus-one-christian-no-christian/,
accessed October 27, 2025.
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