1 Kings 18:30-39
Then Elijah said to all the people, ‘Come closer to me’; and all the people came closer to him. First he repaired the altar of the Lord that had been thrown down; Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord came, saying, ‘Israel shall be your name’; with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord. Then he made a trench around the altar, large enough to contain two measures of seed. Next he put the wood in order, cut the bull in pieces, and laid it on the wood. He said, ‘Fill four jars with water and pour it on the burnt-offering and on the wood.’ Then he said, ‘Do it a second time’; and they did it a second time. Again he said, ‘Do it a third time’; and they did it a third time, so that the water ran all round the altar, and filled the trench also with water.
At the time of the offering of the oblation, the prophet Elijah came near and said, ‘O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your bidding. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.’ Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt-offering, the wood, the stones, and the dust, and even licked up the water that was in the trench. When all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, ‘The Lord indeed is God; the Lord indeed is God.’
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Elijah on Mt Carmel is one of the most dramatic scenes in all the Bible. It’s a classic confrontation between good and evil. For a contemporary analogy, it is Harry Potter against Lord Voldemort. We know Harry will win, but we love the clash, the conflict between good and evil. In this part of the Bible, it is Elijah against the prophets of Baal, a false god with a large following in Israel. There is a terrible religious war going on. Who will win? Baal or the God of Israel?
The dramatic confrontation happens on the top of Mt Carmel, where there are two altars, one to Baal, and one to the God of Israel. It is Elijah versus hundreds of prophets of Baal, with a crowd of Israelites watching to see the outcome. It is high drama. The test is simple. Each altar will host its offering, one to Baal, and the other to the God of Israel, and the god who responds with fire from heaven will be the true God.
The prophets of Baal start. They kill a sacrificial bull, cut it up and set its pieces on the altar. They arrange the wood. Then they call on their god Baal to answer them. Hour after hour, all day long, they pray in a frenzy. They shout, they dance, they rave. Eventually they cut themselves with knives so their blood will flow and show Baal how serious they are. Elijah hangs back and watches them. Then he starts taunting them. “Shout louder. Baal must be busy. Maybe he’s in the PortaPotty. Shout louder.” At the end of the day, all the prophets of Baal fall down exhausted. Baal has not answered them. No fire from heaven.
Then Elijah steps forward and tells the people to come to him. He rebuilds the altar to the God of Israel. No one has used it much lately. He takes a sacrificial bull and kills it and lays the pieces on the altar. (Not a good day to be a bull, but that’s another matter.) He puts wood on the altar. Then, to make it all the more harder to burn, he has them douse the altar with water three times. Then Elijah steps back and prays. He prays, and he waits. He has made his offering, and he waits for God’s answer.
We just finished a week of Vacation Bible School. PandaMania! Each day had a theme or Bible character. Creation, Jonah and the whale, Hannah, Peter, and Elijah. On the Elijah day the children heard this story and reenacted it. They made an altar out of stones; they put sticks of wood on it. They chose an offering to put on it too. We decided a bull would be too gross. One boy did suggest his sister as an offering, but we didn’t do that either. In the end, we chose something valuable to put on the altar: chocolate. If you make an offering, it needs to be precious. Then, just as we were calling down fire from heaven, the ‘fire marshall’ burst into our room. (It was a volunteer in a fire hat.) She told us that a fire would be a safety violation. So we couldn’t do that. But the children did hear the rest of the story; and they learned that just as God listened to Elijah, so God listens to us.
God heard Elijah’s prayer. His simple prayer. The prophets of Baal prayed all day long in a frenzy. It’s like they thought the more they shouted and cut themselves, the more their god would have to hear them. Elijah doesn’t shout. His prayer is brief. “O God, hear your servant, and show us that you are real.” There is silence for a few seconds. Waiting. Looking. Will it happen? Then fire falls from heaven on Elijah’s offering; the fire consumes the bull, the wood, the altar, all the water, and probably anyone who was standing too close.
I wonder. How did Elijah feel when the fire fell? Was he surprised? I think a part of him must have been surprised. It’s one thing to believe in something, even to expect something, and another thing for it actually to happen. It’s like the farmer desperate for rain who goes out into the field to pray for rain, and he takes his umbrella with him as a sign of faith; but then when the prayer is answered and it starts raining, he starts laughing and crying all at the same time. I imagine Elijah laughing and crying after the fire fell. He had put himself out on the longest limb in the world, and he learned that God is faithful. It’s a lesson we all learn over and over again.
There is a story about a Dad named Greg teaching his young son to swim. The boy was a toddler, and Greg wanted him to get comfortable in the water. He put the little floaters on his arms, and they started in the wading section of the pool. Slowly the boy got used to being in the water. Then the great test came. Greg put his son on the edge of the pool, and he stood in waist deep water and held out his hands. “Jump!” he said, “I’ll catch you.” The boy was scared. He had never jumped into the water before. He ran away from the edge of the pool. But Greg managed to coax him back. And finally, after much pleading, the boy sort of flopped into the pool, into his father’s arms. Once he had done that, he was hooked. “Doot again,” he said. And they did it over and over and over again. The boy loved flopping into the pool. Later, Greg and his wife watched their son carefully because they worried that he may have grown too comfortable with water. They didn’t want him flopping in when they weren’t around. But he was careful. He stayed away from the edge of the pool when his father wasn’t in the water. They realized something: the little boy did not trust in his ability to swim (good thing!); he trusted in his father to catch him.
This is what Elijah learned too. On Mt Carmel, he plunged into deep water, not knowing what would happen. And God’s strong arms were there to catch him and hold him. He learned God is faithful.
It’s a lesson we learn again and again in our lives. We make our offerings to God — our time, our talents, our money, ourselves. We make our precious offerings. And at the same time, God is making an offering to us. God is offering us himself and his faithfulness. God always has arms outstretched, so that when we plunge into the water, water too deep for us, God’s arms are there to catch us, hold us, and not let us go. Amen.
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