Elijah fears that he is alone—fears that all have abandoned the God of Israel, fears that he is the only faithful one left.   Forsaken by all others, afraid for his life, Elijah runs away.   He runs a day and runs out of steam.   There he finds a solitary broom tree in the wilderness, sits under it and prays to God to take his life.  After sleeping a while, an angel awakens him with some breakfast.  Hot cake and water.  He eats, he drinks, and exhausted, falls back asleep.   A second time the angel awakens him to eat and drink.   He does so, and this time is strengthened enough to continue on his way.  Now, he seems not to be running away so much as on a pilgrimage toward the Mountain of God, Horeb, where Moses had talked with God face to face.   Forty days and nights he journeys until he comes to Horeb, and he sees a cave and enters it.  

I wonder if Elijah is “clinically depressed.”   I, along with some of you have experience with depression, the darkness into which one sinks, not unlike the dark, damp, hole in the ground into which Elijah has crawled for the night.  Who knows how long the night will last?   Who knows how long the darkness will envelop Elijah? 

The word of the Lord comes to Elijah.  “What are you doing here Elijah?” the voice asks. 

Elijah pitifully explains his condition.  “I’ve worked as hard as I could for you, Lord.  But the Israelites have all forsaken your covenant.  They’ve torn down your altars, Lord, and killed your prophets and your holy ones.  I am the last one left.  All alone.  And now, they want to kill me too.

God tells Elijah that to come out to the mouth of the cave.   “Go stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by” are the words Elijah hears.  It is as though God has no patience to talk with Elijah down here in the darkness.   Knows that here, in the hole, Elijah will remain focused only on himself, seeking pity and sympathy.   God tells Elijah to get up, go out, and get ready to encounter the Holy.

You know the story.  There is a wind that catches Elijah’s attention.  A great wind, the Bible says, so strong that it is sheering the great rocks off of the face of the mountain.  I can imagine Elijah, peering out from his cave, the great wind coming over the mountain.  I can imagine Elijah saying, “That’s it, Lord.  This wind is just what I need, Lord.  Blow my enemies off of the face of the earth.  Blow em to kingdom come, Lord.  Hit Ahab and Jezebel and their armies with your wind, Lord!”  But…God was not… in the wind.  

Next comes an earthquake.  An earthquake, shaking the mountains, exhibiting the mighty force of God’s created world.   I can imagine Elijah, crouching against the craggy wall.  “Right God—an earthquake.   Open the earth and swallow them up.  That’ll show them who you are!   Shake ‘em Lord, shake em into the bowels of the earth.   Them and all those who have abandoned you—shake ‘em and swallow them up!”   But God was not…in the earthquake.

Finally, after the earthquake, a fire.  Can you see Elijah looking out from the shelter of the cave as the fire scorches the side of the mountain, consuming all of the brush and pine.   I imagine Elijah watching the fire… “God, of course, you will burn them.  Rain down your fire upon them, until they are only ash and dust.   Destroy all of my enemies, I mean, all of your enemies, O Lord.  Throw them into a lake of fire.”  But God…was not…in the fire.

God was not in the fire, the earthquake or the wind.  These were merely manifestations of God’s powerful creation.  They are to get Elijah’s attention.  To get him to look up and look out.  To get Elijah’s focus off of his own pitiful situation and his own burden.  Hear the wind, Elijah?   Feel the earthquake?   See the fire?  The great natural forces cause Elijah’s heart to beat fast, his breath to quicken.  And then…there in the silence, Elijah is waits for what might come next.

And what comes…is….nothing.  Just Elijah’s breath and the small noise it makes as it enters and exits his nostrils.   Just the thump in his chest to remind him he is alive.   Nothing more.   Silence. . .

The Bible tells us…”sheer” silence.. .  And in the silence. . .Elijah hears God.  Finally, hears God.

Some translations say a “still small voice” or a “gentle whisper” is what Elijah hears.  But the new revised standard gets closest to the Hebrew.  What Elijah hears is silence.   The kind of silence that speaks to you, because everything else is emptied out.   No busy thoughts tunneling through your brain.  Just silence…and the expectation that the silence will say something important.  The Scripture tells us that when Elijah heard the silence…hears the silence…he wraps his face in his mantle covering it as Moses had done so long before on this very mountain, and he goes out and stands at the mouth of the cave.

God has accomplished a most important thing…getting Elijah out of his damp hole in the ground.  God asks him again why he is here.  Elijah replies the same as he does before.  He feels alone.  The people have abandoned God.  His life is threatened.  Now, God offers Elijah instruction, feeling Elijah now is equipped to hear and understand.

God says to Elijah “Go, return on your way to the wilderness Damascus.”  God lets Elijah know that there is no escape from his enemy.   The only way, is to return to face his threat head on.   However, he will not have to face it alone.   God tells Elijah who it is that God has in place to face the threat with him.   “Anoint Hazael as the new king over Aram.  Anoint Jehu the new king over Israel.  And anoint Elisha as your own successor,” God tells him.   Then, God tells Elijah that these will lead an army of seven thousand who have not bowed down to Baal.  Indeed, Elijah is not alone as he had feared.  There is hope!  Not all had abandoned the Lord.   If he has courage to return, there are those who will stand by him, shoulder to shoulder, and the enemy will not triumph! 

Elijah’s enemies will not be defeated by a great wind.  Nor by a terrible earthquake.  They will not be consumed by a great fire.  Nor will ours.  Our enemies, and all that threatens us will be undone by a gentle whisper, a still small voice, a sheer silence.  The silence that brings the knowing…the knowing that God has not, will not abandon you.   Get up.  Go out.  And know that you are not alone.   Never alone.