Sermon - Midweek Advent 3 - Mount Carmel

 

Mount Carmel

1 Kings 18:16-40

When the King calls you a “troubler of Israel”, it’s no idle insult.  But Elijah was ready for trouble, and so he threw down the gauntlet of challenge.  “All right, King Ahab, send your prophets of Baal.  Have them meet me at Mount Carmel, and we’ll have a contest to see whose god is God.”  The crowd of onlookers gather for the main event.  On the one side 450 prophets of the Canaanite fertility god, Baal.  On the other side, lone Elijah, prophet of Yahweh.  Lines are drawn.  Tensions build.

The rules of the challenge are simple enough.  Each side builds an altar, offers a sacrifice of a bull, and prays to their god to send down consuming fire.  Everyone agrees and the challenge is afoot.  The prophets of Baal spend all morning, until midday, calling on their false god.  But because he is a false god, “there was no voice, and no one answered.”  How embarrassing.

But Elijah isn’t silent.  He stands there mocking the false prophets.  The sarcasm drips.  “Hey cry louder, fellas.  Surely he’s real.  I just KNOW he will hear you.  Oh, wait, maybe he went to the bathroom.  Maybe he took a trip.  I know, he’s sleeping!  You better wake him up!”  This really is some of the best humor in the Old Testament.

They cry louder, and resort to more extreme measures, they even stoop to cutting themselves and shedding their own blood.  What a mess.  But the end is the same:  “There was no voice. No one answered; no one paid attention.”

And then it’s Elijah’s turn.  He reverently repairs the altar of Yahweh.  Then he drenches it with water (3 times!) to make what’s about to happen even more convincing.  And then the lone prophet simply prays, asking God’s answer, “For I have done all these things at your word”.

“Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.” What a dramatic moment.  What an answer to prayer.  What a demonstration of Yahweh’s divine power and faithfulness.

It sort of reminds you of when Moses threw down his staff, which became a snake and devoured the snakes of the Egyptian magicians.  Yahweh proves he is God and the pagan gods are really nothing.  Or when the ark was captured by the Philistines and the statue of their god Dagon was found in the morning fallen on his face before the Ark of the true God.

Consider also the many furious efforts of the false prophets.  They cry and wail, the limp and dance, they even shed their own blood all in futile efforts to make something happen.  To get the attention of their god who is no god.  Just as false religion always does – the efforts of man never avail to call down blessings from gods that don’t exist.  In fact the efforts of man don’t avail with the true God either.  Elijah didn’t do any of that mumbo jumbo.  He just followed God’s word.  He trusted in that word and knew that his God, Yahweh, would always keep his promises.

And even though it all ended badly for the false prophets and the false gods, that doesn’t mean that sinful man doesn’t keep trying.  It doesn’t mean the devil gives up in trying to deceive.  It doesn’t mean the contest is over between the true God and the false gods.

In this Advent season the world wants to compete with Yahweh and with his Christ.  The false prophets of today flail their arms and do their jigs all trying to squeeze some joy out of their secular Christmas festivities.  They’re busy as ever with their shopping and parties and soup kitchens and clothing drives.  The hustle bustles and seems almost as much of a frenzy as 450 prophets slicing and poking themselves silly and bloody.  Their god gave them the goods, or so they thought.  And the gods of this age also promise the goods, or the good vibes, the warm fuzzies. Idols of a different sort but idols nonetheless.  And sometimes Christians even get caught up in it all.

But Advent calls us to quiet all that, and stand like Elijah at the altar.  Offer a humble prayer.  And do according to God’s word, for we, like Elijah, trust that word.

It must have been quite a sight to see the flames come down and burn up the sacrifice, and the water, and even melt the rock.  But Yahweh doesn’t do things half-way.  Elijah trust that God would act, and do what he said he would do.  And he was not disappointed.

But remember these scriptures testify to Christ.  And so we must see Jesus in them.  So where is he?  He’s certainly not missing in action like Baal.  He’s not silent or distant or apathetic to the pleas of his people.  He is the true God, Yahweh, who answers our prayers (though not usually in as much of spectacle as at Mt. Carmel).

And he, Jesus, is also the sacrifice that is consumed by God’s wrath for us.  That wrath so hot, that anger at sin so fierce, an all-consuming fire that left nothing unpunished.  At the cross Jesus wins the once-and-for-all contest with sin and death and devil.  At the cross, Jesus proves God’s word from of old is true.  At the cross, Jesus delivers, and does not disappoint.  But that doesn’t always make it easy.

Elijah’s mountaintop moment, as dramatic as it was, didn’t last.  If you know the rest of the story, wicked queen Jezebel wasn’t too happy about her prophets of Baal being put to death.  And so, like a mob boss, she put a hit out on Elijah, calling for his life.  And Elijah, who stood up to the king, who faced off against 450 false prophets, now ran away scared from the wrath of the evil queen.

He goes to another mountain, Horeb.  There he sulks in the cave, feeling sorry for himself.  “I’m the only one left, and now they’re going to kill me too”.  Boo hoo, poor me.  But God answers him.  Not in the earthquake, the wind, or the fire.  Ah yes, the fire.. God had just sent down a fire to help the prophet at Carmel.  But no, now God isn’t in the fire either.  He’s in the small voice, the whisper.   

What are you doing here, Elijah?  Get back to work.  Go anoint Hazael, and Nimshi as kings – I’ll work through their swords to punish the wicked.  And then anoint Elisha as a prophet to take your place – because my word will continue to go forth. 

Dear Christian friends, consider the highs and lows of the prophet Elijah.  From spectacular fire from heaven and triumph over his foes, to cowering in a cave in fear for his life.  From the miraculous and glorious fire from heaven to the word of quiet whisper.  Is Yahweh some sort of erratic and unpredictable God who deals with us in strange and terrifying ways?  Certainly it’s true that in many and various ways God spoke to our fathers of old.  The common thread however, is the word.  It is the word that Elijah followed and trusted at Mt. Carmel, and that word which did not fail.  It was also the word of God in the quiet whisper outside the cave, and that word did not fail.  Elijah would hear the word, trust the word, follow the word, and proclaim the word. 

And in many and various ways, Elijah prepared the way for the coming of the eternal word made flesh. A second Elijah was to come, this one with a watery word of baptism, for repentance and forgiveness.  John the Baptist had his highs and lows, too.  John was also, like Elijah, on the wrong side of powerful people.  John, too, would hear the encouraging word brought back to him, not in a cave, but in a dungeon.  Nonetheless - the good news is preached to the poor!  The Messiah really is among us.

And so with us.  Christ comes to us, quite often, in the still small voice of the word – whether preached or taught, read or prayed.  He comes in the waters of baptism, and the remembrance of it – a daily washing of rebirth and renewal.  He comes in the Supper, his body and blood hidden under earthly forms.  So mundane, yet so powerful.  The word is at work.  God’s promises are kept.  The devil is defeated.  Sin is wiped clean.  And even death brings no more fear.  You’ll have your ups and downs, maybe not quite like Elijah’s.  You’ll have your mountaintops, and you’ll have your dark caves.  But nonetheless, Yahweh is with you.  Christ’s word of promise will not fail you. 

And so, we’ve now been to Mount Moriah and seen Christ in the obedient son, Isaac, or the substitute sacrifice of the ram – the mountain points us to Christ.

And at Nebo, when Moses gets the wide vista, one final view of God’s promised land, and we too take in the view of all God’s promises in Christ.

And at Carmel, where God gives Elijah victory over false religion, by accepting his sacrifice – or as he reassures him at Horeb in the cave of fear and despair – Christ is also with us by his word, in all the ups and downs we face.

In many and various ways God spoke to his people of old, but now in these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son.  Come quickly, Lord Jesus.  Amen.