This Sunday, along with the Gospel for the day and another sermon text from I Kings, we will recall that it is the hundredth anniversary of Armistice Day, the end of World War I. We celebrate that day as Veterans Day in the United States. As we look at Elijah’s confrontation with the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel in I Kings 18:20-46, we might imagine some of our modern conflicts or wars to be reflections of that awesome “duel” between the God of Israel and the god of the Canaanites, battles between the forces of good and those of evil.
Yet it’s seldom so clear, especially of late. While the two great wars of the 20th century are fairly easily portrayed as combat between darkness and light, things seem quite a bit more gray in our times. We often find God’s people, Christians, divided about the righteousness of this or that act of war on behalf of our nation.
Even in the Old Testament story, the conclusion grates a little (or at least I think it should) against our Christian sensibilities. Elijah immediately takes advantage of the turn of opinion toward the true God and summarily arrests and executes the 450 prophets of Baal. If we haven’t totally lost our souls to depictions of action-hero violence and shoot-them-all video games, then we will cringe a little at that merciless mass execution.
Yet Elijah’s actions are all in service of the choice he demands of the people of Israel at the outset, to make a decisive choice between following the Lord and following Baal. As Jesus Himself said about God and money, there can only be one Master (which is what the name “Baal” means), only one God.
So, ironically, Elijah’s violent duel with worshipers of Baal, might actually call us to consider the need to choose between following God as He has been revealed in the humble, suffering death of Jesus and a spirit which imagines that violent retaliation is the answer to evil in our world.
Elijah got to call down fire from heaven, but when Jesus’ own disciples want to do the same in Luke 9:54-56, Jesus rebuked them. There is still a choice to be made, a duel between gods, but in the person of Jesus the form it takes has changed. A problematic addition to verse 56, which may appear in some versions, has Jesus explain to His trigger-happy followers, “You do not know what kind of spirit you are of.” It may not be part of what Luke originally wrote or the actual words of Jesus, but it’s a fitting comment on how we can get our spiritual allegiances mixed up, following some unforgiving, merciless deity instead of the God who came to us in love and grace.
So, rather than rush out to be like Elijah and find some way to confront the false and evil gods of our time, we would do better to spend some time making sure we have answered in our own hearts the choice Elijah put to the people. “If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” If we want the first, then we must spend some time, like Elijah himself needed, in the presence of the Lord and learn who He really is and what He is like.
good caution Steve for my desire to see God do something about it!
my maternal grandparents lived in Paradise, CA in the first years of their marriage. now it’s all burned down. our current president referred to it as Pleasure a couple of times, a sadly ironic name he felt, before someone corrected him with the correct name of the place he’d just visited.
a telling slip i am afraid.
he and i are the same age. Clinton, Bush, Trump–as the current leader always likes to put it “sad”. i want to assure those younger, there were better men and women in our generation. –craig
Thanks, Craig, for sharing your heart about Paradise. Thanks to our Lord Jesus that fire from heaven is no longer His way. Yes, there are better men in your generation and you are one of them, Craig.