Sermon: Expecting Rain Jamie Maciejewski
Series: Days of Elijah 10/29/2023
1 Kings 18:1-6, 41-46
Rain is a remarkable thing. Two weeks ago, George and I spent a long weekend at the coast. On one walk we took through the woods out to Third Beach, I was so enjoying the soft, green air, still damp from the recent rain. I was looking up at the trees that tower overhead. And then one of us looked down to find brilliant, deep red mushrooms flecked with white. I’ve never seen anything like them except in fairy tales! I honestly didn’t know they existed outside of people’s imaginations. Some who’ve seen my pictures have asked if there were gnomes, too!
Rain brings things to life that looked dead. The grass in our yard, for instance!
In our story this morning, the people lived with severe drought for three years. No rain at all. And then a deluge. It’s a great story and we want to dig in to see what’s happening. So, let’s start at the beginning.
In the beginning was… King Ahab. The Bible tells us Ahab sets records for evil. Here’s what we read a couple of chapters before this morning’s readings:
Ahab son of Omri did what was evil in the Lord’s sight, even more than any of the kings before him. …[H]e married Jezebel, the daughter of King Ethbaal of the Sidonians, and he began to bow down in worship of Baal. First Ahab built a temple and an altar for Baal in Samaria. Then he set up an Asherah pole. He did more to provoke the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, than any of the other kings of Israel before him. (I Kings 16:30-33 NLT)
We first heard about King Ahab and his god Baal last week when Pastor Don preached on the contest between the prophet Elijah and the 450 prophets of Baal. Baal was the local storm god. Every summer when the rain dried up, Baal did, too – he died. Kind of like the grass. And every fall when the rain started up again, Baal came back to life. When Israel’s king begins mixing up the worship of Baal with the worship of the Lord, God is none too pleased. As Pastor Don memorably described last Sunday, God isn’t interested in an open relationship!
As a consequence of Ahab’s evil, the prophet Elijah announces the end of rain. I expect Baal’s not going to be happy. Neither is Ahab!
Our text this morning picks up the story: “After a long time, in the third year, the word of the Lord came to Elijah” (1 Kings 18:1a). The word of the Lord. Throughout the Old Testament, the sign of a prophet is this: the word of the Lord came. To Moses. To Elijah. To Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Hosea and Haggai and Zechariah and, and, and.
What was the word of the Lord that came to Elijah? “Go and present yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the land.” (1 Kings 18:1b)
Sometimes we think prophets predict the future. But that’s not the primary focus of a prophet. When a prophet speaks the word of the Lord, they insist “that God, not the king or any other human being, is the primary actor in the life of God’s people and the nations.” (Fulfillment of the Prophetic Word, in the CEB Study Bible) Another way to say it is that prophets aren’t fortune tellers; they are truth tellers.
And the truth – i.e., the word of the Lord – that comes to Elijah is that God is ready to end the drought and send rain. Expect rain, Elijah!
It’s worth asking a couple of questions here. Why did God stop the rain for three years? Was the drought punishment for King Ahab’s evil ways? Give him a serious trip to the woodshed? I don’t think so. There’s more to it than that.
God withholds rain to help Ahab realize the inadequacy of his little-g god, Baal. Think of it: of all the gods in the pantheon of gods, surely the god of storm and rain should be able to break a drought. In Israel, there are two seasons each year: dry and wet. When the wet season fails three years in a row, the storm god has clearly failed. Big time. Ahab must have begun to have pretty serious doubts about Baal’s adequacy.
I think there’s still more to it though. Elijah reveals it in his prayer, which we read last week: “Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. Answer me, Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.” (1 Kings 18:36b-37)
When God acts, as he does when he sends fire from heaven on Elijah’s sacrifice, and as he does when he sends rain after three years of drought, he is at work turning people’s hearts back. What a tender picture! Even evil King Ahab is the object of God’s pursuit – not for petty punishment, but because God wants even Ahab’s heart. And if Ahab’s not too far gone for God to pursue, what hope that offers me and you and every person who seems as far from God as we can imagine!
Let’s talk for a moment about what happens when Elijah climbs the mountain. This comes after the contest with Baal’s prophets, after the fire falls but before the rain comes. Here’s what we read:
Elijah climbed to the top of Carmel, bent down to the ground and put his face between his knees. “Go and look toward the sea,” he told his servant. And he went up and looked. “There is nothing there,” he said. Seven times Elijah said, “Go back.” The seventh time the servant reported, “A cloud as small as a person’s hand is rising from the sea.” (1 Kings 18:42b-44a)
What was Elijah doing up there at the top of the mountain? I’ve always assumed he was praying his heart out, and that it took seven times of praying before God answered him with rain. But let’s look closer. The text says that Elijah “bent down” to the ground and put his face between his knees. When the word for “bent down” is used elsewhere in the Old Testament, it doesn’t refer to prayer. It refers to worship! In the largest sense, worship is much more than activities like singing. Worship refers to a posture of the heart. When we worship, we bow our hearts and acknowledge that God is God and that we are not.
Recall that God had already told Elijah that he was sending rain – that was in our first reading. Elijah didn’t need to convince God of anything. Didn’t need to dance or shout or pray harder or louder or longer to get God’s attention. That’s the kind of praying that Baal’s prophets did when they tried to get their god’s attention. God said he would send rain, and Elijah was bowed in worship before God, waiting expectantly. Elijah didn’t even need to go look for rainclouds. Did you notice? He sent his servant to look. Seven times. The number seven is a special number in the Bible. It always reminds people that God is fully and divinely present.
Elijah trusted that God would keep his word. Expect rain, Elijah! Yes, Lord. And the smallest, tiniest cloud was enough.
Go, Ahab! Ride that chariot! Get yourself home before the roads are washed away in the storm. God is turning even your heart back, King Ahab! Even yours! When Elijah outruns Ahab’s chariot, it’s just one more God-sign to Ahab!
When life throws a curve ball, when we get knocked down, it may be that God is working to get our attention. Like Ahab, maybe we’ve come to rely on our own little-g gods. We think our little-g god can produce the rain we need, but the rain’s not coming. We think our career can provide the fulfillment we long for, and then we lose our job or face a big setback. We thrive on the attention we get from being able to do something well and then we fail spectacularly. We rely on our ability to take care of ourselves and then age or illness or bad luck strikes and leaves us dependent on others. We think marriage or children will bring us the love we seek, and then face disappointment. Little-g gods are like Baal; they die during the dry season. And God is always seeking ways to draw our hearts back to him.
Throughout the Bible, rain and water symbolize the activity of God’s Holy Spirit. When God’s people are desperately thirsty in the wilderness, Moses brings water out of a rock. (Exodus 17:1-7) In Ezekiel’s vision, a river flows out of the new temple, getting deeper as it flows. (Eze 47:1-12) In Isaiah, God causes pools of water to appear in the desert. (Isa 41:17-20) And in the Revelation, at the very end of the age, the water of life flows from the throne of God and the Lamb. (Rev 22:1-2)
In the book of Kings, the arrival of rain symbolizes God’s presence in a very dramatic way. No little-g god can do that. Even when life is bone dry, God is present and active. Even when we don’t feel God near, he is. Even when we are knocked down, God is at work. And when our little-g gods are failing us, God is at work, stripping away those false supports so that we come to see who he is again, so that our hearts are drawn back to him and we bow down again in worship.
Our passage this morning began with the word of the Lord that came to Elijah. The word of the Lord has a singular purpose: to reveal God’s activity and heart. When the word of the Lord became flesh in the person of Jesus, God revealed his activity and heart through Jesus. And God’s activity and heart are about drawing people to himself, so that God and humans can be in the relationship they have been meant for from the foundation of the world.
The word of the Lord today is not about rainstorms per se (it wasn’t about rainstorms even with Elijah). The word of the Lord is about the gospel that draws men and women to God, that heals and redeems, and that judges sin and evil wherever they are found. When Elijah expected rain, what he expected was for God to work and to speak his word into the lives of God’s people. It’s what we, too, should expect.
So, we pray. Not as the prophets of Baal prayed, as though God can’t hear us unless we shout loud enough. We pray as those who worship and bow down, as those who trust that God is about healing and redeeming fallen creatures like us and those around us. When people visit LCR, our warm greetings are the first part. Our bowed-down prayer on their behalf, in expectation that God is working even now, is our work and our charge. Similarly, when we remember those who are missing from our midst, our work is bowed-down prayer for them, expectantly, urgently, not forgetting. We watch for the smallest rain cloud on the horizon, confident that God is completely present, drought or no drought.
We don’t bow our hearts to make God pay attention. We bow with expectation, trusting that God is already present, already at work, and that he desires and even urges us to keep company with him. My friends, together let’s expect the Spirit of God to be at work. Let’s watch for the smallest of clouds. Expect rain!