The Visitation

"If hope is reduced to salvation of the soul in a heaven beyond death, it looses its power to renew life and change the world, and its flame is quenched". Jurgen Moltmann.

It's been a particularly good summer here this year, allowing people to get out and enjoy times outdoors and even, quite remarkable for here, plan for trips several weeks in advance as the sunshine has proved a regular feature. There is, of course, a flip-side to this - the heat can be particularly difficult for some (especially those of us who have had to work through most of the nice days), and there are moments when you really want it to be at least a little less intense, particularly at the end of a day, so you can cool down and sleep.

Lengthy periods like this, however, do provide a glimpse of what it would be like to live during a time when there is nothing but such conditions and how arduous it would be to try and live.

Environmental trouble was often a means God used in times past to seek to bring to people's attention their evil or folly, and when Ahab became King of Israel, it wasn't long before such a trouble was necessary. The new king's attitude was simple - if God said it was wrong, do it, and this extended even to the point of actively seeking to erase the deeds and awareness of the Lord from both the history books and the culture of his day, hence he and his wife rightly gained the reputation of being the most infamous royals in the history of the land.

Ahab had one major problem, however.

Elijah.

Elijah wasn't just a living testimony of the reality of God, He was also under divine protection and, under God's authority, could bring into being all manner of troubles that left Ahab and Jezebel hopping mad.

That's how the drought began.
Elijah prayed (see James 5:17-19), and the rains ceased and the land dried up, so that even the stream that sustained the prophet for a time was gone.

Elijah is sent to a house of a widow, barely existing with her son, and the impact of the drought is evident. They have a final meal. Death is close. Mercifully God uses the Prophet to sustain them, but there's another problem. The son becomes ill and dies.

The widow is distraught with grief.
Surely, with such man here, this should not have happened. What manner of life is this, she cries, as all she appears to have is her sin and the misery of death.

That's when everything changes.
First, Elijah takes her dead child and by calling upon God, sees him restored to life. Then, after a personal crisis of faith,  he faces Ahab, sees the prophets of Baal destroyed, and rains returned to the land.

We can readily find parallels to Ahab's policies in our times. There's beliefs and deeds aplenty that wish to make God redundant and scrubbed out, but like those times in Israel's past, there are a couple of real problems.

First, there's what we could speak of as the 'mundane' testimony of life itself. However harsh things can become, there are still 'witnesses' and events that, like the miraculous continuation of that last meal, "speak" deeply to us of a God who is there. That was Ahab's real nightmare. However much he wanted to eradicate God from his world, he couldn't - there was always something (or, because of Elijah, someone) in the way to stop this from happening. Sure, he could erect his idols and live, it appeared, without scruple with his idolatrous wife, but every time he glanced in the rear view mirror, God was still pursuing him.
How many fall into that category?

Then there are those of us like the widow, living under the tyranny, but not really living or surviving, because the awfulness is killing us. We have nowhere to run or hide, and there seems no answers, until God shows up in such a way that everything is changed. The widow's experience shows that such an encounter isn't going to be easy for us or our world, but its presence is miraculous, turning our poverty and hopelessness into something precious and astounding.

Then there's Elijah. James makes it clear that he was just like us, and the story doesn't omit the fact that he had very real fears and doubts, but he also knew, in spite of those troubles, that the Lord was present, and that one truth could change everything.

The story tells us one thing above all else.

Whatever our view or status, God is here.
He has come to us, and He's not going away, so how do we now choose to live?

Hardship, poverty, death - they are truths we are all going to face in some form. The question is will we discover God alongside us in these times, and if so, what will our reaction be?

Jesus wants to draw close to us, to show us a love and a truth that shatters the darkness and sets us free.

There's life beyond the draught of our hopelessly small world without the life that comes from Him.