Biblical Stories of Awakening: Elijah

I am continuing to tell these biblical stories of Awakening. I do this because I think it is helpful to show how, when, where and to whom spiritual awakening happens. This is important because there are so many misconceptions about spiritual awakening. There is no better story that illustrates the circumstances surrounding awakening than the story of the prophet Elijah. 

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Transcript

I am continuing to tell these biblical stories of Awakening. I do this because I think it is helpful to show how, when, where and to whom spiritual awakening happens. This is important because there are so many misconceptions about spiritual awakening. There is no better story that illustrates the circumstances surrounding awakening than the story of the prophet Elijah. 

Elijah was a famous prophet in his time. He was a superstar, a religious celebrity. He went up against the king and the queen of Israel – King Ahab and Queen Jezebel and prevailed. He went up against the state religious leaders of his time – the prophets of Baal – and was victorious. He is best known for his famous contest with the 450 prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. 

He called out the court prophets to have a contest to see whose God is the true God. You may remember the story. They gathered on the summit of Mount Carmel, where there stands a statue in remembrance of this event today. The rules were that each group would offer a burnt offering and whosever offering was received was the true God. The catch was that they could not light the fire. The fire for the wood had to be supplied by their god. They would pray to their god, and the god who made fire come down from heaven and consume the sacrifice laid on the altar was the true god.

The prophets of Baal laid their offering on the wood on the altar and went on for hours dancing around the altar and praying and cutting themselves to show their sincerity. This went on so long that Elijah started mocking them, suggesting that maybe their god was sleeping or using the outhouse. No fire. Then it was Elijah's turn. He upped the stakes by pouring water repeatedly over the wood. Then he prayed to God and fire came down and burned up the offering. 

To top off the victory Elijah then executed all the prophets of Baal. That is the part that is often omitted from most Christian preaching because of the religious violence. Elijah was not an advocate of nonviolence or religious liberty. He was the preeminent culture warrior of this time. 

Elijah was the most famous and powerful preacher of the day, but he was not spiritually awakened. That is the point to remember. It does not matter how successful one’s ministry is. It does not matter what spiritual powers you may have. It does not matter if you have been vindicated publicly in great victories. It does not matter what titles you bear or what initials you have before or after your name. All that matters is: Have you awakened to spiritual reality?

Elijah had not. He knew he had not. He knew there was something lacking. That is why this great victory at Carmel did not give him any inner gratification. Immediately after this story we find Elijah had fallen into depression. He was afraid and discouraged, and he found no comfort in God or his faith. He went off by himself into the wilderness and sat down under a broom tree, which we know as a juniper. Here are echoes of the bodhi tree. Elijah was suicidal. He prayed that he might die.

He fell asleep under the tree, and while he was asleep God inspired someone - it doesn’t say whom, probably Bedouins - to provide him with bread and water. He fell asleep again and there was food and drink waiting for him when he awoke a second time. This physical sleep and awakening is a prefiguring the spiritual sleep he was in and the spiritual awakening that was to come. 

Then Elijah traveled for forty days and forty nights - symbolic numbers – to Horeb, the mountain of God. The same mountain where Moses had experienced spiritual awakening at the burning bush. He entered into a cave in the side of Mount Horeb and fell asleep. 

Again this is symbolism. It prefigures Christ in the tomb. This also symbolizes a womb he is entering into, and he is going to emerge from this mountain womb reborn. It reminds me of the words of Nicodemus, who said, “Can a man enter into his mother’s womb again to be born?” 

Spiritual awakening is what the Bible means by spiritual rebirth, not the fake evangelical born again experience. The evangelical variety has to do with belief and faith. Elijah had that and it didn’t help. He was an evangelical champion of his time, but he had not truly been born of the Spirit. He had not spiritually awakened from the slumber of human existence. He would soon.

When he physically woke up in that cave. God spoke to him and called him to come out of the cave. Echoes of Plato’s allegory of the cave here. Let me read for you what the Bible then says happened next.

“And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice. So it was, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave.”

This is the story of the spiritual awakening of Elijah. And it changed him. No more slaughtering of prophets of Baal after this! Notice that the story says God was not in the great wind. God was not in the earthquake or in the fire. This is saying that spiritual awakening is not some dramatic emotional or religious experience that it is often thought to be by people. 

Spiritual awakening came as a still, small voice. Other translations render the Hebrew words as a gentle whisper, a soft whisper, the sound of a gentle blowing, or a gentle breeze. I like translations that render it a light silent sound or a sound of sheer silence.

These are all ways of saying that spiritual awakening is subtle. It is the silence at the heart of existence. It reminds me of the Zen saying, “Before enlightenment, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth of enlightenment, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters.”

Awakening is a dramatic shift but it is also completely ordinary. You are seeing everything as it is for the first time. At the same time you realize that deep down you have always noticed this; you just didn’t pay attention. It is as if a veil was over our eyes and our minds all of our lives and was removed. 

The silence was always there, but we missed it because of all the inner and outer noise. When the noise stops, the Silence is heard. Only in awakening are we aware of the substratum of existence. It is Plato’s cave where all people saw was shadows, which they mistook for reality. When we wake up and leave the cave, we see the world as it really is in all its beautiful, glorious ordinariness. 

That is what happened to Elijah on Mount Horeb. He woke up spiritually. Even though he was alone it was a thousand times more important than what had happened before the crowds on Mount Carmel, just like spiritual awakening is a thousand times more than Christian conversion. There is more to the story of Elijah, which we will look at next time when we look at his ascension into heaven, which doubled as the spiritual awakening of his disciple Elisha.