Silent God

1 Kings 19:11-18

11 He said, "Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by." Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking 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; 12 and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. 13 When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" 14 He answered, "I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away." 15 Then the Lord said to him, "Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram. 16 Also you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel; and you shall anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place. 17 Whoever escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall kill; and whoever escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall kill. 18 Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him."

            Silence. It’s uncomfortable. It makes us uneasy. There is tension in silence; it causes us to doubt what we’re experiencing, to question what’s going on. Everyday our lives are consumed by noise, engulfed in the cacophony of our existence, but when we find ourselves suddenly submerged in silence, well, we often aren’t sure of what to do. We can deal with the noise; we can thrive in the volume and rhythm of existence, but when everything is made quiet...it can be quite scary.   

            I remember in September of 1995, sitting in the dark in our living room with the front door open as the winds of hurricane Opal screamed outside. The thunder was incredible, and the sound of the rain hitting the house made me feel like I was down in the trenches and the enemy was firing on me from all sides. I was terribly afraid of thunderstorms as a kid, and hurricane Opal was by far the worst one I had ever experienced, but it wasn’t the ground-shaking thunder or the bright-as-day lightening that scared me the most…it was the silence that came with the eye of the storm. For, you see, it was in that silence that my mind had the opportunity to wrap around what had happened. It was in that silence that I realized that nothing was quite the same. It was in that silence that the uncertainty of what was coming with the other side of the storm struck me, and it scared me more than any lightening or thunder ever could. Silence can be frightening because it can mean we are experiencing a certain level of uncertainty.

            If the silence in the eye of a hurricane can cause an eleven year old boy in south Alabama such frightening stress, imagine the fearful stress Elijah must have felt in that cave on the side of Mt. Horeb. Elijah is already on the run—running for his life from Queen Jezebel after upstaging some 450 of her prophets on Mt. Carmel and ending a drought that had the country in crisis mode. She put out the hit on Elijah, and upon hearing the news, Elijah fled for his life. In the midst of his flight, he received a word from the Lord in the first part of verse 11 of our text today: "Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by." Now, this news is just as frightening as the news concerning Jezebel’s bounty for Elijah. To be summoned to the mountain of God, to witness the Lord pass by, this is a big deal. Human beings don’t exactly get summoned to stand in the presence of God so they can receive a gold star or a holy pat on the back. If Elijah was going to stand on God’s mountain as God passed by, he knew the meeting wasn’t going to be pleasant.

            I suppose popular culture and our own imaginations have led us to some quaint picture of meeting God in a lovely, well-lit place, where God appears to us as a soft-spoken and lovely being who only brings us hope-filled news and tidings of prosperity. The Bible, however, seems to paint a much different picture, as many people in Scripture meet with the Lord and are immediately frightened by the mere presence of the angel who bears God message. Elijah shared this understanding about God; he believed that whoever saw God, stood in God’s presence, would surely die. And now God has called Elijah to come out and stand on the mountain as God passes by—Elijah must have been terribly frightened, yet he did as the Lord commanded.

            Elijah found himself standing on the side of Horeb, expecting God to show up in all of his majesty and glory, when the Bible tells us in the rest of verse 11 and the beginning of verse 12: “Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking 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…” Can you imagine the yo-yo of emotions Elijah must have felt? There he was, waiting for the Lord—the almighty creator of the universe—to pass by, when there was a great, mountain-splitting wind. Surely Elijah thought this wind was the coming of God’s presence. Surely Elijah must have been preparing himself for the arrival of God on the tail of such a great wind, yet we’re told, “the Lord was not in the wind.” Perhaps Elijah was a bit relieved, or maybe he was put even more on edge. Whatever the case, after that great wind came another, frightening sign—an earthquake.

            Earthquakes are terrifying. They can change the very landscape, and in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, an earthquake can leave people picking up the pieces even two years later. After the great wind that broke mountains and rocks in its path, Elijah, standing in a mountain cave, is shaken by an earthquake, and before we have a chance to even ask, the text tells us, “but the Lord was not in the earthquake.” As the rumble of shifting rocks and the cracking of the earth settled beneath his feet, Elijah heard another sound—the sizzle of heat, for after the earthquake we’re told in verse 12: “after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.”

            I can imagine Elijah would have been terrified yet confused by this fire that followed the earthquake. He’s witnessed three signs that accompany a theophany—an appearance by God. Surely he must have thought the fire was going to be it. After all, God appeared to Moses in a bush that blazed with fire; he led the Israelites through the wilderness with a pillar of fire at night. Surely this fire would contain the presence of the Lord, but we get even less time, fewer words to digest what has happened when we’re told—yet again—that the Lord was not in the fire. These three signs—a great wind, an earthquake, fire—surely should have signaled the arrival of the Almighty God, but they don’t. Instead, Elijah is left with what follows the fire: “after the fire a sound of sheer silence.”

Silence—after all that build-up, after all that creative drama, there was only a sound of sheer silence. The language implies that it was the kind of silence one can feel. It was the kind of silence that can be deafening, the kind of silence that comes in the eye of a hurricane, the kind of silence we experience when even the background hum of electricity is quieted, a silence that can be felt. Elijah had gone up to meet the Almighty God, the God of creation and deliverance, yet he was left with a silent God. Verse 13 tells us, “When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.”

I can’t help but wonder what must have been going through Elijah’s mind when he heard that silence, when he wrapped himself in his mantle and stood looking out of that cave on Mt. Horeb. Did he think that God had left him? Had God passed by and he missed it? Did he begin to doubt that God had even called him there in the first place? Silence does that to us, you know? In those rare moments of silence we experience in our lives our minds can race out of control, conjuring up all sorts of thoughts and theories. We can find ourselves doubting everything when we are left in the silence too long. Think of all the times we cry out to God, and yet God is silent. Can you remember looking up towards the heavens hoping for some kind of answer, begging for some kind of sign, only to be answered in your petitions to the Almighty with silence? I wonder if that is how Elijah felt. I wonder if he stood there in the wake of the wind, the earthquake, and the fire, in the midst of that sheer silence, and began to wonder if God was really even there. But then, a voice breaks the silence in verse 13 when the Lord speaks to Elijah: "What are you doing here, Elijah?"

The silent God suddenly speaks to Elijah, and in the verses that follow, God instructs Elijah on what he is to do next. It’s only in the wake of that sheer silence that Elijah hears the voice of God. It’s only after the silence and the opportunity for fear and doubt that God gives Elijah his calling. It’s after the silence from God that the prophet goes out to meet the Almighty. God wasn’t in the great wind. God wasn’t in the power of the earthquake. God wasn’t in the burning heat of the fire. God wasn’t in any of the signs Elijah expected. No, Elijah only met God after the silence. Elijah encountered there on Mt. Horeb the silent God, the God who doesn’t solely seek our attention in the grandness of inexplicable signs, the God who doesn’t seek to compete with the orchestra of this world blaring in our ears and down in our souls. Elijah encountered the silent God on Mt. Horeb, because more often than we realize God speaks to us through the silence.

But silence is uncomfortable. It makes us uneasy. There is tension in silence. To be surrounded by silence means we’re losing money, we’re losing work, or worse even still—we’re losing time. We are immersed in world of noise, surrounded by the sounds and din of distraction that keeps our minds and our hearts from God and from one another. Perhaps in our fear and uncertainty of silence we miss out on hearing the voice of God. Perhaps in our desire to be constantly moving, always busy, we fail to hear the silent God calling us to his work. Let us learn from the story of Elijah to listen for the voice of God in the silence. May we seek to quiet the ruckus in our lives that distract us from God and call us away from loving our neighbors. Let us quiet our hearts and listen for the voice of the silent God as he speaks to us…even in the sound of sheer silence.

Let us pray…

The God who Blazes

Exodus 3:1-12

1 Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. 3 Then Moses said, "I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up." 4 When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here I am." 5 Then he said, "Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." 6 He said further, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. 7 Then the Lord said, "I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, 8 and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 9 The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. 10 So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt." 11 But Moses said to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" 12 He said, "I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain."

            I had a friend back in Texas whose name was Markus. Markus was from Germany—and he never let anyone forget that. In fact, I was convinced for a while that he had a strange speaking disorder that forced him to begin every sentence with the phrase “In Germany…” Despite such a quirk, Markus was a great friend and an amazingly bright, theological mind. He and I often sat next to each other in class, and when the conversation was not up to the intellectual level Markus preferred he would often turn to me and tell me what was going on with him that day. From those several impromptu conversations with Markus, I recall one particular incident most clearly.

Markus told me that he was leaving the seminary one morning for lunch, when he saw our preaching professor, Dr. Gregory, walking across the campus, towards the parking lot and his waiting car. Apparently, Markus wanted to get Dr. Gregory’s attention, so he shouted out from the entrance of the building, across the lawn, towards the professor, “Hello, Dr. Gregory!” I’ll never forget what Markus said happened next: rather than turning to see who it was that was calling his name, rather than continuing on towards his car and what I’m sure was an important lunch date, Markus told me that Dr. Gregory stopped dead in his tracks and looked up—towards the heavens—as if God was calling his name. I told Markus I didn’t know what was harder to believe, that our professor thought God spoke with a German accent, or that God would call him “Dr. Gregory” rather than simply “Joel!”

I suppose if we went around this room today several of us could share experiences where we were sure we heard God call us by name; perhaps for some of us those have been life-changing moments. Of course, if we couldn’t recount such an incident in our own lives, then I think it’s safe to say we all know someone who has claimed to have heard God call him or her by name. Then there are, of course, those wonderful accounts in Scripture of God calling individuals by name. Of those great stories in Scripture, perhaps none is so widely-known and recognized as the story before us today—the story of God calling Moses by name in the third chapter of Exodus. Not only is it a story that is easily recognized among those of us in the Abrahamic faiths of the world (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), but it is a story that has been popularized thanks to Charlton Heston and Cecil B. Demille in that 1956 cinematic epic The Ten Commandments.

This encounter with God serves as the climactic turning point in the life of Moses. Prior to this meeting on the mountain, Moses had been born to Hebrew slaves in Egypt, raised in the palace of polytheistic Pharaohs, exiled into the wilderness, and integrated into the life of monotheism in Midian. His life had been a roller coaster of sorts: born into destitution, raised with the most lavish of luxuries, cast out to die, and now he finally finds himself in a life of relative peace, when God calls his name. We know what happens next, don’t we? Moses leaves the safety of a shepherd’s life in Midian to raise a revolution in Egypt, to emerge as the deliverer for God’s people. He leads the Israelites out of Egypt, across the wilderness, and through the Red Sea, only to wander in the desert for forty years before dying just within sight of the Promised Land. Truly this encounter with God is a turning point—the biggest turning point—in the life of Moses, but for all that this encounter says about Moses, what does it tell us about God?

Well, I suppose the best place to begin in answering such a question is at the beginning of our text today. In verse one we hear about Moses keeping the flock and taking it out past the wilderness to the mountain of God, and in verse two we read, “There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed.” Did you notice what that verse actually says? Let’s read part of it again: There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush… Moses doesn’t just happen to see a flaming bush; this isn’t a meeting of mere circumstance or chance. The language here tells us that the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses; the angel of the Lord is the one who is doing the action here—God is the one initiating the contact with Moses. Now, if that’s stretching it a bit for you just keep reading, because after Moses turned aside to check out this sudden appearing, God called out to him in verse 4 "Moses, Moses!" God called out to Moses first. There’s no “Hey. Is anybody there?” coming from Moses; God is the first one to speak. This God who blazes is the God who initiates action.

Now, after this initial contact with Moses from God, something else happens, something that might seem a bit strange to the uninitiated. See, after God calls out to Moses, Moses simply replied, “Here I am.” I am convinced that at this point Moses has no idea to whom (or what) he is talking. He simply responded to the voice as if it was trying to place Moses or check his attendance. But that’s not the thing that seems strange—it’s what happens in verse 5: Then he said, "Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” Moses is told to take off his sandals because he is in the presence of holiness, the presence of God! And you can tell that the reality of the situation hit him hard, because in verse 6 we are told, “… Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.” He hadn’t bothered to hide his face before because he was unaware he was in the presence of God. It seems this God who blazes, this God who initiates action, also demands reverence.

Let’s not be confused by what this means. Reverence isn’t merely lip service to the Almighty. Reverence isn’t proper protocol for the sake of proper protocol. Reverence isn’t summed up in the removal of one’s cap upon entering a church sanctuary. Reverence is the act of recognizing the Almighty God for who he is, especially when you are in his presence. Reverence is the recognition of the terrifying power of God, and it is clear that Moses recognized that power when he hid his face.

God, however, didn’t appear to Moses simply to frighten him into recognition. No, God appeared to Moses because he had heard the cries of his people. Scripture tells us so in verses 7 through 9: “Then the Lord said, ‘I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them.’” It appears that this God who demands reverence, this God who blazes, also holds compassion for his people. Moses is terrified by the flaming image of God before him, yet God speaks to Moses of his concern for the Israelites and his desire to bring them up out of their oppression in Egypt, but that isn’t the full reason God appeared to Moses.

In verse 10 God continues speaking to Moses: “So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt." God appeared to Moses, because God planned to send Moses to carry out his will. The God who blazes is the God who calls us to his work. And who can blame Moses for his response in verse 11? There he says, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" “Who am I?” Who are any of us to be counted worthy to do the will of God? Who are any of us to be found capable of such an enormous task as the one set before Moses? And remember, this isn’t the great man of faith, the great prophet, we find on the other side of the Red Sea; this isn’t the great hero of the faith who calls down plagues upon the great world power that was Egypt. This is Moses, the immigrant shepherd in Midian, the one who doesn’t immediately understand that he is in the presence of the God who commands reverence; this is the flawed, sinful son of slaves who is an exiled outlaw, and God calls him to go to the most powerful man in the known world and demand he set his slaves—rightly inherited possessions in his sight—free! Of course Moses would question God’s decision to send him, of all people, for such a task!

But then, from the blaze of the thorny bush, came the words we find today in verse 12: “[God] said, ‘I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.’" The God who blazes, the God who commands reverence, the God who initiates action, the God of compassion, calls us to do his will, AND HE GOES WITH US AS WE DO IT! God said to Moses “I will be with you.” He didn’t promise that it would be easy; he didn’t promise that it would be quick; he didn’t promise that it would be without costs; yet he promised something greater than all this. He promised to be with Moses, and in that promise we hear this truth: God promises to be with us as we go on our way in this world, doing his will.

These words from God to Moses speak to us from another time, from a different mountain. It was on that mountain that the God who blazes showed himself to the world after being in the grave for three days. The words to Moses from the blazing bush are echoed in the twenty-eighth chapter of Matthew’s gospel as Jesus commissioned his disciples: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Today, you and I are no different than Moses when he stood on Horeb. We are in the presence of the God who blazes, and today he is calling us, just as he called Moses on Horeb, just as Christ called the disciples at his ascension. He is calling us to put our trust in him, to trust that he is with us as we go on our way, seeking to do the work of God’s kingdom. Today we are confronted by the God who initiates action, who calls us by name, who deserves our reverence. Today we are confronted by the God of compassion, by the God who promises to go with us down whatever road his calling may take us. Today, we stand like Moses, in the presence of the God who blazes.
Let us pray…