Jezebel and the People of God: A Meditation on 1st Kings 19 for the Season of Pentecost

And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done,

and withal how he had slain all the prophets with the sword.

Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying,

So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life

as the life of one of them by to morrow about this time.

And when he saw that, he arose, and went for his life,

and came to Beersheba, which belongeth to Judah,

and left his servant there.

 

But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness,

 and came and sat down under a juniper tree:

 and he requested for himself that he might die;

and said, It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life;

for I am not better than my fathers.

And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree,

behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat.

And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baked on the coals,

and a cruse of water at his head.

And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again.

And the angel of the Lord came again the second time,

 and touched him, and said, Arise and eat;

because the journey is too great for thee.

And he arose, and did eat and drink,

and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights

 unto Horeb the mount of God.

 

This vignette from today’s lectionary describes a depressing low in Elijah’s ministry immediately after a triumphant victory.  In chapter 18, Elijah had just been called out of the wilderness to demonstrate the Lords’ power on Mount Carmel, putting the pagan priests of Baal to shame who had led the children of Israel into apostasy, and resulted a widespread public conversion of heart of thousands of people back to the one, true God.  The judgement of God’s famine and drought was lifted, and the people were restored by faith and repentance in the grace of God their savior.  Victory seemed absolute, as Elijah led the people to capture the 450 priests of Baal and have them executed for their horrific crimes against God and Israel, and for their previous murders of nearly all the prophets of the Lord.

 

Yet Jezebel, the vicious pagan queen of King Ahab, in the face of inescapably miraculous public works of God to save and restore His people, vowed instead before her impotent gods to hunt Elijah until she killed him.  No demonstration of God’s love or redemption would convert Jezebel’s heart, as her mind and soul were twisted into a diabolical lust for demonic power.  Like Satan himself, knowing full well the measure of her failure and the weakness of her infernal masters before the Lord God Almighty, she chose to curse God and His people even as she faced her own judgment.  Jezebel’s thoughts and actions were not rational, but contorted by evil, malice, lust, and pride, into a murderous impulse to wound God through harming God’s people, and to do as much damage as she could in the time she had left.  Under the threat of Jezebel’s insane vendetta, Elijah fled once again for his life into the wilderness, hunted by wicked political leaders and their pagan servants.  His despair was so great that he prayed for God to take his life, that his work might be done, and that he could finally rest outside the fury of such luciferian influences.

 

There are plenty of places around the globe today, where the people of God continue to flee and hide from demonic powers in places of high earthly authority.  The underground churches of Communist Asia and the lands dominated by Islamic forces, bear testimony in martyr’s blood nearly every day to the foul and dangerous work of modern Jezebels.  Even in historically Christian lands, where pagan, Marxist, and secular forces press for ever greater totalitarian control of the levers of power, persecution is arising against the people of God to stamp out any authentic witness to Him and His Word.  Whatever their shades and variations across history, dark forces are always gathering and amassing in various places in a suicidal quest to rebel against the Creator of the Universe.  As in the time of Jezebel, the real influencers of this pattern aren’t human, but demonic; she is just as dead and gone as Stalin, Moa, Hitler, Pol Pot, or various other terrorists and dictators who have come and gone.  What remains is a fallen humanity that too often eagerly follows these dark interlocutors into paths of broad destruction, giving their already twisted minds and souls into the full embrace of hell.  Wherever fallen people remain until the Last Trumpet sounds, there will be fertile ground for blood thirsty Jezebels among us.

 

God answered Elijah’s despair through His Word and presence, as He has done for the people of God across history, and as He shall continue to do until the end of time.  The miracles and the context may change, but the Word and Spirit do not—the same Almighty God who converted the hearts of thousands on Mount Carmel, was reconciling the world to Himself on Mount Calvary, and shall come once again in the flesh as Jesus returns to judge the living and the dead.  This is the same God who walked in the Garden of Eden with our first parents, settled Noah’s ark on the mountain after the Flood, thundered with His Law and Covenant on Mount Sinai, marched with Joshua in the conquest of Canaan, stood with David against the Philistine monster Goliath, sent the Apostles and their successors into far flung lands to heal the sick, forgive sins, cast out demons, to preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins in Jesus alone, and to proclaim that the Kingdom of God has come.  This is the God who has preserved for Himself a remnant in every age, a communion of saints who cannot be destroyed by fire or sword, by intrigue or mischief, or by any power under heaven.  This is the God who abides with us by His Word and Spirit, calling all people to faith and life, and empowering those who follow Him such that the gates of hell cannot withstand them.

 

The pain of persecution and social rejection can make it feel like the forces of darkness are winning, that the devil is stronger than the Creator, and that the powers of death wielded by wicked fiends is more powerful than those who cling to life.  But the truth is that evil flares and rises across times and places, and those who embrace it go to their place, never to return from the flames of their eternal prison.  God Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, abides forever, as do those who put their trust in Him.  Reconciled and forgiven, the saints abide in the life and love of Jesus Christ, His Word and Spirit enlivening them forever.  Jezebel is dead and gone and will never torment the people of God again, while Elijah lives on, able to show up on the Mount of Transfiguration together with Moses, living in peace and joy with all the saints and angels in God’s Eternal Kingdom.  The insanity of evil persists from age to age because fallen people allow it to do so by embracing rather than rejecting it, but the life-saving power of God in Jesus Christ endures by His Word and Spirit among us unto ages without end.  Do not be discouraged or despairing in the face of modern Jezebels, but hear instead the Word of the Lord which comes to seek and to save you, to empower and enliven you, so that death is no longer your foe, because Jesus is your unconquerable, ever-present Victor.  Amen.