Isn’t it true that the unexpected gives life a certain freshness.
It can be little things or big things. Maybe it’s a bunch of flowers when it’s not your birthday or Valentine’s Day. Maybe it’s a surprise birthday party, or a visit from someone you haven’t seen for ages. Maybe it’s the boss calling you into his office and giving you a bonus – now, you’re thinking, that would be a surprise! Sometimes they are not immediately pleasant.
God is full of surprises – even with God’s prophetic information who would have thought that the eternal Son of God would be born in humble circumstances of a Bethlehem stable, or die the death of the cursed on Calvary’s cross? Even the disciples were thinking of Christ eventually breaking free from His relative anonymity and setting up a kingdom that not only rivalled the kingdoms of the world like that of Rome but far greatly surpassed them. They were surprised at His news that He would save people and secure His spiritual kingdom through His death for them.
The record of Elijah is full of surprises and the unexpected. There are his sudden appearances, and equally sudden disappearances – and we meet one of them in this morning’s pas-sage from God’s Word.
Just when things were starting up for the renewal of the worship of God, as God’s prophet speaks into the wickedness of the times, he is told to leave. Not just told to leave what he
had started, but to leave it all behind. He was to disappear, go to a remote place and live in complete isolation from all human contact.
What is God up to? What relevance does it have to our lives? That’s what we will be looking at as we return to the life and ministry of Elijah. Here we will see and be challenged by the fact that his exit to the Brook Cherith is an act of judgement, an act of dependence, an act of preparation, and an act of faith.