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Monday, February 8th 2010

22:08

Cloudy with a Chance of Prophets

STATE OF EXISTENCE: a little foggy

Congratulations to the New Orleans Saints for beating the Colts in the Superbowl. For once, it was a good, close game, and all I can say is that the Saints played better. I am tempted to say that the Colts never quite recovered from the onside kick with which the Saints started the second half, but Manning led a touchdown drive right afterwards, so I'm not sure that would be accurate. The Colts are not my number one team, but I cheered for them since they are the local team (and I don't know if the Redskins will ever emerge from mediocrity again), but I'm also really happy that the Saints finally made it.

Perhaps this is a minority opinion among my blog readers, but I thought the Who were stupendous. Also, the commercials were very good again. The winner (I could add, "in my opinion," but why would I represent anyone else's opinion?): the human bridge for the Bud Light truck. You don't have to endorse the product to appreciate the commercial.

Nick and Meghan were over for the day, and Nick made a great buffet with vegetable tray, chicken wings, fried "potato chip" potatoes, and other goodies. They also brought over Meghan's mom's Beatles set for the Wii, and we had a riot with it.

KINGS AND KINGDOMS
	Bible Reading: 1 Kings 18:41 -46
V. 44: On the seventh time, he reported, "There's a cloud as small as a man's hand coming from the sea." Then Elijah said, "Go and tell Ahab, 'Get [your chariot] ready and go down so the rain doesn't stop you.' "(HCSB)

I don't remember having heard of Elijah's servant before in this story. The Bible often works on a "need-to-know" basis. Suddenly he was there, ready to obey Elijah's commands. In the next chapter we will see Elijah leave him behind once again. For the moment, he was serving as Elijah's look-out and mediator with Ahab, a somewhat precarious position to hold, I would think.

I find Ahab's demeanor in this part of the story puzzling. Unlike good old Jezebel, as we shall see, he didn't appear to be mad at Elijah for slaughtering all those prophets. Then again, Ahab had just personally witnessed the power of God. But, as I remarked previously, he didn't allow this event to change his heart either. He appeared to be in a stupor. Elijah told him to eat and drink, so he ate and drank. Elijah suggested that he better get home on his chariot lest he get stuck in the mud from the impending rainstorm, and Ahab took off as soon as there was a sign that a storm was coming. Apparently he was in a total daze.

In a manner that is not explained to us, God apparently enabled Elijah to have supernatural strength to run faster than the chariot and get to Jezreel ahead of Ahab. What's more: Since Elijah's temporary servant is right there with him in what follows, he may have been endowed with the same gift. Unfortunately, we are never told what the purpose was for Elijah to race on spiritual superchargers at that time.

So, now the grand demonstration was over. The drought was coming to an end, and God had manifested himself in unmistakable ways. If you're about to experience a feeling of let-down, you're in good company because the same thing is going to happen to Elijah. For the moment, let's just enjoy the fact that we've reached the end of this ordeal and feel the rain pouring down on us. Yahweh had won, and nobody, not even Elijah, was coming out of this event truly happy. We'll talk about the consequences next time.