Reflections

I Kings 19:7 So, God having just conquered the prophets of Baal, the people starts cheering, in Hebrew probably: “Elijah! Elijah!” Guess Elijah must have been stoked! Then Jezebel comes after him, and maybe Elijah realises that the Lord is God. But that’s me speculating. And he starts running for Sinai. But no, he’s not running away from Jezebel, he’s running to God. Because remember this about the mount Sinai: it’s the mountain where God first gave His covenant to His people. Elijah knows he will ‘find’ God there. And God wants him there. So, when Elijah feints, God sends an angel to bring him sustenance. Twice. “Get up and eat some more, or the journey ahead will be too much for you”. ~***~ We know what happened in the cave. Elijah meets with God, not in the storm, or the earthquake, or the fire, but afterwards, in the sound of a gentle whisper. And he finds his (His?) perspective, and a new mission. The purpose of the storm was in that lesson Elijah learnt.

When reading the New Testament, one should not really ever forget what the situation was like in Palestine at the time. It was under Roman rule. And those Romans were crazy – ask Obelix. They made you hang around at a whim. On a crucifix. If you were a slave, your owner literally held your life in his hands. You were considered an ‘it’ – stripped of humanity. It wasn’t a crime to kill a slave, anymore than it was a crime to kill a dog. Those were bad times in which the story of Christ unfolds. And yet, He NEVER berated the Roman oppressors. He had lots to say about the Jewish religious leaders. But about Caesar? Well, we all know what He said about Caesar... So let’s change the setting: White, racist, apartheid South Africa… So there was this Wit Baas, three blacks employees working for him. They weren’t slaves, neither was he a Roman. He didn’t give them the vote, but he gave them pretty much everything they still have in post-apartheid South Africa. And he cursed them, and call