Station 10: Elijah’s Sacrifice
Before reading this poem, take a moment to tune into the Spirit.
Get comfortable where you are sitting. Feel free to light a candle or close your eyes.
Take a few deep breaths and focus on the movement of the air gently expanding and contracting your lungs.
Be still and know that this is the Spirit rushing through you.
When you are ready, begin by Meditating on the words of this Poem
I said, Rain on us
But not till I speak.
Divine syllables act as
a meteorological key.
A calf and some stones,
Baal’s prophets seem alone.
Their god isn’t responding
Elijah takes a knee.
This demonstration
Is to capture a nation.
A suffering sacrifice offered
setting these people free.
An innocent calf on high,
Baptized in flames,
Consumed in a showdown,
All on a hill far away to see.
Take with You
The sacrifice of Elijah on Mt. Carmel is similar to the sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary.
The structure of the account of Elijah’s ministry may have been helpful to Gospel writers in formatting Jesus's story.
Elijah’s story is in a unique place in scripture. The documented history up until this point has been more concerned with the secession of Israel’s kings and not singular Prophetic figures. The shift demonstrates how corrupt Israel’s monarchy had become and how God was now speaking through prophets. This positions Elijah as the “only one righteous” in a nation full of forgetfulness and evil.
When we read the Gospels, we see a similar pattern. The narrative is being continued in the coming of Jesus, a singular prophetic figure who rails against broken religious systems and is led by the Spirit. Both Jesus and Elijah perform miracles, prove their authority over the weather, and call followers.
All this comes to a climax when both of them engage in a showdown against the broken systems they have been working to reform. For Elijah, it is the worship of Baal that is leading the people away from God. For Jesus, it is confronting all the aspects of Death that kept us bound in fear.
(1 Kings 6)
