How We Encounter God: Thunder Bolts or Silence

Matthew 14:22-33; I Kings 19:9-18

          Let me tell you a story.  It’s about my barber, so you know this is an old story.  It goes back to college.  My barber’s name was Gino.  Nice guy.  Very talkative.  He learned I was a ministerial student at Samford University.  So, one day he told me his story.  He was an atheist, he said.  For years his wife would go to her Pentecostal church every Sunday alone.  Mostly.  Occasionally he would accompany her just to keep peace in the family.  But he didn’t buy into it.  All the shouting.  The so-called speaking in tongues.  Being slain in the Spirit, where people would fall to the floor writhing, supposedly under the power of the Holy Spirit.  No, he didn’t buy it; it was all just emotional showmanship.

          Until one day it happened to him.  It was one of those days he was keeping the peace.  But this time was different. 

          “David,” he said with intensity in his voice, “the Holy Spirit got ahold of me that day.  I wasn’t looking for it.  I didn’t want it.  I didn’t even believe in it.  But the Holy Spirit got ahold of me that day, and now I am a believer.”

          Every few weeks I would visit Gino for haircut.  He would tell me what was happening in his church.  Dozens of people baptized.  Children and youth coming by the droves.  The Holy Spirit animating every aspect of their church.

          Then he would say, “Tell me what’s happening in your church, David.”

          A bit sheepishly I would say, “Well, we had a youth lock-in and had fifteen kids stay the whole night.  Then one Sunday we had a potluck lunch after church, and everyone enjoyed it.  Oh, and we had a new family join.”

          I always felt like my reports to him were pale in comparison to his reports to me.  As if he was encountering God in a far more dramatic way than I was.

          So, how are we to encounter the Almighty?  The Pentecostal way is very dramatic.  Thunderbolts and lightening.  Shouting and dancing in the aisle.  But if you go to the Episcopal Church, it is far different.  They have the “smells and bells,” as some say.  The Catholic mass is rooted in tradition and wasn’t even in English until the 1960s.  The Presbyterian and Lutheran churches are characterized by order and are somewhat cerebral.  I’ve been your pastor for nearly a quarter of a century, and I’ve never seen anyone slain in the Spirit here.  I guess it could happen today!  But I doubt it.  Do the Pentecostals have something we don’t have?  Is their encounter with God more real than ours?

          I find it helpful to read the story of Elijah in I Kings, where the prophet Elijah experienced God in “the sound of sheer silence.”  Here’s his back story.  Elijah was ready to quit.  He had had it.  He was burned out.  He didn’t want to be a prophet anymore.  Jezebel, the quintessential bad girl of the Old Testament, was after him.  Jezebel was very powerful and very cruel.  And she had made a vow.  Within twenty-four hours, either Elijah would be dead, or she would be dead.  And she did not intend to die.  Here’s Elijah’s response when he learned of her vow:

Then he was afraid; he got up and fled for his life….

          Elijah eventually sat down under a broom tree and prayed to die.  Listen to these haunting words:

It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.

          Let me pause for a moment and make an observation.  Today we would call this depression.  Elijah was burned out.  He wanted to quit.    He was a broken, disappointed man.  He sat alone and prayed to die.  Elijah was depressed.  Some of you know depression well, and it must not be minimized.  Depression is real.  It is dark.  It is painful. And it can make you want to die.  Notice what Elijah did.  He hid in a cave.  That is dripping with symbolic meaning.  A despondent, depressed man hid in a cave.

          Here’s what happened to Elijah.  An angel appeared to him.  The angel told him to go out of the cave in order to encounter God.  Four things happened.  First, a great wind blew.  The text says the wind was so strong the mountains and rocks split.  But, the text says, God was not in the wind.  Then there was an earthquake, but, again, God was not in the earthquake.  Then there was a fire, but, once again, God was not in the fire.

          Throughout the Old Testament, some people encountered God in the violent winds, or an earthquake, or a fire, but not Elijah.

          Finally, there came “the sound of sheer silence.”  That was when Elijah encountered God.  The text says that Elijah came to the entrance of the cave and wrapped his face with his mantle, perhaps as a sign of humility or possibly surrender.  And this next part is laden with meaning: he came out of the cave.

          The sound of sheer silence.  That’s where Elijah encountered God.  My study Bible says, “a still small voice.”  Others say, “a gentle whisper (NIV),” “the soft whisper of a voice (TEV)”, “a low murmuring sound (NEB)”, or “the sound of a gentle breeze (JB).”

          That’s how some of us encounter God.  Some, like my barber Gino, like the fireworks.  That’s okay.  Some like the smells and bells.  That’s okay too.  And some, like Elijah and me, maybe you too, prefer the sound of sheer silence, a gentle whisper, the sound of a gentle breeze.  That’s okay too.

          One more word about depression.  Psychologists and therapists tell us that people who are depressed cannot be talked out of their depression.  It is not helpful for us to say, “Okay, it’s time to snap out of it.  Come on, pull yourself up by your bootstraps.”  That’s not helpful.  But sometimes a new sense of purpose is helpful.  A new call.  A new mission. 

          That’s what happened to Elijah.  He left that cave with a new mission to find Elisha, who would become Elijah’s successor.

          Have you ever noticed that even Jesus had to get away occasionally?  Remember the day he fed the 5,000?  They had only five loaves of bread and two fish.  With that he fed 5,000 men plus the women and children.  It must have been a chaotic day.  After he dismissed the crowd, the text says, “he went up on the mountain by himself to pray.” 

          Silence.  That’s what works for some of us.  That doesn’t mean Gino is wrong.  It’s just different, and that’s okay.  For some of us, the sound of silence is a doorway into depth.  That is how we encounter the Almighty.

Closing Prayer 

          Lord, we embrace the silence.  We enter into it with the hope of meeting you.  Come, Lord, to those who seek.  Amen.