Sport in the Old Testament - Extra time!

Following his chat about sport in the Old Testament with Dr Desi Alexander, Drew takes some extra time to reflect on the ideas of rest and playfulness in sport.

Produced by Commission Christian Radio

Transcript

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Faith, hope and sport, extra time. In our conversation, Deszy and I mentioned rest just briefly. Let's think a bit more about that, and maybe about the well sort of sport of walking. We don't have many stories in the Old Testament about people going on holiday, but here's one. First Kings chapter nineteen tells the story of Elijah after his encounter with the prophets of Baal and gives us an excellent example of a man who really needed a rest. We might think of this chapter as God saying to Elijah, Life has been punishing you recently. You can't just keep going. What about a holiday? Chapter seventeen and eighteen tell us about what has been happening in Elijah's life in the run up to this chapter. In chapter seventeen, there's been a drought for three years, and the King Ahab, knowing that Elijah prophesied that this would happen, believes that Elijah is at the root of the problem. Consequently, Elijah has been on the run for three years. Things come to a head in chapter eighteen, where Elijah faces down eight hundred and fifty pagan prophets, and the Lord demonstrates his power by completely consuming with heavenly fire not only Elijah's sacrifice and the wood on which it had been laid and the water surrounding it, but the whole stone altar. Elijah then orders the slaughter of the pagan prophets and witnesses the immediate end of the drought. The chapter closes with Elijah running ahead of Ahab to Jezreel, a distance of about fifty kilometers. Then chapter nineteen opens with Ahab's wife Jezebel swearing to kill Elijah, forcing him to flee in fear into hiding again. Again he runs, driven this time by fear, and eventually comes to Beersheba, a distance of around one hundred and eighty kilometers. Then he walks a further day's journey into the desert alone. It's no surprise that verse four finds him in deep despair and ready to die. Along with the physical exertion, he has experienced spiritual highs and lows, and not surprisingly, he's completely exhausted. So what does the Lord do? First, he allows Elijah to sleep, then he feeds him. Then he allows him to sleep again, and then he feeds him again. Now what happens next takes a bit of thought. The Lord commands Elijah to go to Mount Horeb, which is also known as Sinai. Now that's a further journey of around four hundred and twenty five kilometers. That's about two hundred and sixty miles. But why send Elijah on such a long trip? Well, first that puts Elijah a very long way from Ahab and Jezebel, so he'll be safe from their threats. But just a minute, let's think about the time taken for Elijah to make the trip forty days. This means that he averaged a little over ten kilometers or around six miles per day. That's say two hours of pretty gentle walking. This is far from a difficult task, very different from the running in fear that has characterized his last two trips. We might even say that the Lord has told Elijah to take a walking holiday, a walking holiday of almost five weeks. I like that, just to get his head cleared. But there's more. In taking Elijah to Horeb and taking forty days to do it, the Lord is reminding Elijah of the journey of the people of Israel from Egypt to this very same mountain. He's taking Elijah back to his spiritual roots, the place where Moses met God, and the law was given to the nation. In doing this, the Lord is addressing Elijah's spiritual needs, as well as all of his other needs. Elijah needs a place to rest, a place of revelation and worship, not only by being reminded of past revelation, but God gives him a personal revelation that will be tailored to his immediate needs. He might well have expected the drama of Moses' revelation to follow, and certainly the wind, earthquake and fire of the second part of verse eleven and the first part of verse twelve seemed to be just what he would have expected. These three elements revealed the awesome power of God, and it was good for Elijah to be reminded of these. But the simple beauty of the second part of verse twelve is even more revealing. He hears a still small voice, or in a more modern translation, a gentle whisper. What a contrast between the earthquake, wind and fire on the one hand, and the almost unheard voice that makes Elijah cover his face on the other. I love the rabbinic phrase daughter of a voice, which catches the beauty of the Lord's communication with Elijah here, a beauty that goes beyond mere words. So what does this gentle voice say? It asks Elijah a question that allows him to pour out his heart or to get off his chest, how he sees his predicament. This emotional release is important if we're to rest well. And the little voice allows Elijah to be utterly honest before God, and actually it shows that he is not fully in command of himself. Elijah claims at the end of verse fourteen that he's alone, the only true follower in an otherwise apostate people. But this can't be true. In chapter eighteen he's already met Obadiah, a faithful and a courageous man who worked in the very court of Ahab, and he has heard of at least a hundred other prophets whom Obadiah rescued. Clearly Elijah had lost perspective, and maybe there was some self pity creeping in, and perhaps even a little of the pride that goes along with it. He needed to have his thinking corrected, and the Lord does this in verse eighteen. In this verse, he draws Elijah's attention to the seven thousand faithful followers who will remain in Israel after Elijah has gone. Self pity and pride are deeply destructive. Neither will allow a person to truly rest. The former is a continual reminder of how awful my situation is, and the latter is a continual reminder of how unfair it is that someone as good as me should be in this awful situation. Both make us unhappy with God, and both need to be expressed openly to God to allow him to get rid of them for us. But the Lord hasn't finished with Elijah yet. Elijah's rest is only complete when he's given a task to undertake. A restful holiday is only a temporary experience. It both restores what hard toil has drained away, and it prepares us for what God has waiting in the future. This is why physical and emotional refreshment are not sufficient. We must have spiritual rest that reorientates our lives to God Himself, and recenters our thinking on Him, not just on ourselves or on our situation. When we're centered on God again, then we're ready to go back into the situation in which He has called us to live. Let's make sure that when we engage in sport, we're doing so in a way that is really restful, truly refreshing. And maybe let's see worship like that as well. Not something we have to work at, but something that gives us true spiritual rest and allows us to go back to everyday life on Monday morning ready to do all that God has called us to do. Bye for now. I'm off for a wee stroll. See you next time!