Prophets, Deserts and Alternative Power Sources
I was thinking last evening of prophets. It is interesting how many of them had to go out into the Judean desert to hear the word of God.
Why? I used to wonder. Why did one need to go into the desert–outside, often in opposition to the traditional power structures of the day–why did one need to be powerless, lonely, quiet, possibly hungry and thirsty, and sensorily deprived to hear God?
I now realize that, of course, one has to. It is the best, if not the only, way. The voice of God, a well-bred, considerate, gentle voice for the most part–a gentle whisper, Scripture calls it–is not easily heard amid the noise and clamour of popularity, friendship, social life–all good things, all good things. Except they do militate against the solitude one needs to hear God. Almost to a man, prophets don’t choose the desert. They are only human. God has to call–sometimes push–them into the desert. Because it is in the desert that a prophet develops his greatest and priceless gift: his ability to hear the voice of God.
Let’s consider Moses. An interesting part of his story is that he did not choose to go into the desert, nor does he go there in obedience to the voice of God. He is pushed there by his own sin. He loses his temper, takes the law into his own hands, kills a man, and flees to the desert in terror when this is discovered.
And in the desert, outside the court to which he had once belonged, and its power and pomp, he experiences God, and in a dramatic way that could only have happened in the desert. A fire that steadily burned and was not consumed. Continually renewed energy. A manifestation of infinite Power. And with it, a simple new name for God, I AM WHO I AM.
And in contradistinction to the power of Pharaoh, Moses is given power, a shadow of God’s power. He can turn sticks to snakes, turn the Nile bloody, summon locusts and frogs and pests, turn the land dark at noon. He is a man to be listened to–and he finally is.
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Elijah also operated outside, and in opposition to, the normal centres of power–Kings, who were anointed, but who, continuing in sin, had lost their ability to hear the word of God. Ahab interestingly calls him, “You troubler of Israel.”
He is given power of his own. He can command the rain. He can command fire. He can do what 400 false “prophets” could not.
David, Daniel, the list goes on. Men formed in the desert, operating outside normal locii of power, often in opposition to them, yet gifted by God with such extraordinary and startling power that people had to sit up and pay attention.
Because power eventually comes from God. Comes from the Lamb who has all “power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and praise.” Comes when the Holy Spirit comes upon us.
And, interestingly, looking at prophets from both Old Testament and the New (John the Baptist, and later Paul and John who both had amazing Christophanies) this divine power always, I think, falls on the powerless who operate apart from and often in opposition to the normal locii of power. It falls on those who have learnt to hear God’s voice in the solitude and loneliness of the desert.
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