19A20     1 Kings 19:9a, 11-13a.    “The Lord said to Elijah, ‘Go outside and stand on the mountain before the Lord; the Lord will be passing by.’”  Jesus also went to the mountain to pray.  Traditionally the mountain represented the highest point man could get closest to the Lord and it was the lowest point to which the Lord would come down.  Next the Lord manifests four earthly phenomena that might indicate the presence of the Lord.  We might think that the mighty, all-powerful Lord would be in the strong, heavy wind that crushed the rocks OR in the earthquake OR in the fire but the Lord was not in any of them.  He was in the tiny whispering sound.  Elijah, a man of God, knew that was the sign of the presence of the Lord. “Elijah hid his face in his cloak” because he knew that no one could look directly at God and live.  “One of the hardest lessons we have to learn is that God is in the quiet that is ever around us, working with us, for us and with us, without any visible or audible indicator of activity.”(Christopher  Davis)

Matthew 14:22-33.  “Afterwards Jesus made the disciples get into a boat and precede him to the other side.”  “After doing so, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray.”  Somewhat before dawn, Jesus came walking on the sea in the midst of a storm.  “When the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were terrified.  ‘It is a ghost,’ they said, and they cried out in fear.  At once Jesus spoke to them, ‘Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.’” I think that it is Peter’s natural bravado that impels him to say to Jesus, “Command me to come to you on the water.”  As long as Peter’s faith is in Jesus, he walks on the water; but he lets his faith be sucked out of him by the forces of this world.  Then he begins to sink and cries out, “Lord, save me!”  Jesus “caught Peter, and said to him, ‘O you of little faith, why did you doubt?’”  Much later Peter would again doubt when he was in the courtyard of Pilate.   Our humanness has a natural power over us.  While in this world, we must endlessly go to the Lord to imbue us with his spiritual power. Otherwise this world will bury us with its natural power.  Struck and astounded with his walking on the stormy water, they proclaim his divinity.  However, much later when he is taken down dead from the cross, the disciples hid shivering with fear.  Yet again the Lord goes and rescues them from their lack of faith.  Faith is living always with the Lord who shares his life with us.  Paul writes in Romans 8:11: “If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.”

Romans 9:1-5.  Paul says: “I have great sorrow and constant anguish in my heart,” because the Israelites have cut themselves off from their Messiah.  Through all their history the Jews belonged to God and God to them.  Jesus, the Messiah, came not only in the flesh but in Jewish flesh.  Ours is the choice also.  To whom or what do we belong?