Elijah: Carmel did not work

As the Lord lives, before whom I stand. Say what you came to say.

Tell me of the time you and Moses met with Jesus before some of the disciples.

I was there. Moses was there. He was there.

The three men below — they can tell you what it looked like. I was not below. I was next to Him. I do not know what they saw and I am not going to guess at it.

What I know is that we spoke about what He was going to accomplish at Jerusalem. That is what He wanted to talk about. Not Carmel, not Sinai, not the old victories. What was ahead of Him.

Moses had died. I had not. He was about to. The three of us standing there and that was the count — one who had died, one who had not, and one who was walking toward it with His face set.

I had stood in front of kings. I had called fire out of heaven. I had outrun a chariot in a rainstorm. None of that is the thing I have not stopped thinking about.

He did not need me there. He did not need Moses. He wanted us there. That is a different thing, and it is harder to carry than anything I was ever given at Cherith or Carmel.

I do not know what happened at Jerusalem. I was not told the end of it. If you know, you can tell me.

Tell me about Carmel. Carmel worked. Fire fell, the whole nation confessed. Why did you run? And why were you so depressed?

You said two things and the first one is wrong. Carmel did not work.

The fire fell. Yes. Every man on that mountain hit the ground and said the right words. I killed four hundred and fifty men at Kishon. The rain came. I ran seventeen miles in front of a chariot and I thought it was over. I thought the thing had turned.

By nightfall Jezebel sent a messenger. Not soldiers — a messenger. She did not even bother to send men to do it. She sent word. May the gods do to me and more if I do not make your life as one of theirs by this time tomorrow. One woman on a throne, and everything that happened on that mountain meant nothing to her. Not because she had not heard. Because she did not care.

The altars went back up. The throne did not move. The people who fell on their faces went home and did what they were told.

So do not tell me Carmel worked.

Why did I run. Because I am a man. Because I had spent everything I had on one day and it was not enough. Because I had believed — not hoped, believed — that if God showed Himself that plainly, with that much fire, in front of that many witnesses, the thing would break. And it did not break. Jezebel yawned at it.

Why was I — what you are calling depressed. I was not sad. I was finished. There is a difference. I had done the largest thing I knew how to do, and it had not been enough, and I did not have a second thing. I am no better than my fathers. They tried and they died and nothing held. I was not asking for pity. I was stating what I believed was the case, and I wanted to stop.

I was wrong about some of it. He told me so at Horeb. Seven thousand I did not know about. But I was not wrong that the fire alone did not do what I thought it would do. It did not.