There was a tradition in Jewish thinking that Elijah, who did not die but was taken up to heaven in a firey chariot, would retrun before the coming of the Messiah. When commenting on John the Baptist Jesus said, I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him. Most of John’s contemporaries missed what God was doing in him. Our time is not much different from those times in our tendency to miss the presence and action of God. We tend to focus on the splashy, the monumental, the spectacle. However, as Elijah himself learned, God more often comes in the “tiny, whispering sound.” Look for the presence of God in the neighbor making a stranger welcomed. Look for the presence of God in a parent doing all that they can to teach their children how to live a good life. Look for the presence of God in siblings who work to forgive the hurts and harms done over the years. The tiny, whispering sound of God’s presence is when we treat one another with the same compassion, mercy and forgiveness with which God treats us.
