WHERE IS JEHOVAH?
Where is Jehovah the God of Israel with his ark and his tabernacle and his pillar of fire?
Here is a people pouring through a wilderness;
Here are armies camping in a desert;
Their little tents are like sheep flocking over the prairie,
Through a storm of iron, rain and thunder and wind of iron.
And pillars of cloud and pillars of fire stand all about the quaking earth;
And a sacrifice is prepared.
Send for Moses, send messengers to Daniel, Elijah, Joshua, Gideon—to someone who knows where Jehovah is hiding.
Tell them He’s wanted—the Great God, the Jealous God, the God of Wrath who drowned the sinful world of men and sent the seven plagues on Egypt, and led His people out of bondage to scatter them again like dead leaves in a storm.
Let them look for Him on Sinai, or down by the bitter mouth of Jordan, or in an empty sepulchre in Bethlehem. Tell the ten tribes of Israel in their ten thousand scattered cities to go into the synagogues and call Him.
He should know. He should be told. Let them hunt Him out and tell Him.
Picardy is shaking with a fever.
Picardy’s hills are wounded and broken.
Picardy’s fields are scarred as with smallpox.
What a chance for His prophets!
What a playground for miracles!
A land that was silent, suddenly roaring; wide plains screaming; the slippery grey valleys sweating, heaving in agony.
And men on them; flocks and herds of men driven over them through the iron storm—slipping, falling, clutching, fighting as they slip, fall, clutch, are suffocated, sucked down, buried, tossed again, thrown to the iron winds.
Herds of men, hosts of men, driven to the sacrifice, like sheep, like dogs, like goats and bullocks;
Driven to slay other herds of sheep-men on the burning altars.
Whose altars?
Since no Lord of Hosts shows himself.
Since there’s no sign of God, no voice of God. No captain to command the ghost battalions of the flying, panic-stricken souls.
What a chance for Jehovah.
He need scarce lift a finger.
Here are all his pet properties ready to hand:
The thunder, the lightning, the clouds and the fire.
This is His hour, but Jehovah has missed it.
This is not His thunder nor His lightning.
These are not His people.
These are the armies of France and of England.
The thunder is the thunder of their guns, and the lightning that runs along the horizon is the flash of their guns.
Moses is dead, and Joshua who led his people into the promised land is dead, and there are no more prophets to cry through the wilderness to warn or to comfort these people.
They must look after themselves.
All the host of them, each one of them, quite alone each one of them, every one of the hundred thousand of them, alone, must stand up to meet the war.
With the sky cracking,
With creatures of wide metal wings tearing the sky over his head,
With the earth shaking,
With the solid earth under his feet giving way,
With the hills on fire and the valleys smoking, and the few bare trees spitting bullets; and the long roads like liquid iron torrents, rolling down on him with guns and iron food for guns—always guns and more guns—with these long roads rolling down like cataracts, to crush him and no way of escape,
With the few houses broken open—no sides, no covers to them, no protection anywhere,
With all of the universe coming down on him, the cold dark storm of death coming full on him,
With the men near him going mad, jibbering, sobbing, twisting,
With his comrade lying dead under his feet,
With the enemy beyond there—unseen, mysterious,
With eternity waiting, the great silence and emptiness waiting beyond the noise of the cannon,
With the memory of his home haunting him and the face of a woman expectant,
With the soft echoes of his children’s laughter sounding, and shells bursting with roars to left and right of him, in front and behind him, but not drowning those small voices:
He stands there, he keeps on standing; he stands solid, this sheep man.
He is so small, so quiet in the iron storm.
Why does he stand there? What keeps him standing there?
Is he not a lost sheep? Why does he not turn, run, rush, scramble back through the rain, wind and thunder of iron, bleating with terror?
Why does he wait to die, and die so quietly, so humbly, with hope still looking back from his eyes?
Where is the Good Shepherd? And where is Jehovah?
Why does He hide, wait, avoid this thing?
If this is His world, if it is He that made it,
Let Him come and put an end to it.
Let Him not escape it.
Find Him. Bring Him down here. Hunt Him out in Heaven you flying ghosts of the dead and bring Him.
Bring someone, some mighty God, Baal, Beelzebub, the Powers of Darkness—anything, anyone—anyone who will put an end to this.
Or a Piteous God, Christ the Son, He who was crucified.
Oh, God, Piteous Son of God, where is God the Father?
You, the great God, the King of Kings and Lord of Hosts;
The One who drowned mercifully the children of men;
Let the waters cover the earth again. Let there be an end to it—an end.