SERMONS

"Where Is God When It Hurts?"

So the Chief went back to his people and told them to collect even more firewood. A week later he called the National Weather Service again. "Does it still look like it is going to be a cold winter?" "Yes," the meteorologist replied, "it's going to be very cold." The Chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect every scrap of firewood they could find. Two weeks later the Chief called the National Weather Service again. "Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?" The man replied. "It's looking more and more like it is going to be one of the coldest winters ever." "How can you be so sure?" the Chief asked. The weatherman replied, "The Indians are collecting firewood like crazy."

Living in Florida we don’t have to worry about that kind of winter. But even if you live in a place where you can avoid cold weather, there is no place you can move to escape what we might call a spiritual winter or a winter of the soul. Winter may come when experience a great loss or when we have all but given up hope in some area of life. Maybe someone you loved has died. Maybe you have received distressing news from your doctor. Maybe you are in a marriage where neither partner is willing to try and make it work. Maybe you are caring for an ill or aging parent in your home and they demand constant care and attention. Maybe you have lost your job. Maybe someone close to you is struggling with alcohol or drug abuse and won’t seek help. These are things that chill the soul, things that announce the onset of winter. But that isn’t the worst part. The hardest part of a spiritual winter is that God seems absent. It’s not just that you are experiencing a tough circumstance, it’s that God is nowhere to be found.

In all of human history, perhaps there is no one who embodies winter more than Job. Few people have experienced more pain than this man. In the beginning of the story, Job is introduced as "blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil" (1:1). He lives a life of holiness, purity, and reverence before God. He is careful to obey the Lord in all that he does. Job is so cautious that he gets up early in the morning to offer daily sacrifices for his children. Just in case they have sinned, he wants to make sure they are covered. Job was also very prosperous. He had 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys, and a large household. The Bible says that Job is the greatest man in all the east. Job is a remarkable person and God has given him a wonderful life.

Then calamity strikes. First, a messenger comes to Job and tells him that the Sabeans have attacked and stolen all his oxen and donkeys and killed all the servants with them. Then another messenger comes and says that the fire of God has fallen and destroyed all his sheep and the servants with them. Then another messenger comes and says that the Chaldeans have raided the camel herd and taken them all and killed the servants. And finally the message comes that all of his children were crushed to death when a tornado caused the house to collapse. All Job's prosperity, everything Job loves is gone in one afternoon. His suffering not only comes with terrible force but also with suddenness. There is no warning, no explanation.

The other day I was watching my one-year old daughter, Enley, eat ice cream. She loves vanilla ice cream and she will devour a bowl of it the moment you set it down in front of her. The problem is that she eats it too fast and gets a head ache. We call it a brain freeze. Enley doesn’t understand what is going on, so the more her head hurts the faster she eats the ice cream and the worse the problem gets. It’s tough to know what to do because you can’t take the ice cream away from her, she’ll have fit. I have tried to explain to her what is going on. I told her how the spheno-palantine ganglion in the roof of her mouth starts to spasm. That in turn dilates the blood vessels so that the chill of the stomach is felt as pain in the head. The explanation seemed pretty straightforward, fairly obvious to me but I don’t think she caught it. I am not sure she heard me.

This is what happened to Job. Job leads a good life. He is enjoying his ice cream so to speak. All of the sudden, without warning, he experiences terrible pain. The pain comes out of nowhere and he can’t understand it. He is bewildered. It just doesn’t make any sense.

So what’s going on here? The author gives us a glimpse into heaven to understand better what is happening on earth. Verses 6-12 describe a meeting between God and Satan. God says, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil" (1:8). But Satan is not impressed. "Does Job fear God for nothing?" Satan asks (1:9). Satan is charging that Job serves God only because it is good for him, because he gets blessed. Job fears God because it means health, and wealth and success. Satan suggests that Job will remain faithful only as long as it is profitable for him. If God were to turn off the blessing, Job would be gone. The implication is that God is not worthy of love because of who he is, Job loves God only because of what God can do for him. So the Lord permits Satan to try Job’s faith. Blow after blow falls upon Job so that his children, his servants, and his livestock and his health are taken from him.

Next, Job’s friends show up. They hear how Job’s life has fallen apart and they come to give comfort. There is Eliphaz the Teminate, Bildad the Shuhite, Zophar the Naamathite, and Dadgum the Termite. Actually Dadgum the Termite wasn’t one of them. I just threw that in to see if you were paying attention. These friends really do care for Job deeply. They show it in a beautiful way. They sit with Job in his despair for a solid week. For seven days no one said a word. This is a tremendous act of love. They don’t start giving advice. They don’t try to give an explanation for what is happening. They don’t tell him to get over it. This was really a gift. Later on, Job’s friends have plenty to say and most of it isn’t very helpful but for now they just sit there quietly. Sometimes the best way that we can express God’s presence to someone who is suffering is to keep our mouth closed and simply be with them.

For seven days the suspense grows. When Job finally speaks again his friends wonder what he will say. In chapter 3 we read, "After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. Let the day perish in which I was born…Let that day be darkness! May God above not seek it, or light shine on it" (3:1-4). He is more than a little upset. Job wishes he had never been born. He goes on to fill chapter after chapter with words of anger, bitterness, confusion, and sorrow. Job spends most of the book complaining to God. We expect to find Job complaining about the things that he lost: his family, his health, his estate. But there is almost none of that. If you read through the book, Job says very little about these matters. The issue for Job was God’s absence. What shook Job the most was that he felt abandoned. He was crying out and was getting no response. He demands to know why God has forsaken him. What Job wants more than anything is an audience with God, a face-to-face encounter.

We know something that Job doesn’t know. We are told about the contest that is taking place in heaven. Even though Job feels abandoned we know that is not the case. In fact, through the ordeal, God could not have been closer. God was watching every move Job made because he was part of a cosmic test of faith. God lets his own reputation ride on the response of this single human being. At the time when Job felt totally alone, that was when he was under the microscope. It’s ironic, from Job’s perspective, God has forgotten him but when we look behind the scenes, we find out nothing could be farther from the truth.

Our perspective, how we see things is so important. Here is an example of what I mean. Right now, some of you are thinking to yourself, our associate pastor doesn’t have much hair. He is pretty thin on top. As I am trying to communicate the things of God that’s what’s on your mind. But what if you were to go to a nice a restaurant and order a bowl of soup. When they brought you the bowl it had this much hair in it. Suddenly, it’s a lot of hair! It’s all about perspective. When we go through times of trial, when winter sets in, from our point of view, God isn’t anywhere to be found. He is gone. There is no one there. Even though that’s how we see things, it may be that God is more real, more present, more active during those times than at any other time. God is always up to more than we can see.

At the end of the story, Job finally gets his wish. Job has been challenging God to show up and he does. God answers Job out of a whirlwind. When God speaks to Job, he does not give him an explanation for his suffering. Job isn’t given the chance to peak behind the curtain and understand his predicament. He never learns of the deal made in heaven. But God does answer Job’s biggest question, the question that really matters, "Where is God?" The answer is, "I have been here all along and I am in control. You may not always understand what I am doing but I am all-wise, all-powerful, all-loving." Once that matter is settled, all the other urgent questions fade away. That’s all that is really important.

God appears to Job in a rather spectacular way. I don’t know about you but God doesn’t speak to me that way very often. Chances are that God is not going to call out to you from a whirlwind. He could but he probably won’t. Even in the Bible, very few people get their questions answered and their needs met in such a dramatic fashion. Hebrews chapter 11 is what is known as the hall of fame. It tells the story of people like Noah, Abraham, Moses, the giants of the faith. Then there is this sentence: "All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them." (11:13). In other words, even the heroes of the Bible had expectations that were unmet and hopes that were never realized. They felt discouraged and frustrated at times. They died before they could see all God’s promises be fulfilled and yet they continued to have faith. So the question is can we believe even when God stays hidden? Will we trust God even when everything around us foils that trust?

Virtually everyone in this room will experience bitterness and heartbreak sooner or later. You can mark it down ahead of time: winter will set in and when it does it will almost certainly seem absurd and meaningless and undeserved. You will feel like Job. You may not face the extreme disasters that Job did but the loss of a job, difficulties in a relationship, medical problems, financial strains, the death of a loved one, may have you asking "Where are you God?" I don’t believe that every hardship we encounter has been arranged to settle some dispute between God and Satan. But I do think this story reminds us that our understanding, our view, our perspective is very limited. The book of Job reminds us that our lives are just a tiny speck on the timeline of history. We can’t see the whole picture. We can’t see the sweep of eternity. We will never know in this life the full extent of our actions here.

People assume that the purpose of the book of Job is to treat the problem of suffering but the reader who expects to find answers to these problems will be disappointed. God never gave Job an explanation for his suffering. We want to know what caused the pain. God seems more interested in how we will respond to it. The central issue was faith: whether or not Job would continue to trust God when everything went wrong. It requires faith to believe that we are never abandoned no matter how distant God seems.

God is present with us even though we do not hear his voice. God is at work around us even when things do not work out the way we hope. God is a constant companion even when life threatens to crush us. The message of Job is that the eyes of heaven are on us. What we do in our little lives has cosmic significance. So will you hold on to God even when things get rough? When winter sets in and the chill in your heart is too much to bear will you still cling to him? Amen.