God in the Whirlwind

Job 38:1-21

Ken Whitt                         September 16, 2007

Introduction

Rarely does someone say to me, “Preacher, I needed to hear more.” “That sermon was too short.” “I was not ready for the message to end.” “I wanted you to help me think more about that.” But, the fact is, I heard those comments after last Sunday’s sermon. At least some of you wanted more. So today I will try again to satisfy the hunger we all share for an explanation, for understanding, for consolation. I will continue trying to give spiritual guidance for those inevitable times when we come face to face with what is considered by most people to be, far and away, the greatest opponent of faith in our lives.

The greatest opponent of faith? What is the greatest opponent of faith? Here it is. How can God be a God of love when there is so much suffering and evil in the world? Or, more to the point, how can I possibly believe God loves me when there is this terrible pain in my life? Or, said another way, “How can I survive this time of trial?” “How can I believe in God when God has abandoned me?”

The Problem

A couple of weeks ago, when Larry and Renee Donohoe had just heard the latest in an unrelenting progression of bad news, I gently reminded Renee that God loves her. “Keep it simple,” I suggested. “No matter what, God loves you.” Immediately Larry responded, “He has a funny way of showing it.” Those are the words, the feelings, the pain of a man in the throes of combat with the great enemy of faith, suffering. I did not respond to Larry. I did not know what to say.

Years ago a teenager in our church family got pregnant and birthed the child. Her boyfriend moved in with her and they tried to raise their baby together. They were succeeding quite well, largely because of the help of a couple of new Christians in the church, Mark and Samantha, who were attempting to put their new and hard won faith into practice by helping this vulnerable family. As a matter of fact, the two families needed each other. It was a partnership made it heaven, so it seemed, until one tragic night little Krystina suddenly, unexpectedly, tragically, died. They called it a SIDS death—Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. The family and the church shook with grief. Mark and Samantha did more than shake. They quit. They gave up on God; they gave up on “God the monster” who would let precious Krystina die. To my knowledge, Mark and Samantha never returned to faith. They returned to the cynicism and despair of their earlier lives.

The story of Krystina is an all too familiar story—tragic death that makes no sense and shakes and then shatters faith. The story of Mark and Samantha is also an all too familiar story--spiritual death that shatters any hope of abundant life.

The Solution That Is Found in Job

Beyond any doubt the Biblical story that most adequately addresses these tragic experiences in our lives is the Old Testament Book of Job. For those of us not too familiar with the story, the essence of the plot is that a very very good man named Job, who fully merits God’s undying affection and endless blessings, falls prey to the sniveling plotting of satan, a darkish character who still lives in heaven and has the ear of God. This satan character arranges things so that Job loses just about everything, his wealth and his family and his health. Job’s life then becomes like a novel within which are written all of the world’s worst ideas about why people suffer. Job is blamed and accused. Chapter after chapter are full of cheap clichés. There are fair weather friends who turn Job’s pain back upon himself. These friends are trying desperately to explain how Job’s God can be a God of love when Job’s pain is excruciating. Their best insight is that it must be Job’s own fault.

Finally, after nearly every bad idea and platitude in the universe has been plastered on Job’s suffering, the story reaches its climax. God speaks to Job out of the whirlwind.

Job 38:1-21

38 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind:
² “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? ³ Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me.
⁴ “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. ⁵ Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?
⁶ On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone ⁷ when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy? ⁸ “Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?— ⁹ when I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, ¹⁰ and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, ¹¹ and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped’?
¹² “Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place, ¹³ so that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it? ¹⁴ It is changed like clay under the seal, and it is dyed like a garment.
¹⁵ Light is withheld from the wicked, and their uplifted arm is broken.
¹⁶ “Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep?
¹⁷ Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness? ¹⁸ Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth? Declare, if you know all this.
¹⁹ “Where is the way to the dwelling of light, and where is the place of darkness, ²⁰ that you may take it to its territory and that you may discern the paths to its home?
²¹ Surely you know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great!

Thus says the Lord!

However, despite all the words, God does not give Job an answer. In God’s thunderous proclamations out of the storm—that go on for 125 earth crashing verses--there are no explanations. When you are the one who is struggling between life and death, when you are the one who is trying to survive when God’s love has been called into serious doubt by unmitigated suffering, you want an answer. But what Job gets is 125 bone shaking verses that contain not a single helpful word.

No answers. No explanations. Why? Because no explanations are adequate. We have already learned that from the four verbose friends. What Job receives in the whirlwind is not an answer. It is…a relationship. He experiences God, face to face. Answers, no. Relationship, yes. No explanations, but there is an encounter, a restoration of love. We know that God is experienced in the beauty of the sunrise. God is also experienced in the roar of the whirlwind.

Tough Love—One Way that the Whirlwind Roars

I wonder if any of you have ever had to put into practice the principles of “tough love?” There was a young man in my youth group in Littleton, Massachusetts who was about as creative and smart and personable as any kid I knew. But Ricky and a couple of his friends decided that being obnoxious and doing drugs and seeking thrills was their idea of a good time. His parents, church members, tried everything—everything except being brutally tough on their only child. But finally, with a lot of encouragement and support, they booted him out of their home.

My wife really liked Ricky so when he came to us for help, after being on the street for a few nights, we decided to let him live in our basement. But Carol laid down the law. Nothing that Ricky did was going put our three young children at risk and he was not even going to be a bad example. He would be an exemplary family member or he would be out on the street again.

This worked for awhile, until Ricky had been living with us long enough to forget what it felt like to live on the streets. Carol was serious about her rules and she looked around his room regularly and one day she found Ricky’s stash of pot. He was out of there so fast you could feel the wind whipping through the house like a whirlwind. It all seemed too abrupt to me—not even a discussion. But I knew better than to argue with Carol’s understanding of what love required. She was much better than I at tough love.

Love is long suffering but it does not put up with anything and everything. Love is forgiving, but often not until after boundaries have been established and the children are safe. Love. Tough. Love on the one hand. Tough on the other hand. Love and tough only seem like opposites. Sometimes parents have to live with the tension between love and tough.

Live with the tension. There are many good examples from proverbial wisdom.

1) A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
2) Nothing lost nothing gained.

Logic would argue that only one of these proverbs can be true. Either you take what you’ve got and hold on or you let go and go for broke. But often a good answer can only be found by living with the tension between holding on and letting go.

You receive an inheritance which could solve a couple of very big problems in your family. But all of your life you have had this dream of starting a business, and now is your opportunity. For heaven’s sake, don’t decide too soon. Live in the tension. Talk with those you love about the tension. Listen. Pray. Ponder. Observe what is happening around you. Pay attention to a possible movement of the spirit of God. Decide only after living with the tension between holding on and letting go.

That is exactly what is happening, I think, with many cancer patients. Fight for life. Let go of life. On the one hand, fight for life. On the other hand, let go. The paradox can only be resolved by living in the tension. Embrace both sides of the truth, or many sides. None of the sides is the enemy. They all have something to teach you. Listen to those you love, as well as medical professionals. Listen. Pray. Ponder. Live in the tension until the way ahead is clear.

Here is the big question all of us must ask as we live in the tension between life and death, salvation and sin, hope and fear, joy and sorrow, wholeness and brokenness, health and disease, justice and oppression, abundance and poverty. The critical question we all must answer is, can God make the world right? And of course there is the prior question—does God want to make the world right? Can God make the world right? I believe God can. Not before there has been a lot of suffering and dying. Not before sin and addiction appear to be insurmountable foes. Not before we struggle mightily to build justice in the world. Not before our questions and our prayers seem to go unanswered for an ungodly amount of time. Not before the paradox of love and pain has been experienced in our flesh. But eventually, in God’s way and in God’s time. God’s plan and purpose and God power and God’s love are all directed at making things right, now and if not now, in eternity.

How do I know this? I know this because of a relationship, my relationship with God. I know that God is love not because the Bible tells me so—in the sense that the Bible is a book of theological propositions. Not that at all. The Bible, the living word of God, is the intersection between God and man, the place where heaven and earth meet, the occasion of my encounter with the Living God who loves me and sent Jesus into this broken world of ours to make things right. The Bible is my Jacob’s ladder, my burning bush, my ark of rescue from the storm, my rainbow of promise, my angelic encounter, my voice out of the whirlwind, my still small voice, my ram in a thicket, my thunder on the Damascus Road; the Bible is my Mother God and my Father God. The Bible is unending and unrelenting grace and mercy. The Bible is where God and I become one. A relationship. Jesus prays:

“The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one.” (John 17:22)

A relationship with God who is present with me as I live through the paradox of love and suffering, a relationship that is all about abiding love, no matter what.

Conclusion—The Birth of the Song, “Precious Lord”

You may be familiar with the music of Tommy A. Dorsey, known to many as the Father of Gospel Music. Dorsey told this story about the moment of greatest tragedy in his life.

Back in 1932, I was 32 years old and a fairly new husband. My wife, Nettie, and I were living in a little apartment on Chicago's Southside. One hot August afternoon I had to go to St. Louis, where I was to be the featured soloist at a large revival meeting. I didn't want to go.

Nettie was in the last month of pregnancy with our first child. But a lot of people were expecting me in St. Louis. I kissed Nettie good-bye, clattered downstairs to our Model A and, in a fresh Lake Michigan breeze, chugged out of Chicago on Route 66. However, outside the city, I discovered that in my anxiety at leaving, I had forgotten my music case. I wheeled around and headed back. I found Nettie sleeping peacefully. I hesitated by her bed; something was strongly telling me to stay. But eager to get on my way, and not wanting to disturb Nettie, I shrugged off the feeling and quietly slipped out of the room with my music.

The next night, in the steaming St. Louis heat, the crowd called on me to sing again and again. When I finally sat down, a messenger boy ran up with a Western Union telegram. I ripped open the envelope. Pasted on the yellow sheet were the words: YOUR WIFE JUST DIED. People were happily singing and clapping around me, but I could hardly keep from crying out. I rushed to a phone and called home. All I could hear on the other end was "Nettie is dead. Nettie is dead."

When I got back, I learned that Nettie had given birth to a boy. I swung between grief and joy. Yet that night, the baby died. I buried Nettie and our little boy together, in the same casket. Then I fell apart. For days I closeted myself. I felt that God had done me an injustice. I didn't want to serve Him any more or write gospel songs. I just wanted to go back to that jazz world I once knew so well.

But then, as I hunched alone in that dark apartment those first sad days, I thought back to the afternoon I went to St. Louis. Something kept telling me to stay with Nettie. Was that something God? Oh, if I had paid more attention to Him that day, I would have stayed and been with Nettie when she died.

From that moment on I vowed to listen more closely to Him. But still I was lost in grief. Everyone was kind to me, especially a friend, Professor Fry, who seemed to know what I needed. On the following Saturday evening he took me up to Malone's Poro College , a neighborhood music school. It was quiet; the late evening sun crept through the curtained windows. I sat down at the piano, and my hands began to browse over the keys. Something happened to me then. I felt at peace. I felt as though I could reach out and touch God. I found myself playing a melody, once into my head they just seemed to fall into place:

“Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on, let me stand! I am tired, I am weak, I am worn. Through the storm, through the night, lead me on to the light. Take my hand, Precious Lord, lead me home.”

The Lord gave me these words and melody. He also healed my spirit.

I learned that when we are in our deepest grief, when we feel farthest from God, this is when He is closest, and when we are most open to His restoring power. And so I go on living for God willingly and joyfully, until that day comes when He will take me and gently lead me home.

It is not about answers and explanations. They are all inadequate. It is a relationship that heals and restores hope and transcends even death. Answers are fragments of the truth. Love is truth itself. Love abides.

So be it.

Amen.