October 20, 2019

God only seems to have changed; He still cares. If Job’s sufferings made no sense, God has His own reasons.

And still, though faith dissolves Job’s doubts, it does not diminish his desolation. The sharpest torment of all is still there: a dark night of the soul. He cannot “get through” to God. He used to experience God’s presence, now he experiences God’s absence.

And the second important moment? At last God speaks to Job. He shows Himself to this anguished believer, this rebellious lover, who has raged against his situation, has demanded that God justifies His ways.

But notice that God says nothing to Job about his suffering and its meaning. He does not explain. And Job does not say, “Ah, yes, now I understand. Thank you.”

The real experience is simply the encounter. God lets Job find Him. And in the encounter Job is happy to disown his speculations, his complaints.

Like you and me, Job had to face the problem of evil – Why do the innocent suffer, the wicked prosper? Why does God not “vindicate His chosen ones, who cry out to Him day and night?” Why does He “delay too long over them?”

In the face of evil, Job found human wisdom bankrupt. His anguished questioning ended in a theophany – God manifests Himself to Job – not to defend His wisdom, but to stress His mystery.

Job trusted God not because he could prove that God merited his trust, but because he had experienced God. Only trust makes evil endurable – trust not because God has offered proof, because God has shown His face.

This suggests a third point – something over and above the point of the parable, but not irrelevant to it. You sit here in the church because God has gifted you with an incredible power, the power to believe, on His word, that God has shown His face in Christ, that the same Christ who died and rose for you is here among us, here within you, hidden here in what looks like bread and tastes like wine.

This you believe. But your belief risks turning sterile unless the God who once showed His face in Christ shows His face to you. I mean the experience of God, who is as real to you as the person sitting next to you. I mean a relationship, where you not only know truths about God, you know God. I mean a relationship of love – a love for God so intense that it rivals the love Christ reached out to you on the cross.

This is the kind of relationship, the kind of love, you must have if you are to live Christianity with that eternal why: “Why, dear God, did you let this happen? How could you and still be God?”

You will not answer it with Aristotelian logic. You can live through it with crucified love.

My dear brothers and sisters, one final caution. Despite the unresolved questions to which it gives rise; we have much to learn from “the case of the invincible widow.” Whatever your sad experience with prayer, with the prayer of petition, God still wants you to “hang in there.”

Like Moses against the Amalek, hold your hands high; however weary your arms, till the sun goes down – and after.

Like the powerless widow, make a nuisance of yourself. Storm heaven like crazy; don’t let the Lord rest even on the Sabbath. You just might prove enough of a nuisance to get what you want – especially if what you want is woven of love.