He Made His Peace with God, a sermon based on Job 38: 1-7 and 34-41, preached on September 15, 2024

Did you watch the debate last Tuesday? I doubt it would have occurred to me had the presidential debate not been last Tuesday, but because it was, and I was thinking about it on Wednesday morning, I realized that what we’re seeing in our second Scripture lesson is something like God’s counterpoint to Job’s opening statement. Last Sunday, we heard from Job. Having suffered a horrible tragedy, losing his children, watching his home and property go up in a cloud of dust, he bravely voiced his bitter complaint to the Almighty. That was last Sunday’s Scripture lesson. In today’s Scripture lesson, we’ve heard God’s counterpoint, and in every way, God’s counterpoint is overwhelming. Thinking of last Tuesday night, if this were a debate between Job and God, I have little doubt whom would be declared the winner. I can hear the political commentators offering their post-debate analysis as God wraps up His counterpoint. Behind a desk for the evening news, one political commentator might say: I know that Job’s been preparing his argument from the ash heap for days now, but God’s been preparing for this debate since the beginning of time. Then, another might chime in: Job was pretty into his emotions tonight. His words had feeling and passion, and he represents so many of the downtrodden that it’s impossible not to be moved by his words, yet when God speaks, He sounds like James Earl Jones, may he rest in peace, and that gives His argument an authority that rings throughout time and space. Here’s an important difference between the debate last Tuesday night and the debate we’re hearing unfold from the pages of Scripture: God isn’t trying to beat Job in this debate. God isn’t trying to win an election here. God is trying to help Job heal, for at the right time, healing from grief and trauma may mean lifting your eyes up from the misery of your ash heap to appreciate the majesty of God’s creation. We lift up our eyes from our suffering to the hills or the stars, the sunset or the sound of a baby’s laugh, to be moved by the power of God. God’s counterpoint is something like that: The Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind: Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Who was it that swaddled the water of creation and set a limit to the sea? Have you commanded the sun to rise? Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Can you comprehend the expanse of the earth, much less the universe? Do you know where snow comes from? Or what about something easier: like do you know where the mountain goats give birth? Or do you know why the ostrich has wings but can’t fly? The purpose of these questions is not just to put Job back in his place, but to help him see that there is more to life and more to God’s creation than his season of tragedy. Now, tragedy can’t be glossed over. God isn’t like the preacher at the funeral who tells everyone not to worry because now another angel has joined the choirs of Heaven. There’s a time for rejoicing in the promise of eternal life, and there’s a time for weeping over what’s been lost, and you can’t gloss over the heartbreak and maintain your mental health. You can’t deny the stark reality, for when we see suffering clearly, our own or the suffering of our neighbor, we can offer real compassion instead of empty platitudes. God isn’t offering Job the empty platitudes that his friends offered. God is better than that. I can imagine God being the first to weep with Job in that ash heap, for when our hearts break, God’s heart breaks as well. God has said nothing to Job until now, for in the ash heap, Job wouldn’t have been ready to hear what God has to say. I had a friend in Tennessee who told me that when he was child, his house burnt to the ground. The house his father built with his own two hands was there one day, and it was an ash heap the next. This friend of mine remembers how his father stood in that ash heap for one day and one night, not moving, not speaking, not eating, just standing, for we all must go down to the dust to acknowledge our hurt. There is no way around it. There is no denying anger or sadness. You can’t bury it nor can you drown it. You can’t go around the valley, you’ve got to go through it, yet after acknowledging our hurt, after sitting in the ashes of our despair, maybe after shouting out to God and voicing the injustice of it all, God lifts our heads to see that the world is bigger than our pain and, in our lives, there is not only sadness but also beauty. The heartbreak of the past need not rule our future, for there is more to life than ashes and despair. We can’t get stuck in the ash heap. I practice meditation a little bit. I’m not becoming a Buddhist or anything. I just downloaded an app on my phone that helps me relax and clear my head. According to an article published by the National Science Foundation, the average person has between 12,000 and 60,000 thoughts per day. 80% are negative, and 95% are repetitive. Sometimes, what we need is to lift the needle from the record player so that the same thoughts stop cycling through our heads. Maybe not everyone in here remembers record players, so let me tell you something about them. Records are how people used to listen to music before all the music was on our phones. You used to have to go to a store to buy music. First, there were record stores. A record was this big, flat plate with grooves on it. If you left your record in a hot car, it became a salad bowl, and if you scratched your record, the needle of your record player might get stuck at a certain point, and it would just repeat the same part of that record again and again and again. Our minds will do the same thing. Our minds will fixate on the same thought again and again and again. We’ll ask ourselves, “Why did he have to die?” again and again and again, or “What should have happened?” again and again and again, and sometimes, the best thing that can happen is for someone to come along and hit the table so that the needle bounces and the record moves on to the next song, for Job’s tragedy is not the only track in the story of God’s great and glorious salvation epic. There is more than his sadness and more than his frustration. Yet once he’s fixated on it, once the needle has found that groove of suffering, those thoughts go through his mind again and again and again on repeat. Therefore, God speaks: Have you commanded the sun to rise? Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Can you comprehend the expanse of the earth, much less the universe? Think about all that there is beyond the thoughts in your head. That’s a good thing to do: to get beyond your temporary suffering to consider the majesty of salvation. That’s why it can be good for grieving people to take a trip to the Grand Canyon. We took our kids there, and one of our daughters stood on the rim of the Grand Canyon and said, “This place has nothing on Kennesaw Mountain.” Most people don’t say that. Most people look down upon the Grand Canyon and think about how many years it’s taken for the river to wear that canyon down. Most people go to the Grand Canyon and think about how ancient our earth really is, how majestic is God’s creation, and how many ups and downs this world has seen. Acknowledge your sorrow but remember there is more to life than your sorrow. Can you get your mind off that groove? Lieutenant Dan couldn’t. Do you remember that guy? I can’t think of a scene in film or TV that makes me think of Job as much as Lieutenant Dan in Forrest Gump. Lieutenant Dan, who lost both his legs in Vietnam, straps himself to the mast of Forrest’s shrimp boat and faces down a hurricane. Do you remember? There’s rain and wind, and Lieutenant Dan is up there in the middle of it. Out of the whirlwind, God spoke, and the next day, having braved the storm, Lieutenant Dan jumps into the water and swims off into a peaceful sea. Then Forrest says, “He made his peace with God.” My friends, I don’t know why bad things happen. I’m not convinced that the Bible ever gives us a good answer to that question, but this I do know: There is more to life than our problems and our pain. God has not only provided us with suffering, but also with joy. Can you find joy? Can you see the joy that God has provided? You see, sometimes we heal from grief and injustice when we stop paying so much attention to the grief and the injustice. You who are downtrodden and heavy laden, look up in wonder at the majesty of creation. Consider with me the grace of God. Remember, not just your suffering, but the suffering of Jesus on our behalf. Remember salvation. Consider, not just the sufferings of this present age, but the promise of Heaven. As the sun is setting, look for the fingerprints of the One who will cause it to rise again. Rember the words of our choir’s anthem: Over my head, there is music. In the night’s deep darkness there is music in the air. I hear it when I’m praying, I hear music in the air. There must be a God somewhere. Indeed, there is. God is here. God is with us. Always and forever. Halleluiah. Amen.