"The Value of Knowing Christ"

Fifth Sunday of Lent, April 7, 2019 

           I have carved out an image for my life: husband, dad, pastor.  I hope it would be said of me, “he’s a loving husband, a devoted, involved father, and a caring, committed pastor.”  I am not those things without fail, but that’s what I work toward.  That’s the identity I intentionally try to embody.

            You have an identity too; everyone does.  Maybe you work on it consciously.  Maybe you are unaware of your identity and worldview,  but you have it.  You have a worldview and a carefully crafted identity, even if you are not conscious of it.  

The Apostle Paul had this as well.  Paul was a first century Christian who met Jesus in person after the resurrection.  As Paul traveled to Damascus, Jesus appeared to him in a blinding flash of light .  Paul was a Jewish legal expert, a Pharisee, and he had in his possession arrest papers.  He was accompanied by a unit of armed guards, commissioned by authorities from the temple in Jerusalem. 

Who was Paul arresting?  Jews who claimed that Jesus had risen from the dead and was in fact the Messiah and the Son of God.  Temple authorities in 33-35AD felt this new sect of Jesus-followers had to be crushed.  So the talented young Pharisee was given arrest powers.  He was headed to Damascus to arrest Christians.  Many he detained would end up executed, death by being pelted in the head with rocks: stoning. 

The resurrected Jesus appeared to Paul in a light that blinded him and told him to stop persecuting Christians and become one.  Paul did.  Have you heard the phrase “a Damascus Road experience” uttered to describe the radical change in someone’s life that comes after seeing the light?  That phrase comes from Paul’s story.  He was headed to arrest Christians and then his life took a radical u-turn.

Almost half the New Testament books are letters Paul wrote to churches he started after he met Jesus in that blinding light on the road to Damascus.  In Philippians 3:3-6, Paul describes the identity that he had carefully crafted for himself.  Jesus brought Paul’s intentionally built self-image crashing down.  

Has Jesus wrecked your life the way he did Paul’s?  

You have your job, family, relationships; you see yourself in terms of where you live, who you know, the teams you cheer for, the games you play, the accomplishments and failures of your life.  Everyone of us has built a life.

I invite you to think about if Jesus has obliterated your own identity and then remade it.  If you think that has happened, how has it happened?  What’s different about you because you have given yourself fully to Christ?

As you ponder that, listen to Paul’s description of how his life was completely changed.  He gives 7 marks of his identity in Philippians 3:3-6.  He was circumcised as a newborn, the proper way for good Jewish males.  He was a true Israelite.  He knew his tribal heritage - the tribe of Benjamin, one of the two favored southern tribes.  While he spoke Greek fluently, he was a Hebrew-speaking Jew.  He wasn’t a Hellenist as Greek-speaking Jews were derisively called, but a true Hebrew. 

This circumcised, true Israelite, Benjamite, true Hebrew was also a Pharisee.  But, Paul wasn’t just a run-of-mill Pharisee.  He was a zealous and he pointed to his persecution of the Christians as evidence of his zeal.  Finally, he states he was righteous, by which he means he kept the law of Moses.  He made mistakes, as all humans do, but he did not fail in observing the law.  

Paul believed that if he was a good Jew it would mean he was a good person, the best possible person.  This was his life.  Then he met Jesus.  “Whatever gains I had,” he writes in verse 7, “I came to count as loss because of Christ.  I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” 

To drive the point home, Paul then says, “I regard them (his accomplishments and the life he’s built) as rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in him” (3:8b).   The very heart of his life, all he worked for up to the day he met Jesus he now counts as trash. This is what Paul said.  He looked at what he thought was the very best possible life - the life of a Jewish Pharisee, a life in which he thrived, and when he met Jesus, he saw that life as garbage.  It’s a good life, but it’s nothing next to life in Christ.

Again, I put the question, a question I’ve been asking myself for a long time: has Jesus obliterated your identity and remade it?   What’s different when you and I give ourselves fully to Christ?  Do we willingly, truly say “life is not about me.  I die to self and live for my Lord, my master, Jesus?”

In the opening verses of John chapter 12 we one who met Jesus and experienced the same kind of change as Paul.  Mary was the emotional sister in the family of Jesus’ close friends, Mary, Martha, and their brother Lazarus.  In the previous chapter, John 11, Jesus had been away when Lazarus, whom he knew was sick, died.  

Upon arrival at their home, Martha the pragmatist, lectured Jesus and he responded meeting her where she was, giving her resurrection theology.  Then Mary confronted Jesus not with words, but with tears.  And Jesus met her where she was.  You might know the verse because a lot of people point to it as the shortest verse in the Bible.  Jesus wept.  When the tragedy of Lazarus’ death hit the family, Jesus talked theology with Martha and cried with Mary.  And then he raised Lazarus back to life. 

The Gospel of Luke also offers insight into this family and the relationship Jesus had with them (Luke 10:38-42).  He was teaching a group of men in their home.  Martha worked hard as the hostess keeping wine in everyone’s glass and bread on the table.  Mary forgot about the work.  Instead she violated convention and sat with the men so she too could hear teach.  When Marth complained, Jesus told her Mary had chosen the better path.  

Thus we come to John 12.  Jesus is again dining in their home.  Again Martha works to keep him and his disciples fed.  Again, Mary forgets traditional household duties and instead lavishes opulent, extravagant love on Jesus.  She dumps a bottle of expensive perfume all over his feet and the massages them with her hair.  John writes that the house filled up with the smell of the perfume.  

Judas complains.  The perfume could have been sold, the profits given to the poor.  His protest was a sham.  The narrator reports that Judas used to pad his own pockets from the common purse.  Jesus doesn’t call out Judas’ hypocrisy.  Instead, he commends Mary’s show of love.  Whether she knows it or not, her actions prepare him for burial.  But why did she do it? 

Why did Mary, who was probably poor herself, make such a dramatic display of affection for Jesus?  Like Paul she sees who she was before she met Jesus, and who she became after meeting him.  She had been an unmarried woman locked into her place in life in a society that assigned a second-class status to women.  Women’s value came in their performance as wife and mother, and she was neither; in society, she had little worth.  In the circle around Jesus, she was a beloved disciple.  Like Paul, she knew the surpassing value of knowing Christ.

Do we?  Our experience as his followers is anemic if we do not.  If we force our discipleship into just one small part of our lives, it is not discipleship at all, and we aren’t really acknowledging Jesus as Lord.  If, when we look to Him, we see Him, and then we re-order our lives, everything changes.  Job; pastimes; relationship; family; it all gets pushed aside as Jesus moves to the center.  

But it doesn’t happen by accident or happenstance.  Growth does not come just by showing up at church.  Growth comes when we become aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit in the time we spend away from church.  Work; eating out; while driving in frustrating traffic; in the public schools; Jesus is Lord in all these places.  We recognize him and begin to grasp the surpassing value of knowing him when we see him and submit to him in these places.  

All last week, I thought about submitting my weakness to Christ.  My left knee hurts a lot and I feel frustrated that I am not as strong as I used to be.  Some guys my age and older are runners and weightlifters and I just cannot do those things as well I used to.  In my physical weakness, I want to know Christ.

I am undisciplined - with my appetite, with my time, with my attention to detail.  I can work on it, but I will never be admired for my self-discipline.  I want to submit to Christ in this deficiency.  In my area of mental weakness, I want to know Christ.

When I get angry and snap, usually at people I really love, I want to submit to Christ.  If I am tired or hungry, or if expectations I have aren’t met, I become a grumpy, impatient person. In my emotional weakness, I want to know Christ.  

I have a huge ego, which parenting and pastoring has severely my bruised.   I submit the ego to Jesus.  In my identity-weakness, I want to know Christ. 

In Philippians, Paul discarded his accomplishments because he saw the worth of knowing Christ.  In 2 Corinthians, he does what I have tried to do here.  He names his weakness and submits them to Christ.  Mary stepped out of the roles her culture imposed on her because she saw the value of knowing Christ.

What needs to change in your life so that you will see the value of knowing our Lord Jesus?  Everything in life assumes its proper place when Jesus is the at the center of life.  What do you need to give up?  From what do you need to be freed?  What obsession do you need to let go? 

Paul concludes Philippians chapter 3 by urging us, his readers, to “imitate [him]” in seeing our past and our future in light of who we are in Christ.  He says, “Our citizenship is in Heaven.”  The Lord Jesus will “transform the body of our humiliation that [we] may be transformed to his glory.”  May we look to Jesus, see the worth of knowing Him, and live into our Heavenly citizenship.

AMEN

“Delight in the Lord” (Psalm 37:1-11)

Rob Tennant, HillSong Church, Chapel Hill, NC

Sunday, February 24, 2019

            I am in my bedroom and it’s close to my daughter’s bed time.  She walks in and lays on my bed.  I ask if she has brushed her teeth.  She giggles.  I put my index finger right at her collar bone, one of her tickle spots.  She scrunches her neck down so I can’t get my finger in there.  And she laughs.  Then, I softly poke her belly, another tickle spot.  Giggling, she tenses her body up.  I ask, “Do you want me to stop?”  If she says, “Yes,” then I stop.  I want her to feel like if she tells a guy to stop doing something, then he will.  I want her to expect to be respected.  And on this occasion, she does tell me to stop.  But, very quickly she says, “No, go ahead.”  And I tickle her neck.  Earnestly she says, “Tickle me.”  And I tickle her belly.  And we laugh and laugh.  What is better than going to bed laughing?

            In this nightly routine,  I am delighting in my daughter and she is delighting in time spent with me.  In the first stanza of Psalm 37:4 the psalmist says, “Take delight in the Lord.”  The Psalm opens commanding us not to fret, not to worry about the success evil people seem to have. Though the wicked prosper now, verse 9 says they will be cut off from God.  The blessing comes to those who wait for the Lord.

            After the opening “do not fret, do not be envious,” beginning in verse 3, a series of positive commands are given.  Opposite the “do nots,” these are verbs telling us what to do, how to live.  “Trust in the Lord.”  “Take delight in the Lord.”  “Commit your way to the Lord.”  “Be still before the Lord.” These positive commands set our daily approach to life, both our actions and our attitudes.  For me “delight” in the Lord is a wonderful entry point into the deeper call of God in this Psalm.  When my daughter and I are deep into the tickle belly laughing, it is easy and natural for her to trust me.  She’s more willing later to be still while I read the Bible to her and read other books to her.  And she falls to sleep feeling safe, surrounded by a family who loves her. 

            If delighting in my child involves tickling my daughter, or a throwing a football around with my younger son, or going to an movie with my older son, what does delighting in the Lord look like?  What does it look like when a Christian experiences  unrestrained pleasure in his relationship with God? 

Here are a few experiences I have had.  First, a sunrise.  Imagine a cool morning that slowly becomes a sunny, warm day.  At dawn, the dark of the night, gives ways to shadows, early gray light, and then after that, the muted colors of early morning that burst into glorious golds, greens, and blues when the sun triumphantly comes over the horizon and gleams through the treetops.  If I am outside walking on a morning like that, I see God in the awakening colors.  I hear God in the sweet chatter of birdsong.  I feel God in the cool, crisp air on my arms and face.  In that moment, I am delighting in God. 

Another, very different example comes when I am stressing out because I am in the middle of trying to overcome difficulties.  At first, I don’t heed the initial command in this Psalm.  The very first words are “Do not fret.”  But I do.  Instead of praying, I talk and worry and fret.  Now, how in the world does this lead up to delighting in the Lord?  What happens is, I will find a Bible passage that helps me see God.  It hits me, and I want to read it over and over.  I want to read it to other people.  I pray it.  I pray the words of the scripture as my prayer and I pray the meaning of the scripture into my life.  For example, recently, as I have dealt with challenges, Colossians 3 has become my lifeline.  “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. ... Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts” (3:12, 15).  I meet God in His word, and the pressures life has imposed melt away. I delight in my Father who is there for me, always making me new.

I mentioned the way God speaks to me through nature in the early morning, the thrill of meeting God in the pages of the Bible; to that I could add the bliss of receiving grace while resting, or the peace that comes when I listen, over and over, to certain songs by David Crowder or Mandisa.  In these and in countless of other ways, I am assured of my relationship with God.  The relationship becomes tangible and I know what it means to say, “I delight in God, God the Father, my Savior the Son, and the ever present Holy Spirit.”

Then Psalm 37:3, “trust in the Lord,” makes sense.  Of course I trust in God.  God has already shown Himself to me and shown me my own self cast in His light.  I see myself more clearly when I see myself in relation to God.  I trust God.

I also, as verse 5 commands, commit my way to God.  What other way is there?  When I commit my way, my life has direction.  I do not just fumble along  from weekend to weekend and paycheck to paycheck.  My life has meaning.  I am God’s possession.  I exist to bring God glory and help others find salvation in Jesus.  But it’s not because I am pastor.  These commands - trust, delight, and commit - are extended to everyone who opens Psalm 37 and reads it as holy scripture.  These are commands and maybe our sense of individual autonomy causes us to recoil at such a directive.  But these commands serve to invite us to walk in relationship with the God who loves us.  

The fourth command, in verse 7, sets our story.  If “delight in the Lord” is where I enter this story, then verse 7, “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him” declares the world in which we live.  We live at God’s initiative, bound for the Kingdom Jesus announced.  We live for God’s pleasure.  Because we have delighted in God, we are ready to be still and wait on the Lord.

In the world, as it is today, we have to grasp and strive.  Go out aggressively and get a job.  Work hard to be first.  Put others behind you in class rankings, in a race, in securing the promotion, in gaining the position in line at the store, or the parking space at the hot restaurant. Competition has its place and even in faith there are times when we need to assertively take initiative in our living out faith.  But the command “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him” reminds us to be balanced in our thinking.  The good things we have, the very best things in life, are gifts from God. 

We don’t grab gifts.  We gratefully receive them.  The Kingdom of God is inherited, not taken by force.  An inheritance is something we receive as a result of another’s extreme generosity.  Psalm 37:11 says, “The meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant prosperity.”  Does that passage at all sound familiar?

Jesus alluded to this Psalm when he gave the sermon on the mount.  In the opening of that sermon, that passage from the early verses of Matthew 5 we call “The Beatitudes,” Jesus said, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”  He doesn’t mean blessed are the weak.  He says meek, with an ‘M.’  We are all weak in different ways.  And we are all in the same way in that none of us can stop sinning by our own will power.  We need the Holy Spirit.  But, as a spiritual practice and as a step of obedience, we can choose to be meek.  And we must.  We can choose to wait patiently upon the Lord, and when the Lord gives blessing, gratefully receive and enjoy it.

Six times the promise in Psalm 37 is that those who wait on the Lord inherit Land.  For Jewish people in the centuries before Christ, this was a literal promise of the land of Israel.  For Christians living in the centuries after the crucifixion and resurrection, the promise of inheritance is fulfilled in Christ.  We receive Christ. 

Receiving Christ, we become members of the family of God, adopted as sons and daughters of God.  The promise of Land comes to ultimate fulfillment at the final resurrection, when we all join Christ, raised from death, raise in bodies that cannot be hurt or die.  Then, we live in eternal fellowship and love with God and with one another. 

We begin living into our inheritance, our relationship with Jesus as sons and daughters of God right now.  It starts when we confess our sins and receive forgiveness and receive Jesus into our hearts and minds as our Savior and Lord.  As I stated at the outset, a beautiful way to take this step to relationship is by delighting in the Lord.  I cited how I do that - early morning nature, praying Bible passages, certain songs, tickling my daughter.  How do you delight in the Lord? 

If you didn’t know such a thing was possible, let that be your quest this week and in upcoming months.  Walking with God can be a relationship that’s real for you.  Fix Psalm 37:4 as your prayer.  Let that verse shape you and as you dive into the beautiful pleasures of delighting in God, you’ll find trusting in him easier, committing your ways to him natural, and being still before him pleasing in its own way.  Your relationship with God will soar to new heights.  You’ll find being a Christian to be more than a box checked off on the religion section of the census.  Being a Christian will becomes the greatest joy in life.  This week, discover ways you can delight in the Lord.

AMEN

Made to Know God (Job 13:2; 23:3-7; 38:4-7, 34-41)

Rob Tennant, HillSong Church, Chapel Hill, NC

Sunday, January 8, 2017

         I began 2017 by inviting the church to join me on a quest.  We seek to see God.  Just as an iceberg looks impressive, and yet we only see above the surface all the while knowing there is much more beneath, so then, God is that much more amazing.  Yet for all the wonders we know of God, there is much more we do not know. 

Together, we go into this year seeking to know more of God.  We are made to know God.  Each one of us was created by God intentionally.  God made us to be in relationship with him.  Our quest, this morning, brings us to a man who got to know more of God than he bargained for.  In fact, he wasn’t even looking as we are and yet he saw more of God than most ever do.

Turn with me to the book of Job.

Job 13:3

³ But I would speak to the Almighty,^[a]
    and I desire to argue my case with God.

Job 23:3-7New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

³ Oh, that I knew where I might find him,
    that I might come even to his dwelling!
⁴ I would lay my case before him,
    and fill my mouth with arguments.
⁵ I would learn what he would answer me,
    and understand what he would say to me.
⁶ Would he contend with me in the greatness of his power?
    No; but he would give heed to me.
⁷ There an upright person could reason with him,
    and I should be acquitted forever by my judge.

Job 38:4-7New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

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^[a] shouted for joy?

³⁴ “Can you lift up your voice to the clouds,
    so that a flood of waters may cover you?
³⁵ Can you send forth lightnings, so that they may go
    and say to you, ‘Here we are’?
³⁶ Who has put wisdom in the inward parts,^[a]
    or given understanding to the mind?^[b]
37 Who has the wisdom to number the clouds?
    Or who can tilt the waterskins of the heavens,
³⁸ when the dust runs into a mass
    and the clods cling together?

³⁹ “Can you hunt the prey for the lion,
    or satisfy the appetite of the young lions,
⁴⁰ when they crouch in their dens,
    or lie in wait in their covert?
⁴¹ Who provides for the raven its prey,
    when its young ones cry to God,
    and wander about for lack of food?

There is a gorilla named Koko who learned signed language.[i]  She was able to communicate complicated concepts.  Think about how remarkable this is: an animal, not human, having a real conversation with humans. 

However, an earthquake hit scaring the poor primate half to death.  She had never been taught the word for earthquake.  All she could say, that is ‘sign’, is “Floor.  Big bite.”  I think Koko the gorilla is to be appreciated and even admired.  Using what vocabulary and concepts she did have, she tried to say what happened and how it made her feel; obviously terrified.  She couldn’t possibly know things about tectonic plates or seismographs.  She gets high marks for saying what she knew even though we know an earth quake is more than the floor taking a bite out of us, however apt the metaphor may be.

We are like Koko when we try to describe God.  We lack the words and the experience.  Still, we try.  With our insufficient vocabulary, we speak about God and attempt to know God because God created us for relationship with Him.  From my reading of scripture to my study of the history of Christian theology to my own logical conclusions to longings deep within my soul, I am thoroughly convinced that God wants relationship with us and wants us to reach to Him. 

Even pronouns are insufficient.  God is Him.  Some might be upset if I said God was “her,” but either pronoun fits and at the same time falls short.  For tradition’s sake, when pronouns are necessary, I will use the male, but rest assured.  I don’t think God is male.

As I have talked to others about this launch into 2017 – a quest to see more of God that we might be drawn closer to God and also grow in our ability to speak about God and for God in the world – I appreciated counsel I have received.  More than one person has reminded me – we only see of God what God chooses to reveal.  One book in the Bible is called “Revelation,” but the content of the entire Bible is what God chose to reveal.  Jesus is God revealed in human flesh.  In upcoming weeks, we’ll look at bits from Jesus’ life and see what we can learn about God.  We’ll probe, inch by inch, beneath the iceberg’s surface.  This morning we do the same following what is revealed in the book of Job.

In the beginning of the book, Job’s life is ideal.  His 10 children – 7 sons and 3 daughters are young adults who all get along with each other.  They dine in one another’s homes.  And Job oversees it all.  Chapter 1 verse 5 says Job makes a point of sacrificing on behalf of his children in case they have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.

I get a sense that from the outset, the book of Job presents God as a distant, punishing deity Job appeases both for himself (by not sinning) and for his children (by offering sacrifices on their behalf).  God holds Job in high esteem, but I don’t get the sense that Job has a prayer relationship with God.  God is impersonal. 

Then things fall apart.  Satan and God talk and God allows Satan to harm Job and wreck Job’s life in order to prove Job’s righteousness.  After Satan kills Job’s children and afflict Job’s health, chapters 3-37 are commentary.  Job talks about his plight with his three friends.  The friends think Job’s problems are God’s punishments for sins Job must have committed.  Job insists he is innocent and repeatedly demands an audience with God. 

We see in the opening verses a comfortable Job who is happy with life and happy with keeping God distant and appeased.  That placid Job is contrasted with the agitated Job who occupies the central portion of the book.  The agitated Job is much more motivated to have a personal encounter with God.  The agitated Job wants to have a face-to-face with God and to give God a piece of mind.

Various theological perspectives led me to think of Job in terms of contrast – placid, comfortable Job v. agitated, insistent Job.   First, the great reformer John Calvin from whom we get the term ‘Calvinism.’  Calvin believed that God directs everything in life – even our misery.  In his most famous work, ‘Calvin’s Institutes,’ he writes, “Whether poverty or exile or prison or insult or disease or bereavement, or anything like [these things] torture us, we must think that none of these things happen by the will and providence of God.”[ii]  This view accord with the theology of Job.  Job would need to sacrifice to a God like this because he would fear this God’s discipline upon his children.  Job’s friends appeal to this retributive theology when they urge Job to confess his sin and thereby alleviate, or at least understand his suffering. 

Against is a 20^th century theology that has appeared at various times in church history.  The 20^th century version, represented by Clark Pinnock is called open theism.[iii]  Open theists believe that God, as an act of supreme love, has created beings – humans – who are capable of choosing to love God.  God is affected, we might even say changed, by the way his created being act toward him.  Open theists believe that God knows all that can be known.  However, since the future hasn’t happened yet, it cannot yet be known.  Thus God doesn’t know the future.

Calvin severely limited human free will.  What happens is predetermined by a sovereign God.  Pinnock and other open theists limit God’s sovereignty.  I don’t believe either position can be defended with certainty.  I don’t know all that God knows.  I don’t know if it is possible that there are things God doesn’t know.  I find both positions uncomfortable.  I am uneasy about the thought that my very words and ideas were predetermined by a sovereign God who micromanages the universe.  And I am equally unsettled by the thought that there are limits on God’s power and knowledge. 

Job dealt with the tension between a distant punishing God and the frustrated desire to get up close and personal with that God.  Calvin presented an all-knowing, all-controlling God and open theists respond with a God who is in process and experiences new things.  A third contrast I found comes between a wholly other God v. a familiar and close God. 

In the book Reaching for the invisible God, Philip Yancey shares his experience in Russia shortly after communism fell in the early 90’s.  He went with a Russian Orthodox priest to visit prisoners.[iv]  One of the others in their party requested that the Orthodox priest have prayer with the inmates.  The priest brought out an icon.  He donned an elaborate prayer outfit involving gold crosses and other vestments.  He went through a complex ritual.  I have visited people in prison.  When it’s time for prayer, I and the inmate each bowed our heads and prayed.  That’s too simple and too cozy for the Orthodox priest Yancey described.  For that priest, God is ‘wholly other.’  Conversation with God is not like conversation with another person and it should not be approached that way.

Contrast this with the way many popular American praise songs approach God.  Yancey quotes from Chris Tomlin’s song “In the Secret.”  “I want to know you more/I want to touch you/I want to see your face.”  It is a very intimate reaching for God.  Yancey observes and I have observed this too, that some praise songs are indistinguishable from teen-aged romance songs.   Just insert God’s name for the name of the intended lover.[v]  One of my seminary friends often joked that these are “Jesus-is-my-boyfriend” songs.  Yancey goes on to remark, “Nowhere in the Bible do I find a promise that we will touch God or see his face.”[vi]

Which is true?  Is God so removed that like Job the best we can do is offer sacrifices?  Or find a priest who will don gold crosses and kiss them in elaborate rituals as he prays on our behalf because God is unapproachable?  Or is the relationship to which God invites us so intimate, we dare to liken it to romance? 

What has been your own experience?  How have you experienced God as all-knowing, all-powerful ‘wholly other’ who inspires and awe and fear? How have you experienced God as close, personal relation?  What would the word be?  Father?  Friend?  Disembodied Spirit that dwells within? 

“Oh that I might find him,” Job lamented in chapter 23.  “That I might even come to his dwelling.”  He knew the theology that ran through the Old Testament beginning with Moses.  Anyone who sees God will die.  Job knew this.  His wife, as a wrought with grief as him, told him to “curse God and die” (2:9).  She spoke out of her pain, not out of malice.  But Job wouldn’t take that easy route.  He would accept death, but he wanted a word with God first.  Though he lived in an era dominated by the Calvinist-type of Sovereignty of God theology which the Orthodox priest would also appreciate, Job broke the paradigm by demanding an appointment with God.  Only the select few – Abraham, Moses, the real heavyweights – came that close to God.  Job did not care.  He would not rest until he had his audience.

God gave Job what he asked for but it didn’t happen as Job thought it might.  Remember his self-assurance?  He said, “An upright person could reason with him, and I should be acquitted forever by my judge.”

When God came to Job, it says God spoke out of a whirlwind.  Have you ever been in a tornado?  I haven’t and don’t want to be.  And yet, I propose that we do what Job tried to do – see God and speak directly to God.  I don’t know if we are like the Orthodox priest or like one of today’s praise song writers.  God came to Job in the whirlwind, but never ever answered a single one of Job’s questions.  Remember, as hard as we look, we only get to see what God chooses to reveal. 

“Where were you, when I laid the foundation of the earth?”  God asks Job, and us.  Yes, God is wholly other.  No, we weren’t there when God, with tender care, formed every creature, made the earth in a way that it truly is good.  But in the end, Job was found to be righteous.  It wasn’t because of his sacrifices.  He was, I believe, because he sought God. 

If out of our brokenness, out of our confusion, out of our pain, out of our curiosity we seek God, here is what we will find.  We will find that God will not give us everything we ask for.  God will not fix everything the way we think it ought to be fixed.  God will give us what God gave Job; not in the way it was given to Job.  Each person’s encounter with God is unique.  But God will do for each person who seeks Him, what He did for Job.  God will give us God’s very self. 

“Would God contend with me in the greatness of his power?  No.  But God would listen to me.”

When we explore beneath the surface and begin to see a bit more of God we discover that God created us to be in relationship with Him.  And when we call out Him, God hears us.

AMEN

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[i] Student’s Life Application Bible (1997), Tyndale House Publishers, p.984.

[ii] John Calvin, Institutes, Book 3, Chapter VIII, section II.

[iii] C. Pinnock (2003), chapter 6 in the book Alister E. McGrath & Evangelical Theology, edited by Sung Wook Chung, Paternoster Press (UK), p.147-164.

[iv] P. Yancey (2000), Reaching for the Invisible God, Zondervan books (Grand Rapids), p.26.

[v] Ibid, p.31.

[vi] Ibid, p.32.