How Long LORD?
Habakkuk 1:1-13; 2:1-4
Psalm 37:3-10
2 Timothy 1:6-14
Luke 17:5-10
Tim
Christoffersen
St. Anselm’s
October 7,
2001
Where
is God? Why do bad things happen to good people? This is perhaps the most
profound question one who believes in God can ask. It echoes cries from across
the centuries that include the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by
the Babylonians in 587 B.C.E. shortly after Habakkuk’s prophecy, to the
Jews who died in gas ovens at Dachau and Auschwitz, the killing fields of
Cambodia, the genocide in Rwanda and, on September 11, the death of over 5000
innocent parents, children, friends, relatives and coworkers in the violent
destruction of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City.
Habakkuk was a contemporary of Jeremiah and probably was delivering his prophecy
about a decade before the Babylonians leveled Jerusalem and the Temple in
587.
Habakkuk voices his anguish and remonstrates with God, "how long shall
I cry for help and you will not listen? Why do you make me see wrongdoing…destruction
and violence? The wicked surround the righteous…justice never prevails…and
judgment comes forth perverted."
In these first verses, Habakkuk is protesting to God about the injustice within
the kingdom of Judah. Strife and conflict surround him and the Torah or faithfulness
to God’s commandments has been abandoned. Habakkuk does not think God
hears his cries and he cannot understand God’s lack of action. Jew oppresses
Jew and nothing is happening.
God’s first response to Habakkuk expands the playing field and the time
frame. God tells him "Look at the nations and watch—and be utterly
amazed." For God will raise up the Babylonians, a ruthless and dreaded
people, to judge His own people! The Babylonians are a proud people, a law
unto themselves, and their own strength is their god. We have a sense that
they too will meet their own judgment.
Habakkuk is incredulous. As Job did, we realize righteous people will raise
some of the most profound questions and doubts before God.
Habakkuk does not accept God’s answer. He recognizes the Babylonians
have been appointed to execute judgment. But then he says to God "Your
eyes are too pure to behold evil" and in the very next breath he
says "why do you look on the treacherous, and are silent when the
wicked swallow those more righteous than they?" He then tries to
drive home his point with the image of the wicked catching men in nets who
are like the fish of the sea without a ruler. The wicked continue to fill
and empty the net and live a life of luxury. Habakkuk asks almost with a tone
of bitter sarcasm "Is he then to keep on emptying his net, and destroying
nations without mercy?"
I think the question for us today is how are we to live in a world that does
not make sense to us and is not under our control? I don’t think that
question occurred to most Americans prior to September 11. We lived under
the illusion that the world was largely under our control. But it is certainly
a question many persons in other parts of the world, such as Kurds and Palestinians,
have asked for a long time.
Habakkuk spoke his prayer…How Long Lord… from the depths
of his being. Then he waits.
"I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will
look to see what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give concerning
my complaint."
Waiting on God, like prayer, is central to our lives as Christians. We know
God is there and active in our lives in spite of circumstances that do not
make sense to us. We wait for answer to prayer. We wait as we seek to discern
God’s will for us in difficult times. Waiting is active in the same way
that Habakkuk stands watch on the ramparts to see what God will say to him
in answer to his complaint.
God answers Habakkuk a second time. He tells him to write down the revelation
on tablets so it can be communicated to others. The revelation speaks of an
indeterminate future time. "Though it linger, wait for it; it will
certainly come and will not delay." God’s judgment will happen
and it has the sense of a major cataclysm but not an ‘end of the world’
or apocalypse, as a few interpret the passage.
God also addresses those who lean on their own strength and the gods of their
own making: "Look at the proud! Their spirit is not upright in them,
but the righteous live by their faith." The rest of the second chapter
that we did not read this morning describes how the wicked, the proud, the
unjust will bring death and destruction upon themselves. It has both the sense
of physical destruction but also a spiritual destruction. They become dead
even though they may continue to live physically.
The righteous are alive spiritually for they trust in God. The prophet Isaiah
says, "those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength; they
will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will
walk and not be faint."
Habakkuk understands and accepts God’s answer. He is reconciled to the
‘hard times’ that are coming but his trust in the LORD brings him
peace and joy. [Look at the insert in your bulletin of Habakkuk 3:16-19. We
will read it in a minute.]
Habakkuk like you and I still has no direct answer to his question. He does
not know why ‘bad things happen to good people,’ or understand God’s
timetable or what the future holds. But Habakkuk now accepts God’s answer
of how to live in a world that does not make sense to us and is not under
our control. Habakkuk’s words are reminiscent of the verse from the 23rd
Psalm: "Even though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear
no evil, for you are with me."
Look now at the beautiful and haunting words of Habakkuk as he acknowledges
what God has told him will come to pass.
Habakkuk 3:16-19
I heard and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound; decay crept
into my bones, and my legs trembled.
Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading
us.
Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though
the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep
in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I
will be joyful in God my Savior.
The Sovereign LORD is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to go on the heights.
AMEN.
