“Find Your Strength in the Gospel” Habakkuk 1.1-4; 2.1-4 Series C, Oct. 6th ’13 sermon

1.       Please pray with me.  May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer.  Amen.  The message from God’s Word for us today comes from the Old Testament book of Habakkuk 1 & 2 and it’s entitled, “Find Your Strength in the Gospel.”  Habakkuk, a contemporary of the Prophet Jeremiah, was also a prophet to the kingdom of Judah during the reign of one of the last kings prior to the Babylonian exile. His prophecy begins with a conversation between himself and the Lord.  In this dialogue Habakkuk expresses two complaints. His first is revealed in the first part of the text (1:1–3). Habakkuk wants to know why evil seems to go unpunished in Judah. The Lord’s response is that he will certainly bring his judgment on Judah by enabling the Babylonians to conquer them. His second complaint is this: “Why are you silent while the wicked [the Babylonians] swallow up those more righteous than themselves [the Israelites]?” The Lord’s response is revealed in the second part of the text (2:2–4).  Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.       When our favorite team is struggling, it’s hard to watch. One thing makes it even tougher: bad officiating. Put those two together, and there’s outrage. Either the officials make the wrong call, or they make no call at all, and you’ll hear something like “It’s bad enough we play lousy! Now the ref won’t give us a break!” They say the bad calls always eventually even out, but it gets worse before it gets better.  Sometimes, Christians feel that way about the calls God makes or doesn’t make when things are bad. Either God’s apparent inactivity or the course of action God does seem to choose leaves us feeling like victims of injustice. Maybe God will get it right in the end, but it gets worse before it gets better!

3.       In the 2002 film The Count of Monte Cristo, the hero, Edmond (played by Jim Caviezel), has been unjustly imprisoned in the dark Chateau d’If (pronounced deef). He enters his cell for the first time escorted by the prison warden, Dorleac. There, Edmond sees an inscription on the cell wall: “God will give me justice.”  The warden scoffs. People here often try to keep their spirits up with graffiti, sometimes by drawing calendars. But eventually they lose hope, and all he’s left with is an unsightly wall. So the warden has developed a new way to help prisoners mark time: a beating every year on the anniversary of their imprisonments. Oh, but he does also like to offer something special on the very first day of a man’s sentence. Yes, Edmond, a beating you’ll remember your entire stay!  Why Edmond, an innocent man? Why now? Where is God? As he’s being lifted off the floor by the chains on his wrists, readied for his “something special,” Edmond speaks in faith, “God is everywhere; he sees everything.”  The warden’s response is cold and blasphemous. He offers a bargain. Edmond is to ask God for help, and “I’ll stop the moment he shows up.”

4.       Edmond is right. God does see everything, and he will help. There will be a day when every Christian fully and forever experiences God’s perfect solution to all our troubles. But so often, as with Edmond, God seems absent and silent for a time, just when his people need him most. It seems to get worse before it gets better.

5.       That’s why one of the modern “Christian myths” that ought to be silenced says that when you trust Jesus Christ, you get rid of all your problems. You don’t.  It’s true that your basic spiritual problem—your relationship with God—has been solved, but with that solution comes a whole new set of problems that you didn’t face when you were an unbeliever, like: “Why do good people suffer and evil people prosper?” or “Why isn’t God answering my prayer?” or “When I’m doing my best for the Lord, why do I experience the worst from others?”  Christians who claim to be without problems are either not telling the truth or not growing and experiencing real life. Maybe they’re just not thinking at all. They’re living in a religious dream world that has blocked out reality and stifled honest feelings. Like Job’s uncomfortable comforters, they mistake shallow optimism for the peace of God and “the good life” for the blessing of God. You never hear them ask what David and Jesus asked, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” (Ps. 22:1; Matt. 27:46).  Habakkuk wasn’t that kind of a believer. As he looked at the land of Judah, and then watched the international scene, he found himself struggling with some serious problems. But he did the right thing: he took his problems to the Lord.

6.       We do well to bring our questions directly to the Lord as the prophet Habakkuk did.  Habakkuk had more than a question; he had a lament, a complaint.  Habakkuk 1:1-4 says, “1The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw.  2O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save?  3Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. 4So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted.”  The Babylonians were threatening to swallow up Judah, a people more righ­teous than themselves (1:13). That seemed to contradict what God is—himself righteous.

7.       We may question how God is running things.  He seems to do little to stop violence in our own day: terrorists and weapons of mass destruction, violence of tornadoes and earthquakes and fires, violence of plane crashes and train wrecks and auto accidents.  People less righteous than ourselves get ahead at the office or in the classroom, while we’re passed over or laid off.  We wait patiently, do our “Christian thing,” and we don’t see any rewards coming our way. “Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands in innocence” (Ps 73:13). 

8.       We may more than question; we may get downright mad at God!  But Habakkuk doesn’t talk about God, murmuring against him.  Maybe we do that.  Muttering our prayers—or giving them up altogether—because we’re convinced they do no good.  “Taking it out on him” by staying away from God’s house (as if he needed us!).  Maybe even cursing God’s name right out loud.  But, Habakkuk brings his questions directly to the Lord (1:2a), and he will soon see that he finds his strength in the Gospel and promises of God.  This is wise, for what God would answer might surprise us.  God doesn’t reveal everything about his plans.  But he does reveal in his Word that we’re no more deserving of his help than those about whom we complain.

9.   The injustice, conflict, and wickedness Habakkuk observed (1:3–4) was also happening not just in Babylon, but it was happening in Judah.  Our “Christian thing,” our faithful labors at school and office, are also tainted by sin. And that’s just our best. Our worst—it’s Judah and Babylon all over.  Oh.  Rather than complaining against God when we don’t understand why things seem to be going badly, we’re well-advised to bring our questions directly to him.  After all, he’s the one who can help us.  And we can find our strength, as Habakkuk did, in the Gospel and promises of God.

10.   As the psalmist would lift up his eyes to the hills to see his help coming from the Lord (Ps 121:1–2), so Habakkuk would station himself on the watchtower, looking eagerly for the Lord’s help (2:1).  Habakkuk 2:1-4 says, “1I will take my stand at my watchpost and station myself on the tower, and look out to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint. 2And the LORD answered me: “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. 3For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay. 4“Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith.” 

11.   Though Habakkuk would have to await God’s appointed time, the help would come (2:2–3).  Captivity at the hands of the Babylonians would prove a loving necessity—a necessary chastening to preserve a remnant in faith.  But God would eventually punish Babylon and, more important, return Judah to its homeland.  That would finally lead to the revealing of God’s ultimate purpose for all this: the whole world’s Messiah, for whose coming the Lord would preserve Judah.  It would just take a while—God’s good while.

12.   Like Habakkuk, we can also look expectantly to God for help, for he will come to us.  We can find our strength in the Gospel of God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  One day God will put a stop to the violence around us.  One day God will vindicate his people for their faithfulness to Him and His Son Jesus Christ.  Of all this we can be certain, for our help has already come in the name of the Lord, the Messiah who surely did come.  It may just take a while—God’s good while.

13.   See, when we don’t understand why God is doing things the way he’s doing them, we’re always welcome to go directly to him. He’s already answered us by sending Jesus—and while God in his perfect time is preparing to make all things right, he enables us to wait patiently, For he is the righteous one in whom we live by faith.  We really have nothing to complain about, for we ourselves aren’t righteous (2:4a).  Our works are no better than Judah’s—or that of the Babylonians.  We’re not righteous by anything we do.  But by the declaration of the righteous God, we are righteous indeed (2:4b).  “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21).  That didn’t seem right, fair; that seemed to contradict everything God is, punishing for us the one more righteous than ourselves.  But the result is that in Jesus we are righteous.  God speaks this declaration of righ­teousness on us again and again—in Baptism, absolution, the preaching of the Gospel, the Lord’s Supper. 

14.   And now, by faith that this righteousness has been given to us in Christ Jesus, we do live. Forever in heaven, certainly!—at “an appointed time . . . it will certainly come and will not delay” (2:3).  But also in this life, despite the seeming delays and contradictions.  It is also most certainly true as Luther writes: “He defends me against all danger and guards and protects me from all evil. All this he does only out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me.”  And, yes, yes, it shall be so as we pray: “Deliver us from evil.”  With this certainty, from God’s own Word, his own direct answer to our questions, our complaints, we can live in patient faith.

15.   And one day, we will certainly be with those of whom we speak these Sundays in our Gradual: “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.”  We find our strength in the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.