You can learn a lot about a person from a picture. The social networking site, Facebook has proven that to us if nothing else has. One of my favorite uses for Facebook is to connect with friends from yester-year and catch up with what they’re doing, who they’re spending their time with and getting a real answer to a question that is all too often brushed over, “How are you doing?” You can get all kinds of information about people on Facebook, but I think to answer the question, “How are you?” you have to go to the pictures. That’s where I find a friend who I last saw cooped up in a study carol at the library, stressed to the hilt, weary and tired from graduate school, now posting a picture of himself out with friends. He’s laughing surrounded with good food and new people. He’s rejoined the social scene and overcome the stress of grad school. He’s happy. It’s where I find another friend whose relationship status is married and the name is one I don’t recognize. The photo I found shows him sound asleep on the couch, mouth open awkwardly, tiny little girl sleeping on his chest. He’s a dad now! He’s proud. He’s happy. A few more minutes and a few more clicks would reveal more acquaintances, some happy, some sad, some in places they shouldn’t be, some growing too fast. I have to be careful though; I have to remember that a snap-shot is not the whole of who a person is. It is only a moment in time, a sampling of their life, only a part. I may very well see that person again someday from a different angle, at another time and things will be different, they’ll be different in small and large ways.
I wonder what it would be like to take a picture of God. If God is the same yesterday, today and forever; would we get the same picture with every shot? I wouldn’t think so. While God is unchanging; our experience of Him is always new. I think we do have a few photos of God to look at and learn from. It’s been said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but I would say that on this day, these words are worth a thousand pictures. Let’s take a look at one of those photos of God now. I have to warn you though, this picture isn’t easy to look at.
The book of Job brings us many startling images, things we don’t want to look at or even think about. It’s a story of a man who God allowed to lose everything. His considerable wealth was taken from him, his standing in society was questioned, his whole life turned upside-down. His faith, his spirit was bruised, but not broken and the heat was turned up, his health was taken. We get graphic depictions of Job having to scrape the infectious, pussing sores from his own skin with broken pieces of pottery while wondering what was going on. Job was in every way like a victim of hurricane Katrina except that he didn’t see the winds or the floods or the fires. He only knew that something had blown through his life destroying his entire world and he was left suffering and wondering what had happened. Haven’t we all felt that way at times? Aren’t we all in our own ways displaced, confused, left out, beaten down and sick and tired of being sick and tired. Job said his own anguish, if weighed, would be heavier than the sands of the oceans. His own wife recommended suicide, talk about rock bottom.
To add insult, Job’s friends decided to inform him that bad things don’t happen to good people. All this turmoil, all this calamity must be your own fault. “Dude, what did you do to T-off the Big Guy?” Theirs was a theology of divine retribution. God, in their eyes, was a divine punisher. Job didn’t necessarily disagree, but he thoroughly, earnestly believed he had done nothing wrong. His friends didn’t believe him. He didn’t know if he could believe himself. Job had to wonder if God was something other than what he had believed in for his whole life. He wondered if perhaps he had done something to offend God without knowing. He wondered if it was even possible to offend God without knowing it. He wondered. It was in this state that Job asked a question. His world was in shambles, his family gone, wealth dwindled, health failing, his theology –no- his faith was shaken, he was confused. He wanted to know why. Why me, why now, why God? As we turn the pages of the story we lean in to hear what God will say. We realize that the answer has as much to do with our own suffering as it does Job’s. Why us God?
It was the moment of God’s answer that someone popped up their camera and took the snap-shot provided by today’s text. Those of us on this side of the first Easter will expect to see a depiction of a God of grace. Perhaps it will be a photo of a caring father stooping down, placing one hand on each of his crying child’s shoulders, lovingly squeezing and saying, “It’s alright my child, it’s all over. I’m here to protect you. Rest child.” This is a God of peace, comfort. This is Emmanuel, God with us. But as we look at the picture in Job 38 we’re shocked!
He’s angry with Job, He seems cold a bit hostile, distant. He looks at Job and says, “Who are you, do you even know anything!?” Something’s not right, where’s the comfort? He continues, “Get ready buddy, I’ve got some questions for you now?” If I didn’t know better I would say God is in a bad mood. The questions begin, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth, do you know anything about that? Who designed it, you? Do you even know who did? Better yet, what holds the world up? Have you got that one figured out yet?” In a pre-scientific age, those questions were unanswerable to anyone but God himself! So here’s Job crying out to God in anguish and need and God responds with, “Oh what are you whining about, you don’t know anything, but I do.” Job is put in his place, not comforted. God lets Job know how small he is and how Big God is. This is not God With Us, not Emmanuel. I don’t like that picture.
Shall we look at it from a slightly different perspective?
It wasn’t supposed to be a violent affair, but the best laid plans were shattering in front of my eyes and I was the guy in charge of regaining the peace. While I was a student at Baylor, I was a member of the Baylor University Chamber of Commerce. One of our responsibilities was the planning and implementation of the university’s homecoming celebration every year. The festivities begin every year with freshman mass meeting. The entire freshman class gathers in the main auditorium, Waco Hall to hear a heart wrenching tale that forms the basis of the homecoming tradition at Baylor. In January of 1927 the Baylor basketball team, or Cage team as they called it then, loaded onto a bus and headed toward Austin to take on the Longhorns of the University of Texas. The weather was anything but delightful that day and somewhere in Round Rock, the bus found itself onto a railroad track, but never made it across. Before the event was over ten men had lost their lives. Some of them were killed, legend tells us, pushing friends through windows to safety. At Freshman Mass Meeting, the stories of each of the ten are told and then as a small, oil lantern is walked onto the platform and a charge is given to this new class. Their job from this Wednesday evening until Friday evening is to protect this “eternal flame” which symbolizes those immortal ten, while building the bonfire which would be ignited Friday night from this very flame. The symbolism is that the Baylor family unites around the principles exuded by those ten men, sacrifice, Christian love for one another. Immediately following the meeting the freshmen are given the flame, which is carried to the center of campus where a human hedge of protection will be formed around the flame and bonfire construction will begin. In the 48 hours to follow all upper classmen symbolize the trials that test Baylor unity. The symbol is profound, but the activity is playful. Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors at all hours of the night and day barrage the flame guardians with water balloons and super soakers putting the newest members of the Baylor family to the test. The idea is to mount the best attack possible and then step away in admiration and gratitude for those who protect the Baylor tradition. At least, that’s the way it’s supposed to go.
I found myself, a sophomore and first year member of the Baylor Chamber of Commerce holding the graveyard shift watching over the flame protectors and taking care of their needs should any arise. I knew it would be an eventful night as this crew of freshmen appeared to be fiercely competitive. Sometime in the wee hours of the morning a rather large, unruly and most likely intoxicated group of upper classmen who apparently did not understand the tradition came storming from behind a nearby fountain and then more from behind the science building behind us. We were surrounded in all directions. I felt like I was in an old war movie, Flaming arrows were replaced with water balloons as the initial volley came in. War cries were replaced with “Sic “Em Bears!” and other Baylor rally cries. The stillness of the night had been shattered and I couldn’t see how the flame was going to survive this attack. I wondered if the freshmen could hold. As the infantry soldiers approached I could smell alcohol in the air. Super Soaker streams rained down from on high like tears from the angels. In a moment the playful intensity changed like a weather vane flipping from North to South with the first gale of a coming storm. I heard someone scream in pain. He had been knocked to the pavement by a bull rushing upperclassman who had it in mind to simply snuff out the flame with his gloved hands. The freshman jumped up striking back grabbing a fistful of the assailant’s T-shirt and ripping him to the ground. Before I could think, upper classmen were reacting all around me, battle lines had been drawn in earnest violence now. Most of the women, the smarter of the genders, were running away. The more competitive gender stayed for the fight. In that moment I would rather have been anywhere else than in the middle of that crowd. Regardless, it was happening on my watch. The peacefulness and meaningfulness of an age old tradition hung in the balance and I had to fix it.
I started barking orders telling one to call security, another to go back to the dorm. As I reached for my own cell phone I glanced up just in time to see him coming. He had at least 60 pounds on me and from the look of him he knew where the weight room that I could never find was located. There was no question, he was fifteen feet away walking with a wide gate and a scowl on his face that would frighten most NFL linebackers. I didn’t know what he had against me, but he was about to do something about it. In an instant I decided to use the two sharpest weapons in my limited arsenal, my words and my pointer finger. Leveling the finger right in his face I said, “Stop where yhou are, go back to your dorm and sleep it off!” My dad once told me that shooting someone with a .22 caliber pistol wouldn’t stop them from coming at you, it would just make them angrier. I was pretty sure my finger and my words were going to have the same effect. To my amazement he stopped in his tracks and he looked at me as if he had just realized that I meant business and that he was about to enter a world of hurt. I’m not a violent person, but for the moment I was okay with the impression that I might be. As he turned and ran back to wherever he had come from I felt proud of myself. I patted myself on the back for being able to maintain an attractive but also threatening physique, I gloated over the fact that my “official event staff” shirt and walkie talkie earpiece commanded more respect than I thought.
The moment was short lived as I wheeled around to head for my next super hero appointment. Standing behind me was a calm, cool friend also wearing an event staff shirt. He stood about 6’2” weighing in around 280. Chris was a fellow member of the Baylor Chamber of Commerce. Relief mixed with disappointment hit my mind as I realized it had been he who scared away my attacker. Chris’s towering presence calmed the crowd and sent the rowdy crew on their way, but I will never forget that strange mixture of emotion. Fear for what was happening, pride for handling it, shame for being unable to do it alone, gratefulness that I didn’t have to. On that day I saw the picture of God from Job in the microcosm of my friend Chris.
I was in way over my head, world crashing down around me. I needed comforting, but I needed more than that. I needed Chris with me, but I also needed his abilities, his girth. In the same way we can find value in today’s photo. God is with us, that is, imminent, but He is also transcendent, that is beyond us. We need that too don’t we?
A God that is only imminent is no God at all. A God who is only comforter is little more than a divine therapist. He’s a cosmic dose of morphine who makes things feel better, but doesn’t actually make things better. Don’t we need that at times? But don’t we need more? A God who can actually make things better. Our Dr. Phil picture of God needs a backbone. We need to know that he set the foundation of the world and that He alone keeps the world moving. He isn’t controlling, but He is in control. When I turned around and saw Chris standing behind me in that chaotic situation it became very clear that I was not as powerful as I thought. It was humbling, which is precisely what kept me from trying to exert my own power further and getting us all into real trouble. Job gives us a picture of God that humbles us. It isn’t the picture of the softly speaking, lovable father that we all want. It is a picture of a Father raising his voice and demonstrating his power not to make us cower, but so we would remember that He is the source of all good things. The poetic list of things that God can do, but Job can’t is only a small part of the poetry. The lists continue with mighty acts of power that only God can accomplish and these are all things that He does in benevolence toward his creation, toward you and me.
So which will it be? Will you take your God from the photo of the comforting daddy or will you choose the boisterous cosmic power from Job? Fortunately we don’t have to choose. We have to be careful, we have to remember that a snap-shot is not the whole of who God is. It is only a moment in time, a sampling of his revelation, only a part. The God we see putting Job in his place is the same God who says, “Bring the little children to me.” He is at once humbling and uplifting. He is at once loving and powerful. He is imminent and transcendent. He is Emmanuel, God with us. He is also El Shaddai, Sufficient God; God All Powerful.
We satisfy our emotion to know that God will not always seem far away. Soon we will see a picture of Emmanuel, God with us. We will be comforted, consoled, encouraged. We’ll be able to feel good again. Until then we, like Job, ask why? We listen for an answer, but none seems to be coming. We think that if we could just understand the reason for our suffering, how it fits into God’s overall redemptive plan that we might at least feel good about that. That out of our pain comes some good. And so we listen, but we hear nothing. God seems so far away. This is not Emmanuel. We don’t feel good about this. Nevertheless we are thankful because the picture we see at the moment is El-Shaddai; a God who is doing something in and with and through our suffering. A God who can scoop us up and say, “It’s alright my child,” must also be able to stand in the face of all that wants to harm us and make everything alright. And yet a God who is strong enough to save us cannot do so without also comforting us. Today we express faith in a big God and we give thanks for the other side of grace.
-Brent
10/18/09
