“Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: “Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me.”
Can you picture yourself going through what Job went through? With tragedy after tragedy and painful boils all over your skin. What would you do? What would you say to God?
With all of the suffering Job went through, he said many things… he may not have felt proud of. He cursed the day he was born and wondered why he was not a still birth. But he also directs his attention to the ways of God’s Kingdom. He lamented all of the wrongdoing and evil the unrighteous commit. And he pleaded his cause as someone who has stayed faithful in his life purpose.
Job closes out his speech describing the punishment he would deserve if he had knowingly transgressed God’s law, using the phrase: “If I have.”
If I have walked in falsehood, and my foot has hastened to deceit, If my heart has been enticed toward a woman and I have lain in wait at my neighbors door, if I have withheld anything from the poor, if I have raised my hand against the fatherless, if I have rejoiced at the ruin of him who hated me, or exulted when evil overtook him.
Could you picture yourself saying these things to the LORD? Have you ever thought to yourself, but I am a good person and wickedness is not ruling my heart? How could these troubles be upon me now? If I have done something to deserve this than so be it.
What have I done to deserve this trial? We know that the wages of sin are death. Yet still we wonder why now, why this trial.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways declares the LORD.” Isaiah chapter 55. The answer is that God knows why we face such pain and suffering, God knows those things we cannot understand.
We want to make the case for ourselves and put a lot of thought into what we have done right- ways we have followed God’s law. But in the end what is most important is not how much effort we have put into living our life well, not what case we can present before the judge, but only the righteousness of Christ.
Can you imagine if the LORD asked you to dress for action and provide all of the answers to the mysteries of creation? The law hits very hard and deep in these words, “Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” Do we ever question why things are the way that they are and why do the wicked prosper and we dry up? Have you ever questioned God’s love and care for you in the midst of a long suffering problem or struggle? Of course you have. In our state of sin, we all have.
God’s response to our prideful belief that we know it all is the same response to us: “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements- surely you know!”
The reading continues with further details of God’s creation, beyond what we can possibly know. Yet through our faith we do not need to feel worse and worse as we hear more and more evidence that we know less than nothing as compared to God.
Through faith we can see that through hearing about the unsearchable majesty of God’s creation we can Be Still and know that The LORD is God. As we hear these words about the foundations of the world and the morning stars singing together and start to let go of the burden and pressure we put on ourselves to make sense of things in our life and in our world.
We can let go of thinking we need to have everything in order just how we would like it to be or else our lives would fall apart. We can let go of the grip on life our sinful human nature holds and we can open ourselves to see by faith that Jesus holds the world in his hand.
Consider what it means that the LORD measured the length of the foundation of the earth and laid the cornerstone. The earth was built exactly how it needed to be in order to stay together for as long as needed, through the flood, through seasons and years and centuries, through a time period of thousands of years and counting until the time when the new heaven and earth will be created when Jesus returns.
Science has identified numerous factors that all needed to be fine tuned in the right way in order for life to be possible. Water is different than other liquids in that it is more dense in liquid form than in solid. As a result ice floats to the top of rivers and lakes and artic ocean areas. We may not think of this much, but if ice sank instead, more and more surface water would be exposed to the cold leading to more and more frozen lakes and streams making life uninhabitable.
If Saturn and Jupiter were not so incredibly large compared to earth it appears comets would make life on earth continually in peril. The strong gravitational pull of these large planets pulls in the most dangerous comets that would threaten life, like a mighty defense shield circling our planet.
If the moon were not the right size the earth would not be tilted by gravity to have 4 seasons. If the earth were smaller there would be a weaker magnetic field that would result in solar winds stripping away our atmosphere. If our electromagnetic force were smaller or gravity less, larger atoms would not hold together and no chemical bonds could occur. Only God knows the exact measurements that make our world hold together.
We have not been there day after day as the LORD has commanded the morning and caused the dawn to know its place- each new day a miracle of creation.
No, we were not there, but God’s Word is telling us about it, and the fact that Jesus holds all of creation together is a tremendous cause for relief and security. Pondering the wonder of creation and God’s perfect design can heal our troubled hearts and give us reassurance that no human words or knowledge can. We were not there, but we did not need to be, God took care of it all.
The LORD took care of it all for us. “Immediately Jesus spoke to them saying: “Take heart it is I. Do not be afraid.”
When the disciples saw Jesus walking on water, it was far beyond what they could ever imagine or expect. The one who shut in the sea with doors and said ‘thus far shall you come and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed.’ He who was there from the beginning told the disciples, “It is I, do not be afraid.”
We are no more righteous than Job, we also like Job need the forgiveness of Jesus that comes to us not through knowledge of how the universe is made, but through the gift of faith.
Like Job who looked to the promise of the Savior and said “I know that my Redeemer lives.”, we are invited by our Lord to look to his cross and see that no matter how difficult the circumstances of our life, God is certainly for us. God sent His Son to die for us.
No matter the hardship we need not fear as God’s Word tells us that Jesus is here with us: “Take heart It is I, do not be afraid.” By our human wisdom we often try and find security through the knowledge we can obtain. We look at weather forecasts, we read about economic outcomes and polls forecasting about the next election.
Yet our knowledge is always imperfect, and our knowledge is not what we need to put our hope in. Our needs are not met by the right circumstances of chance in the future, but instead by a Savior who reaches out his hand for us, who commands the winds and the waves, who has known us from the womb, and will see us through.
The storms of life in this fallen world come at us time after time, and sometimes it seems so fiercely! The scripture does not hide the fact that we go through so many afflictions. “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all.”
Although the storms may intensify day by day, we are indeed delivered from them in a way that the world does not understand. We are delivered through the promise given in our baptism, that although our human nature should fold under the weight of the storm, our new life in Christ grows ever stronger, even in times of affliction.
So that you can look at your week ahead and know one thing for certain: Behold I am with you, even to the end of the age. The risen Lord Jesus is with you through the storm, and he says: “Be still and know that I am God.”