Proper 7B (Pentecost 5 2024)

Text: “41 And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”” (Mark 4:41).

Today we try to come to grips with the strange wisdom of God. No, this is not a fun topic. But it is, obviously, necessary.

Have you ever read the book of Job? Do you know what it’s about? If I made you answer that question, you would probably say that it’s about a man going through great suffering. That’s kind of true. That’s the starting point. But it’s 42 chapters long. All of his suffering happens in chapters 1 and 2. All of it. His children are all killed; everything he has is stolen from him; he, himself, is struck with an agonizing illness of some kind. But that is all in chapters 1 and 2. The book goes on for forty more chapters. There is no new suffering added to Job. So what is the book of Job about?

Those forty remaining chapters consist of Job and three friends arguing over why God has allowed Job to suffer. Is Job suffering because God is punishing him? Or is Job really innocent, like he insists? That is what the book of Job is about: why does God allow suffering? They are trying to come to grips with the strange wisdom of God. Today is a good opportunity for you and me to try to do the same.

In this morning’s reading from the book of Job, we get part of the answer. After listening to their argument from chapter 3 to chapter 37, God weighs in. Although He does not really explain Himself, He does respond. His response, in essence, is “Deal with it.” You are demanding to know why this is happening to you? You’re even going to question the logic— the wisdom!— of what I’m doing. “Perhaps I know a little bit more than you know,” He says. “I am God; you are not.”

“Do you really want to argue this with me? Ok then. Let’s start here. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? You’re so smart: tell me. Who determined its measurements? Who stretched the line upon it? Who laid its cornerstone? You know all these things, right?” The implication is that, until you have that kind of knowledge, let alone wisdom, you’re not even close to qualified to have that discussion.

Job and his friends are left trying to come to grips with the strange wisdom of God.

And then there are the 12 apostles in the boat, nearly drowning in a vicious storm. Jesus is sound asleep through it all. When they finally wake Him to ask for His help, He scolds them for their lack of faith.

“Who is this, that even the wind and the waves obey Him?” The apostles are left trying to come to grips with the strange wisdom of God.

The strange wisdom of God can be amusing. Some day God may explain to you what, exactly, He was thinking when He created the duck-billed platypus. That seems like an explanation you will not want to miss. The strange wisdom of God can be very amusing.

But it certainly was not amusing to Job; it was not amusing to the apostles; it is not normally amusing to you. It is not funny at all. Most of the time, you’re left pleading for some explanation. You spend hours crying out to God with some form of “Do you not care that we are perishing?” Because this is not an academic discussion.

This is not a question that is only debated in lecture halls and written about in long essays. You wrestle with this strange wisdom of God just about every day. You wrestle with it as you watch your spouse walk out the door for the final time; you wrestle with it as you watch your child walking further and further away from the faith; you wrestle with it as evil people constantly seem to be getting the upper hand on you and robbing you of the things you care about; you wrestle with it while sitting at the hospital bed of a loved one. And, sometimes, at their graveside.

Why is God allowing this to happen? Is he punishing you? Is that what this is all about? Is He sleeping? Is He distracted?

It’s nice that God has a plan. But how often does it seem like He really doesn’t? How often has it just seemed like a really, really bad plan?

When you try to console yourself with the prayer, “Thy will be done,” is it genuine? Or are you trying to convince yourself? Or is it, perhaps, something pious that you do in order to try to stifle the bitter resentment?

You are left— and often it feels like it’s just you, all alone— you are left trying to come to grips with the strange wisdom of God. Why would He permit these things? Why does it seem like He’s not doing anything?

And the apostles were not wrong. There are the times when this strange wisdom of God is simply terrifying.

You’ve all heard of C.S. Lewis. He wrote The Chronicles of Narnia, for example. He wrote quite a bit more, as well, including non-fiction books. One of the most powerful is a book called, “A Grief Observed.” He wrote it immediately after the death of his wife. It was sort of a diary of what had to be one of the most agonizing times in his life.

Ironically, her name was ‘Joy’. He had watched Joy die over the course of several months. As he described it, “month by month and week by week [God] broke her body on the wheel [while] she still wore it” (Lewis, C.S. “A Grief Observed.” Harper Studio, San Francisco, 1994. p. 60.). It was not an easy death.

At one point in the book he wrote about this crisis of faith. He said that he did not think that there was any danger of him ceasing to believe in God. He saw a different danger.

“The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not, ‘So there’s no God after all,’ but ‘So this is what God’s really like. Deceive yourself no longer.’” (Ibid. p. 23.)

Really, what do you when life feels like torture— not just for you, but for those you love? When that happens, it seems like we’re stuck. There is no easy way out of that fear, even if you trust that God is good. Lewis pointed out that a perfectly good God is not any less terrifying than the idea that God is a “Cosmic Sadist.”

“What do people mean when they say, ‘I am not afraid of God because I know He is good’?” Lewis wrote. “Have they never been to a dentist?” (Ibid. p. 61).

Think about it: how absurd would it be to say, “I’m not worried about all the scraping and poking and drilling and stabbing with needles. My dentist is good— he cares about his patients”?

Lewis actually goes a step further and points out that, logically, it makes no sense to even try to pray.

The more we believe that God hurts only to heal, the less we can believe that there is any use in begging for tenderness. A cruel [god] might be bribed— [he] might grow tired of his vile sport— [he] might have a temporary fit of mercy.… But suppose that what you are up against is a surgeon whose intentions are wholly good. The kinder and more conscientious [that surgeon] is, the more [relentlessly] he will go on cutting. If he yielded to your [pleas], if he stopped before the operation was complete, all the pain up to that point would have been useless. …The [fact is, the] tortures occur….

[Whether God is ‘good’ or God is a ‘Cosmic Sadist’,] Either way, [we are in] for it (Ibid. p. 60-61).

How horrible is that logic? How horribly true?

There are times when the strange wisdom of God is terrifying. Times when everything seems to tell you that God is either a sadist or a surgeon who will not stop cutting until the job is done.

Allow Job to help you. Even though God’s response to him was, “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…?” (Job 38:4–6), Job knew God more deeply than that. He did not know why God allowed the sudden storm to kill all of his sons and daughters; he did not know why God allowed all of his wealth to be stolen from him; he did not know why God allowed him to be struck with an illness that left him in constant misery. But he knew God. He knew God as his creator— the one who laid the foundation of the earth, who determined its measurements, who laid its cornerstone— and he knew God as even more. “I know that my Redeemer lives,” Job wrote, “and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!” (Job 19:25-27).

Allow the apostles to help you. They bear witness to the truth that the same one who commanded the wind and the waves that night allowed Himself to bound and arrested; allowed Himself to be mocked and beaten; allowed Himself to be pierced by thorns, to be scourged by whips, to be pierced with nails. He never asked if God cared that He was perishing, but He was forced to cry out, “My God, my God, why are you forsaking me?”

The apostles bear witness that Jesus is the One “3 Through [whom] all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made” (John 1:3, NIV) and that He is the cornerstone of a new creation, “20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets… 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord” (Ephesians 2:20–21). Because His death was for you. Is God punishing you? No. He chose to punish Jesus in your place. He has earned for you, instead, every blessing from the Father.

He is ruling over the fates of nations and over the details of your life even now. No, you do not yet see everything in subjection to Him (Hebrews 2:8)— you do not yet see everything ordered according to His good and gracious will— for now, it appears that evil men are running the world and are controlling your fate. But the One who, for a little while, was made lower than the angels— namely Jesus— has been crowned with glory and honor precisely because He was willing to suffer and die for you (Hebrews 2:9). What they intend for evil, He turns to your eternal good. In fact, you will find, in the end, that even the worst suffering will prove to be light and momentary afflictions compared to the eternal weight of glory that those afflictions are preparing for you (2 Corinthians 4:17).

And is there a point to praying to Him? Absolutely! He commands you to! And, as if that were not enough, He invites you to. Because the One to whom the Father gave the authority to hear and answer your prayers earned that right by being willing to suffer and to die for you.

No, there would be no point in crying out to a sadist. There really would not be any point to praying to a God who was merely good. You don’t pray to a God who is just ‘good’. You pray to Jesus.

Yes, cry out to Him, “Don’t you care?!” If He could handle the thorns and the whips and the nails— who had the strength to endure the pains of Hell for you— He can most certainly handle your pain, your frustration, your anger. He does not explain why He allows you to suffer, but, in the depths of your suffering, He points you to His cross and reminds you that your suffering mattered to Him that much.

And He does not stop there. The One who hears your prayers— the One who had the strength to endure the pain of the cross— will hear your prayers and strengthen you to endure whatever He has permitted to come to you. Yes, God gives you more than you can handle. He does it all the time. So that you learn to trust Him. So that you learn to lean on Him.

Does He care about your child who has walked away from the faith? Only enough to suffer and die on the cross for your child. And His plan has not stopped. He still reaches out to your child in every conceivable way. If He was not willing to stop when He got to the cross, is there anything He will leave undone— untried?

One day He will, in fact, give you the final deliverance from suffering by taking you out of this valley of sorrow to Himself in heaven. Until then, in the fellowship of your brothers and sisters in Christ and in His strength, you will commend youself in every way: “4 …by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, 5 [perhaps even in] beatings, imprisonments, …sleepless nights, hunger; 6 by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; 7 by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; 8 through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. [You] are treated [by this world] as impostors [as hypocrites], and yet are true; 9 as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, [you] live; as punished, and yet not killed; 10 as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.”

But that final day will come. He will not let it fail. “25 [Your] Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. 26 And [even] after [your] skin [will seemingly have been] destroyed [in death], yet in [you] flesh I shall see God, 27 whom [you] shall see for [your]self, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.” [Our] heart[s] faints within [us]! (Job 19:25–27).

“Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” He is the One who laid the cornerstone of this creation; He is also the cornerstone of the New Creation; and He is your Redeemer.