Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4
Intro
Habakkuk is one of those books of the Bible that many people look at and go, "yeah, never heard from that one." This isn’t a surprise. After all, Habakkuk is tucked between the equally unknown prophets of Nahum and Zephaniah. They are not exactly heavy hitters, especially as Christianity currently views scriptures.
However, the question that is asked by Habakkuk is one that is asked by so many of us here today: why to bad things happen to good people (and, of course, its inverse, why do good things happen to bad people). The world that the prophet is looking at is one that is completely flipped from the way that he thinks it should exist. He sees the good people of God being inflicted with injustice and he is crying out in distress. He is crying out, "God, why would you let this happen?" This question is what we hear in the opening verses of chapter 1.
Beginning in the second verse of chapter 2 we hear the Almighty’s response. The answer that we hear is not meant to appease Habakkuk, or anyone else who asks a similar question. Instead, what we hear are truths: we hear that God is in control and that justice will be seen in God’s time, that the proud (who carry the banner for evil in the world) are lacking something inside them, and that the righteous live a life that is contrary to the ways of the world in that they live by their faith.
So the question for this morning is an easy one to ask, and a tough one to answer: when you see bad things happening to good people, are you going to live by the ways of the world, or the way of faith. The scripture reads this way.
Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4
1 The oracle that the prophet Habakkuk saw.
2
O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you"Violence!" and you will not save? 3 Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. 4 So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous—therefore judgment comes forth perverted.
2 I will stand at my watchpost, and station myself on the rampart; I will keep
watch to see what he will say to me, and what he will answer concerning my complaint.
2
Then the Lord answered me and said: Write the vision; make it plain on tablets,so that a runner may read it. 3 For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay. 4 Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith.
"By (Your) Faith"
By now, most of you know that this week has been a rather long one for my family. On Saturday afternoon, the 29th of September, my father, Ted found himself not feeling well. He was experiencing tightness in his chest and was having difficulty getting a full breath. He didn’t know how to identify it so he wanted to see if it would go away. It didn’t. After several hours my dad said to my mother, Kathy, that he still wasn’t feeling well. He described the symptoms and as he did, my mom said, "we need to call 911". He replied, "that might be a good idea."
So my dad was transported to Vassar Brothers Medical Center down in Poughkeepsie and after all of their tests, the doctors said, "let’s keep you here. We’re not sure what’s wrong with your heart, but something isn’t right." They kept him over the weekend and scheduled a heart catherization for this past Monday morning with the intent of placing a few stints to keep the arteries of the heart open and flowing. That procedure was supposed to take two to three hours. After 20 minutes the surgeon came out and said, "I was not expecting what I found in there. Your husband has one artery that is completely blocked and three others that are 80-90 percent blocked. We need to schedule an open heart quadruple bypass surgery." When I talked with my mom later that day, she was still struggling with the chance (however small it may be in today’s medical world) that her husband might not live. I can’t blame her. I was scared too.
Monday evening our family got together in a waiting room on the second floor cardiac unit and began to talk. Dad talked very openly about his fears, and it wasn’t so much about dying as it was about not being able to live the sort of life that he had become accustomed to. On Monday afternoon, he’s mentality was screaming, "how can I live at 75% capacity. How can I do my job? How can I be with my grandkids? How can I really live?" The stress on his face screamed these very understandable, but very worldly thoughts.
There was a possibility that the surgery was going to take place on Tuesday morning. That did not materialize and the 5 to 6 hour surgery was scheduled for Thursday morning.
It was during that two-day break that an amazing thing began to take place: faith began to kick in, and trust in something greater than the here and now began to be exhibited. One of the greatest areas of this resurgence was because of the CaringBridge website that my brother Joel helped create for my dad. There was a fear on all our part of "how are we going to get information out" and "how do we set up a situation where we aren’t getting calls every five minutes. Ultimately we decided to put dad, just like his grandson Austin, on the web. By Tuesday at 8 PM the site was up, a journal entry was posted, along with some pictures. My brother Kyle declared as I came in the room that night, "it’s almost up to 100 visits. How cool is that!" People had already started to leave messages of encouragement many of them speaking to the supportive embrace that is provided by the Almighty. You could literally see the countenance on my dad improving and you knew that his trust and faith were beginning to lift him up beyond the life situation that he was sludging his way through. I asked if it would be okay if I could link dad’s site to Austin’s site. He said it was. That’s when faith took over in totality.
Over the next two days the site was visited an additional 1500 times with 180 people, from literally all around the nation and world, leaving messages of faith-filled support. As of this morning, at 8:18 AM, in only its sixth day in existence the site has received 2237 visits and 246 messages. I know that many of you have visited and left such notes.
I can’t speak for my dad, but I have overwhelmed by the amazing support that was shown to my father. I am amazed, not because I thought he didn’t know that many people, because I know he did, but by how the greater community of believers decided to stand upon the immovable rock that had been provided to them: they decided to stand upon their faith. The situation may have been serious and even frightening by the standards of the world, but by the standards of faith it was yet another opportunity to show how God’s amazing presence is at work in the world. And as impressive as the science is to be able to perform such a procedure (and on such a regular basis), what was even more impressive was how faith showed itself to be a force to carry my family, my father, through a tough spot.
This trust is what is being spoken of to Habakkuk in our passage this morning. God is able to admit that bad things do happen to good people. It is part of the world. But what separates the people of the world and the people of God is how their spirit exhibits itself in the midst of those bad situations. We hear that the spirit of the people of the world (of the proud) is not right, while the spirit of the people of God (the righteous) live by their faith.
Bad things happen to good people. What we must always remember is that as Christians, as believers in the Creator of all, we have a choice as to how we live. We can live by the standards of the world (a standard that says its all about us, about how much money, power, or influence we have, and how much we are in charge), or we can live by the standard of faith, the standard of not just believing that God can, but knowing that God will (of knowing that God is in charge).
Can this place of faith be an incredibly difficult place to stand? Absolutely. When you’re standing in the valley of the shadow of death it is tough to believe, its tough to know that God is with you. And yet, that is the life that the Almighty called Habakkuk, calls us to live out.
It is in those times when you are walking through that valley that you need to lean upon the faith of those who are around you. And if you don’t have those sorts of individuals, those people of faith, then you better start to look at how you pick your friends because one of the greatest ways to stand up in those times of trial is by leaning on the power of God through the people who are closest to you.
The righteous live by their faith. You are to live by your faith. This does not mean that the righteous (that you, the people of God) have it easy. We all know we do not. And yet, in the midst of the pain of the world we, as a people of faith, are able to stay standing, believing that not only can God help us in our every need, but knowing that God will. Stand upon your faith, and when you can’t stand on your own, learn, as my family was able to understand once again, that we need to lean upon the supportive power of God as felt through those of faith who are around you.
Where are you going to stand? I hope and pray that you will stand and live by your faith!
After Sermon Prayer
Gracious Lord, all of us experience periods of our life where we feel like the ground is slipping out from underneath us. God, in these moments, help us to place our trust in our faith in You, and if not that, then the faith of others as You work through them to lift us to the restoration of a new day. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.