Things Fall Apart: The Answer
In the Presence of God Questions Fade Away
Job 38:1-7, 34-41
Rev. Tim Callow
Preached Sun. October 17th, 2021
They told him it couldn’t be done. Job has spent the majority of the book outlining his case against God. How he was an innocent man, how God subjected him to grievous evil unjustly. How God even lets the wicked lead long lives of great success. He spoke of his fear in that encounter, that God would simply overwhelm him and not bring a satisfactory answer. But his friends told him God does not answer mortals. When Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar cannot answer Job, Elihu steps up the plate and seeks to step in as mediator. As God’s advocate he tells Job that he has no standing, does not know how he may have offended the Lord, and furthermore God would not answer him.
When has God ever appeared at the call of a mortal? Why would God waste his time with a sinner? Is the matter not clear? Isn’t Job clearly full of pride, and full of lies? And yet, miraculously, shockingly, suddenly, God appears in the storm. “Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you will answer me.”
Job’s request has been answered. God has accepted his challenge, and will now stand for trial. Now Job may be vindicated, his righteousness settled. But God’s speeches are the most difficult and perplexing parts of the book. God does not answer Job directly. Instead, God asks a series of questions. Questions about the creation of the world, the location of the storehouses of snow, the source of the rain, the power that binds the constellations. Questions about the birth of animals and their sustenance. In other words, God asks Job if he can do better. Does Job have the wisdom that created the heavens and the earth? Can Job judge the wicked and bind chaos? If Job is capable God will bow to his wisdom. But of course Job cannot do these things, as we cannot.
What are we to make of this response of God? Is God really answering Job’s accusations? Or is God just boasting? Is God overawing Job just as Job had feared?
I am suggesting there are two things going on here. The first is pretty clear on a surface reading: God is questioning Job’s knowledge of the matter. Job does not know God’s justice, or how God exerts justice. Job only knows human justice which is not exactly God’s justice. God is not bound by our laws and procedures. Job, in other words, has no standing before God. This is important because it means Job’s vindication will not come at God’s expense.
But I think the second thing that is going on here is more important for us this morning. While God is undermining Job’s case, he is also giving Job an answer. In offering his line of questioning God is describing himself through his actions. Who is God? God is the one who binds the Pleiades and Orion. God is the one who walks along the deep. God is the one who smashes the head of Leviathan. God is the one who makes sure the lions have something to eat. God is the one who gives the wicked their due. God is the one who holds off the forces of chaos. It is this God that Job has met face to face in the whirlwind.
What is Job’s answer to his accusation? The answer is the face of God. The God who holds all things in life, who fights evil, who will send his Son for our sake. In the presence of God comes the peace that surpasses all understanding. In the presence of God all our complaints are put in a new context. In the presence of God we are filled with hope.
God describes himself in poetry that we might have sense of the presence that Job knew in the whirlwind. That in his self-description we may have some sense of the one in whom we can trust, the one who we know in Jesus Christ. God does not give an answer because God does not need to be justified in his actions. But when we attend to God we find the answer that is deeper than our own questions.
The answer Job receives may not be entirely satisfying. It is more of a promise than an answer, more of an attempt to undercut his complaint than to provide any reason. But we already knew that God is too big for our comprehension, that human attempts to comprehend God’s workings can only limit him. And so we find ourselves embraced by the mystery, overcome by the presence. And in his presence all such questions fade away.