July 9, 2006

At Peace with God’s Salvation
Habakkuk 3:16-19

There are certain places that have a particularly sacred “feel” to them. I remember standing quietly inside the Church of All Nations, located in the Garden of Gethsemane on the eastern edge of Jerusalem. There is a large stone in the front of the church, a stone upon which Jesus purportedly prayed just prior to his arrest, trial and crucifixion. I can scarcely capture in words the thoughts that went through my mind as I reflected on Christ’s love and grace—I felt thoroughly unworthy to stand there. Similar thoughts and feelings went through my mind when I visited the Coliseum in Rome, where our spiritual ancestors were made sport of because of their faith in Christ; the graves of early Brethren in Christ missionaries in Zimbabwe and Zambia, missionaries who knew that their call to Africa at that time in history most likely meant malaria and even death—many carried their belongings to Africa in their wooden caskets!—and even my grandfather’s childhood home just a few hours from here in East Greenville. Sacred places, places that stir the heart and mind and leave us nearly gasping for breath. Places that overwhelm us and remind us that our own private worlds are but a small part of God’s expansive effort to bring all of creation back to himself. Places that help us to begin to understand the meaning of the phrase, “holy ground.”

There are texts in the Bible that affect us in much the same way. All of Scripture is sacred, of course, but there are nevertheless selected passages that we can hardly read without losing our composure. Passages that provide a glimpse of God’s greatness and our unworthiness. Texts that push us to the brink and challenge our convictions. Passages that leave us wondering whether or not we could ever possibly measure up to the standard expressed there. Verses that “soil our hands,” to quote the ancient rabbis, leaving us overwhelmed and speechless. John Newton, the writer of the great hymn, “Amazing Grace,” wrote about one such a text in his journal. Newton, as many of you may know, was captain of an English slave ship in the early 18th century. Following his conversion to Christianity during a traumatic storm at sea, he became a preacher and hymn-writer. What you perhaps do not know is that Newton vowed never to preach a sermon from this particular text until his beloved wife, Mary, preceded him in death. “I’ll never know if I actually believe the words of these verses until I lose her,” he said. “She means everything to me. Only in the unbearable event of her death will I know the full extent of my faith in God.” And the passage to which Newton referred? Habakkuk 3:16-19.

The prophet Habakkuk has been on a significant spiritual journey, and you and I have traveled that journey with him throughout this brief and, for many people, unfamiliar book. Habakkuk has been annoyed over God’s apparent indifference concerning all of the evil in the world. He has been assured of God’s involvement, perplexed by God’s response, warned of God’s judgment, and most recently inspired by a vision of God’s greatness. Clearly, Habakkuk is not the same person at the end of the book that he was in the beginning. Habakkuk had earlier brought one complaint to God after another. He was distraught, convinced of God’s absence, and totally fixated on the problems of the world. Now, he is calm, deeply aware of God’s presence in his life and those around him, and willing to trust the world’s welfare into God’s hands. And what brought about such changes? A genuine and unmistakable encounter with the divine. Isaiah saw God first-hand, and his entire perception of the world and his role within it changed: “I am a man of unclean lips, and my people are no better off. Lord,” he cried, “send me to preach to them.” Habakkuk has just experienced God first-hand, too, and his entire life is irrevocably altered as well.

Notice how the prophet describes his new worldview in verse 17. He makes reference to the two primary occupational options of his day. In the ancient world, nearly everyone supported themselves through farming or shepherding. You either worked the land or tended your flocks. Those were the alternatives. Habakkuk, here, imagines the sky caving in on both farmers and shepherds alike. Picture the farmer, tilling the soil and caring for the trees—hour after hour, every day. It is grueling, often unpredictable, work. Then, when harvest time approaches, he finds no fruit or grain. The fig trees do not blossom, and the vines and fields fail to produce.

Or think instead of a shepherd, searching diligently for vegetation for his flocks and herds and protecting them at the same time from unwanted predators. Suddenly, one day, the animals out grazing are gone and the stalls empty. One is hard-pressed to imagine scenarios more threatening to the ancients than these—it’s the great depression of the 1930’s and then some. What would a farmer or shepherd do in such a life-threatening situation? What would you do? Panic? Steal or cheat? Lose all hope? Abandon your faith in God? The younger, less experienced Habakkuk might very well have responded in such a way, too. But not now. Not anymore. “…yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation.” Habakkuk, in spite of the fact that his circumstances have not in any way changed, has experienced a radical transformation of heart and mind, a transformation that leaves his spirit renewed and his confidence in God flourishing.

A few years ago, I introduced you to one of my favorite writers of the past. Bernard of Clairvaux. Early in the 12th century, Bernard wrote a remarkable little book entitled On Loving God. In that book, he outlined four degrees—levels—of love that characterize the spiritual life. These levels of love follow sequentially, and the biblical ideal is that a person move through these levels toward greater and greater intimacy with God. As a brief review, these are the four levels that Bernard laid out:
We love ourselves for our own sake. Our natural inclination—the place where we all begin—is to think largely of ourselves, our wants and wishes.
We love God, but for our own sake. Here, as God pulls us to himself, we begin to love him rather than just ourselves. However, our desires and motivation remain largely self-serving. We love God because of what we hope he will do for us.
We love God for God’s sake. As we continue on the spiritual journey and increasingly realize that God is infinitely better than anyone or anything that the world has to offer, we love him more and more without any strings attached. We become detached from unhealthy connections to worldly possessions and experiences and fall deeper and deeper in love with God himself.
We love ourselves, but for God’s sake. In this fourth and final level, which Bernard suggested is a rare and momentary experience, people totally forget about themselves and are overwhelmed by an awareness of God’s presence.
Habakkuk, from all indications, has certainly passed through and beyond Bernard’s first two levels, and he now finds himself in at least level three. In verse 17, the prophet affirms his love for and commitment to God, regardless of what may or may not happen. “If my crops fail and my trees remain barren, I will still rejoice in God. If some of my sheep run away or my entire herd vanishes, I will nevertheless worship the God of my salvation.” Habakkuk, according to this testimony, now loves God for God’s sake. He has come to reject a theology, far too popular even to this day, in which God is loved because of all that he will hopefully do and provide for us.

It could be argued, however, that Habakkuk has in fact even reached Bernard of Clairvaux’ 4th level, that of loving ourselves for God’s sake. Verse 19, at least, gives the impression that the prophet is so thoroughly caught up in God that nothing else seems to occupy his mind. Not his own personal misfortunes. Not the corruption so prevalent among the people of Judah. Not even the threat of a Babylonian invasion. It is not, to be sure, as though such things cease to be important—they still matter to Habakkuk, and they certainly matter to God. What changes is the position that such weighty concerns play in the prophet’s perspective. Earthly issues and concerns are no longer the primary driving forces behind Habakkuk’s approach to life. It is no longer the surrounding conditions that determine what he thinks and does.

Several of us here at the church traveled to Miami last week to attend the Brethren in Christ Church General Conference. Every two years, pastors and delegates from our various congregations across North America gather in one place to worship, fellowship and tend to selected business items. On the last night of conference—Monday night—Ricky Bolden came to preach to the group. Ricky is a massive man and former offensive lineman for the Cleveland Browns who now preaches across the country. Ricky, in the long-standing tradition of Black preachers, took a simple story from the Old Testament—the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in Daniel 3—extracted a central principle, and drove it home again and again. The three “Hebrew children,” as Ricky called them, were caught in a terrible condition, about to lose their lives in a fiery furnace. But rather than dwell on their condition, they focused their attention on God’s position. “They didn’t dwell on their condition,” Ricky repeated again and again. “Instead, they fixated on God’s position.”

As Ricky wound down, he concluded with a simple but remarkable thought. When people dwell on their condition, their condition gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and God gets smaller and smaller and smaller. Think back to Habakkuk 1! The prophet was consumed and nearly destroyed by everything that was going on around him. But as we direct our gaze toward God, as in Habakkuk’s vision, as we focus on God, our condition gets smaller and smaller and smaller, and God gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Do you remember Habakkuk’s very first words in chapter 1? While consumed by his condition, he cried out, “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen?” Now notice his last words, words spoken with his heart and mind centered on God’s position: “God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, and makes me tread upon the heights.”

Habakkuk 3:16-19 is surely one of those “holy ground” passages in the Bible. It is the testimony of a prophet—a person like you and me, really—who was virtually paralyzed by the pain and grief in his world, a person consumed by his circumstances. You might be such a person today. You, like Habakkuk, can imagine various worst-case scenarios, too, can’t you? Death of a parent, spouse, child or sibling. Stock market crash and the loss of all of your retirement funds. Nuclear war. Or perhaps such possibilities are too far removed—too hypothetical. You are scared more about feeling unwanted, being rejected by your peers, or just plain losing your way in life. All of us, like Habakkuk, live with certain circumstances and fears that can consume us and even destroy us if we let them. The good news of Habakkuk is this: we don’t have to let them. We can choose instead to take all of our cares, doubts and fears and leave them in the hands of a powerful but gracious God. The same God before whom all the earth quakes longs to enable you and me to tread upon the heights. “If God is for us,” the Apostle Paul once asked, “who is against us (Rom. 8:31)?” The prophet Habakkuk answered that question long before Paul even asked it, and John Newton answered it again centuries later when he did in fact preach from Habakkuk 3:16-19 at his wife’s funeral. “If God is for us—and he is!—everything else will be all right.”