Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

All Sermons are © Copyrighted and may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the express permission of the author.

We love little children, as much as anything, I think, for their sense of wonder. We hold them by the hand and show them the things of God's creation. "Look at the flower, Susie -- pretty!" And we see her eyes fill with delight. "Oh, look at the birdie!" "Look up at the stars!" A child will stop along the road to examine a stone, or an insect, or a tuft of grass, and each new discovery is a wondrous thing. We think we are teaching children when we show them things like that, but we may actually be teaching, or re-teaching ourselves. Because, unfortunately, as we age we lose the sense of wonder and become blaze about the beauty, the majesty, and (yes) even the terror of creation.

A wise man once said that if the stars came out only one night a year, we would all take chairs outside and sit up all night admiring them. But, because the stars are there every night, we take them for granted. Maybe tomorrow night we will look up. Oh to recover that child-like sense of awe, that wonderment, that utter fascination with the universe around us. When Jesus said we had to become like little children, this was part of what he meant -- that we should recover our sense of awe, and become (as children) wonder-full.

God's Majesty

In the long run, of course, it is not the creation but the creator who inspires awe. That is for adults to decide, not children. Job walks away, at the end of his sad ordeal, not with answers, not with explanations, but with a renewed sense of God's majesty. And it seems to be enough for him.

We can't tell the whole Job story this morning (although it is a great story). If you are the kind of person who likes a God in his own image (instead of the other way around), only bigger and better, you won't like the story of Job. You will hate the God in it. Not only because God allows Job to be sickened and impoverished and deprived of his family -- all because of a silly wager with Satan -- but also because (when Job's suffering is finally about to end) God scolds Job and belittles him because he had the temerity to question God's wisdom. It is not the kind of God modern men and women fancy.

Is God Worthy of Worship?

Job is like us in many ways, and God is decidedly not. God remains God. Job becomes furious because, in spite of all his righteousness, God lets him down. Bad things happen to good people -- and real bad things happened to Job. He asks a very practical question. Not, "Is there a God?" (Ancient people would not have asked that.) But, "Why bother with God? Why pray? Why lay sacrifices on God's altar? Why work so hard to obey God's law, if (in the end) God turns his back? Why keep our end of the bargain (the covenant), if God does not keep his?"

Learning to See God with Awe

Throughout his torment Job shouts for God to come down and argue it out with him. "Come on down. Roll up your sleeves. We'll step outside, and settle this thing once and for all." All he wants is a fair fight, for then, he thinks, the rightness of his position will be obvious. But God remains aloof, and Job's sufferings increase. Finally, out of a whirlwind, God speaks, but not as Job expects. Instead of reasoning with Job, God overawes him. "Where were you," God asks, "when I laid the foundations of the earth …when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?" "Have you ever commanded the morning, or put the dawn in place?" "Can you lead forth the stars in their season, or send forth lightning, or number the clouds?" "Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep?"
 

And this putting Job in his place continues for four chapters, until finally the poor man says, "I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me." And then these powerful human words, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee." No answers. Nothing is made clear. No reasons are given. But Job is lost in wonder. And it is enough.

The Spirit of Halelujah!

Some things we can know about God. Some things we can guess. Most of what we want to know is shrouded in mystery. But we don't need to know everything. Understanding is only one kind of perception. Saints sometimes achieve a very deep level of devotion and spirituality wherein they are satisfied not to understand God but simply to love him and glorify him. Notice how so many ancient Hebrew psalms and prayers end simply with the word, "Hallelujah!" "Praise God." As if, when you've said that you've said it all. The earliest Christian prayers, likewise. We still pray them. They don't lay out our problems, they simply praise God. They were created by people who were lost in the wonder of the resurrection. The Gloria Patri, for instance, which we sing each week, says, "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. That's how it was in the beginning, that's how it still is, and that's how it's always going be. World without end. Amen." That's all. Or the Sanctus, "Holy, Holy, Holy. Lord God Almighty. Heaven and earth are full of thy glory. Glory be to thee, O Lord, most high." It doesn't talk about us, it doesn't list our needs and desires. It establishes the relationship.

Face Down -- In Proper Relationship to God

David Simpson, pastor up at Oakdale Emory Church, attended the Promise Keepers Revival in Washington last month. "At one point, early in the afternoon," he told us, "the leader suggested that the men prostrate themselves, lying face down on the ground, to acknowledge their need and their proper relationship to God." David said, "I was on that little hill where the Washington Monument stands, and just before getting down myself, I looked across that huge expanse, all the way from the Monument to the Capitol -- and as far as the eye could see there were men, hundreds of thousands of men, men of many denominations, men of all ages and colors, lying face down, getting into the right relationship with God. We often use our bodies, and bodily actions, to express our awe and wonder in the presence of God. Some Christians cross themselves as they enter church, some genuflect in the aisle, we all bow our heads when we pray, we kneel when we receive communion, the Muslims take their shoes off. Signs that we know we are not as God. Rudolph Otto called God "the great mysterious tremendum." Karl Barth reminded his students, "there is an infinite qualitative difference between man and God." The root of true religion, historically as well as now, is in mystery and wonder. We cannot comprehend what God is or who he is. "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways."

Our God is an Awesome God

We bridle at a God who would lord his greatness over people, as He did over poor, pitiful Job. (And, indeed, in Jesus, we learned that God's greatness is not only a greatness of power but also a greatness of heart. But that makes him no less great, and no less different from you and me.) Look at it in reverse: if God were not greater than we, what benefit is he to us? How can he conquer death for us, or help us resist sin? How can he heal our divisions -- divisions between men and women, between generations, between nations and races? These are long festering wounds. We need God (and most assuredly a God who is not like us) if we are to be healed.

If God did create this amazing universe (far more amazing, we know today, than the Bible writers ever imagined), and if -- in spite of all we have done and been -- he has arranged for our salvation in Jesus Christ, and if (while he rules in heaven) he continues to create on earth, making all things new, then he is a God of unimaginable greatness, and our relationship to him must be an awe-ful one. We need to approach him in wonder, love and praise.

Appropriate Humility

In America, where the cab driver addresses the bank president as "Buddy", and the waitress calls every customer "Hon", we bow and scrape to no one. We fought a revolution for that. But impertinences which are accepted among men and women are not acceptable between human beings and God. We are not speaking of self-abasement. (Nothing bolsters self-esteem like faith, for it is not, truly, ourselves that we are esteeming, but God.) We are not speaking of self-abasement but of humility. Humility is entering God's presence recognizing that we are not the center of the universe. Humility is a natural and normal thing, like a salute, simply recognizing differences rank. Wonder and awe, praise and adoration, are the doorways to faith.