Consider the Whirlwind (Oct 13)

Reading, Job 38:1-11, 34-41, 40:1-9 
Image, John Ross, The morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. (1960)

 
Last week, Job, stricken by calamity, demands God answer his complaint. This week, God answers Job out of the whirlwind. In between the story of Job is broken into a series of speeches. Job’s friends make cases for why misery has befallen Job. Most work along a logic that since the wicked always receive just punishment at the hand of God, Job must actually be wicked. To which Job counters with two points: 1) defending his blamelessness, and 2) reminding them that by and large the wicked receive no punishment, no justice in this life: They spend their days in prosperity and in peace they go down to Sheol. They say to God, ‘Leave us alone! We do not desire to know your ways.’ So, Job contends not only am I not wicked, but even if I were that would not be enough to establish that this is why I suffer, since it doesn’t seem like God has much interest in bringing justice upon the wicked.
 
Time and again Job’s friends offer accounts for what has happened (accounts, we shall come to see, will be condemned by God as false speech) and time and again Job rebuffs their words and demands God answers him directly. Again, this is a testament to that fierce, determined faith Job exemplifies (which we discussed last week) one which is unwavering in its belief in God’s sovereign power and in his own right to demand God front up.
 
And so, eventually, God appears. This is the first time we have seen God in the narrative since the two early wagers with Satan, and the first time that Job has beheld God since all this began. It is important to remind ourselves that the story of Job is not history or journalism, but a poem, a fable, a parable. A story constructed in order to address the reality of human suffering, of the incomprehensibility of evil and woe. So how does God’s answer from the whirlwind do that?
 
One of my favourite contemporary novelists, Garth Greenwell, opens his new book, Small Rain, this way: They asked me to describe the pain but the pain defied description, on a scale from one to ten it demanded a different scale.
This is kind of like what God introduces into the story, a different scale. Instead of arriving to tell Job, look, here’s what happened… all the angels and I were hanging out, and then Satan came in, and well, one thing led to another... Or, coming and saying, look, Job, your friends are right, you sinned in your heart on April 16, 4062, and thus everything that has befallen you has been justified… Or, coming to say, look Job, I know you’re upset, but this is the reason bad things happen to good people… instead, God appears in a whirlwind and says,
Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me.
 
Talk about a different scale? Job has been asking God to give account and God shows up and says, I’m the one asking the questions here: Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Not the most pastoral approach, indeed, rather accusatory. It is almost like if your new fridge was faulty and you called to get it returned and when you said, listen, everything at the back is freezing, the person on the helpline said, I’m sorry, were you there when I invented ice?!?
 
This moment was brought vividly to life in Terrance Malick’s film, Tree of Life. Early in the film a mother learns of the death of her son, and she utters, in desperate grief, Lord, did you know… where were you… what are we to you… answer me… and at this request the film goes back to the beginning of all things. In a near fifteen minute sequence it works its way slowly through the creation of the cosmos, the first creatures to populate the seas, the emergence and collapse of dinosaurs, only then it returns to the family. What this says is the only way to approach the questions born of this personal loss is to tell the whole story of creation. We are but part of this story, the story of all things which unfolded at the hand of God. Where were you, the mother asks, to which God responds, everywhere.
 
Many have deemed this is an unsatisfactory response. That God’s assertion of an eternal knowledge which trumps all temporal concerns is insufficient in the face of immediate, personal, unjust suffering. Job, it appears, does not find it wanting. He remarks at the end of God’s address, I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me which I did not know… Therefore I recant and reconsider concerning dust and ashes. Job is sufficiently awed, his grievances transformed and any right to further speech given up.
 
But even if we don’t share Job’s position (nor his eventual reversal of fortune), we might still consider the whirlwind. Because maybe there is no satisfactory response to the problem of incomprehensible suffering to be found anywhere else? Perhaps the point is to change the scale, and thus change the perspective. Because whether or not we have or may grasp a reason, suffering occurs, catastrophes happen, loss and grief are inevitable. As we say in the funeral prayers:
Give us grace in the face of the mystery of life.
Give us the wisdom that says:
‘Even if our questions were answered,
even if we did know why,
the pain would be no less,
the loneliness would remain,
and our hearts would still be aching’.
 
And so perhaps, this swirling reminder of the majesty of God’s eternal presence, power, and provision give comfort. The gap between us and God, the finite and infinite, the created and Creator offers a new scale. The speech of God offers us a reality where there is something over, under, and around all of history’s inscrutable, scattered moments. But not just a random something, for when we take the testimony of the whole of Scripture, then we see that the something (or better someone) over, under, and around all the things that we can and cannot see and comprehend is the God who is love. The one who heard the morning stars sing is also the one who hears the cries of the oppressed and acts with a mighty hand. The one who knows when the mountain goat gives birth is the one who found the slave girl Hagar and her child in the wilderness and helped her survive. The one who numbers the clouds is the one who stood between the accused woman and those bearing stones and numbering sins. The one who can draw the Leviathan out of deepest ocean is the one who descended unto death in order to triumph over the grave and lead us to newness of life.
 
Not a flap of a wing nor a blink of an eye has occurred without God. And while this does not diminish the pain of loss, the grief of suffering, or our rage against evil, it does offer us something. A different scale, another way of thinking about the pain of the world. So much that might feel without reason, might appear without logic, might defy comprehension, might instead occur within the world and history God creates, sustains, and redeems. These moments are thus not, ultimately, without meaning, not ultimately random, not ultimately finished… each takes place within a bigger meaning, a bigger story, one which has always and will ever continue to unfold within the sphere of God’s interest and love.
 
This, as I have said from the start, does not solve everything (perhaps, for some, it solves nothing). But the story of Job is not set out, I believe, to do that. The whirlwind offers a picture of reality in which God is present. It offers a way of living where history’s many moments of violence and catastrophe are not the final, unaccountable word, but remain open to the redemptive and restorative activity of God. This doesn’t mean we must accept all things as they are – we, like Job, can bring our charges before God, and we must act upon the earth to seek justice, peace, and restoration. But the whirlwind offers us a foundation on which our faith and activity might rest: that while much lies beyond us, nothing lies beyond God, and in this there is hope, because God is love, and love never ends: it makes all things new.