“The Hope of Horeb”

Scripture: Exodus 17:1-7

“Hope for the best, expect the worst, and be happy with whatever comes.” Have you ever heard that expression? Some of us may have even used it upon some occasion or other. Think about those words, though – what kind of hope do they express? The truth is that they aren’t very hopeful, are they! The “hope” is simply expressed as some subjective desire, with no expectation of a pleasant outcome. As a matter of fact, this phrase would encourage us to have a yearning for the best, but don’t expect that it will come about - the only certainty, the only expectation that we can ever have, is the “worst”! And when the best eludes us, just settle in and be happy with whatever you get.

The expression is, at best, defeatist in nature, and is not a worthwhile attitude for any Christian. We talk about the Hope of Christ. Is that a defeatist “hope”, an elusive “hope”, a questionable “hope”? Of course not! The hope that we have in Jesus Christ is a certainty and we can never see it in any other way.

But how about the Hebrew children? Was the hope that they placed in Yahweh elusive? Most of the time they seemed to see it as questionable, but only because they never quite came to grips with God’s all encompassing and undying compassion for them. Yahweh saw them safely through the sea, and then closed the waters up right on top of the entire Egyptian army (Exodus 14:5-31). When they ran out of food and were hungry, he would send them nourishment in the form of manna and quail – not once, not once in a while, but manna every morning and quail every evening, every day of their desert journey (Exodus 16:11-26). And then they ran out of water and got thirsty.

Read Exodus 17:1-1-4

“Expect the worst!” That’s exactly what Israel was doing – “We’re all going to die! Don’t you care what happens to us?” And just who do they direct their demand for water to? Moses! What did they expect the man to do for them? He wasn’t a magician, he wasn’t sorcerer, and he definitely wasn’t divine. Moses couldn’t get water to bubble up out of the sand anymore than the people could! But he knew that God could, and so he confronts the tribes with the truth of where their question is really being directed - “Why do you put the Lord to the test?”

But they don’t hear him, they don’t get it, and they accuse Moses of bringing them out into the desert (actually it was God who did that), and claim that it was Moses’ only desire that they should all die of thirst, which, of course, was never anyone’s desire or intention!

Didn’t they know that they were in a land that was filled to overflowing with God’s promise? And that his promise isn’t up for interpretation – it’s sure and firm. In God, “hope” becomes the expectation, not a simple desire. The problem was that they weren’t satisfied with having trust in their Lord – they wanted God to anticipate their needs and to proactively provide them. They didn’t want adversity in their lives, they didn’t want trials to come, they didn’t want to humbly play out the hand they had been dealt, they didn’t want to simply trust that the Almighty would provide for each and every need, that he would guide each and every step, and that he would do it at the very moment that his help was needed the most.

A man, returning home late one night, stopped at a roadside diner in a Texas hill country town to snag a quick cup of coffee. As is typical of many men, he quickly used all the sugar packets the waitress had left on the table for him, but wanted more. As the waitress came near his table again, he called out, “I want some more sugar, please.” The crusty old gal defiantly put her hands on her hips, leaned over toward him and snapped, “Stir what ya’ got!”
-- Howard Edington, Downtown Church: The Heart of the City (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996), 27-28.

Israel didn’t want to “stir what they had”, they wanted more and they wanted it yesterday! And that attitude has survived through the centuries, and permeates our present day society. John D. Rockefeller was once asked “How much is enough?”, and his reply was “Just a little more!” A Rockefeller can’t be satisfied, even with all that the Lord has already blessed him with? So why should we be any different? And the truth is that both Israel and we aren’t!

Where is the “hope”? Where is the trust in God? Israel had placed their hope in the physical world, and it wasn’t looking very promising. They had been crying out to the Almighty for many years, and he heard their petitions. But when he began the preparations for their relief, they could only see the probability of more pain and suffering, and they never heard the promise of relief that was already on its way.

Read Exodus 17:5-7

“Is the Lord with us, or not?” We might as well ask “Where is God in all of this mess?”, or “Why is God doing this to me?” That seems to be a relatively common theme for those who are experiencing some great trial – it certainly was the question that Israel seemed stuck on. “Why hasn’t he fixed our problem already?”

Why does God wait until the situation is so desperate that we tend to lose our trust in him? The Lord has an infinitely benevolent nature – why don’t we fix our gaze on that? I don’t think that it is so much that he wants to test our faith, as it is that he wants to show us what a little faith can do. Faith, just like Hope, is not a desire, not a wish, not a craving – Faith and Hope, for those who trust in the one and true God, must be an expectation. It isn’t a confidence, though, that we will never have a need, but rather that God will meet our every need, when it is needed.
It’s also interesting to note that Yahweh doesn’t bring the water out of the rock all on his own. He could have, but he uses Moses to strike the blow. It certainly is the power of God that produced the result, but it is through the faith of the man. God tells Moses “I will stand before you at the rock”. Moses didn’t have to do the work all by himself, and he didn’t even have to take the lead, but he had to take that one important step in faith – a step in expectation - that the water would come.

Mount Horeb is the mountain of Expectant Hope in God. And it would be proved over and over again.

Moses and Elijah are both strongly associated with Mount Horeb. For Moses, Horeb was not only the place that water was found, but also the site of the burning bush (Exodus 3:1), and the giving of the Ten Commandments (Deuteronomy 4:10).
For Elijah, it was the site of his crisis of faith, where God sent an earthquake, a rushing wind and an all consuming fire, before speaking to him in “a sound of sheer silence” (1 Kings 19:8-12).
- Homiletics On Line

When we look at our own church, this place of worship — our holy mountain, as it were – the place where we are rested and restored and renewed for this life, the same question applies. Do we see this place as our Horeb? Are we the “faithful” through whom God works many miracles? Are we the “hopeful” who expect to see great things happen when we reach out with the common every day gifts that Almighty God has given us?

The lesson of Horeb is before us today, and that lesson is this – “Hope for the best that you can possibly imagine, and then expect even more.” The Lord has proven this over and over - in Moses’ time, in Elijah’s time, in Peter and Paul’s time, in the time of the early church, and he continues to prove this in our time. But we have to do more than just believe and expect – we have to take that step in faith that places us in a position that is immediately behind the Lord. We have to be prepared to go where he asks us to go, to do what he asks us to do, to trust as he asks us to trust, to surrender to Christ as he surrendered to the will of the Father.
Romans 8:24-25 – “For in this hope we were saved, but hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not have, we wait for it patiently.”

That is the hope of Horeb. A hope that can not be seen, and yet is the hope that will save us. Horeb is the commandments. Horeb is our sustenance. Horeb is our assurance. Horeb is our trust. And Horeb is our patience.

Know the Hope of God that is in Christ Jesus, the one who is not only our Living Water, but also our Living Horeb.

"Understanding Job. Praise God!"

Note: This past week, we were inundated by flood waters from Hurricane Lee, so our standard order of worship went out the window, so to speak. We used worship to talk about our storm experiences and the damage that was inflicted on our homes and possessions. We used the time to consider how we had just come through a "Job time", and to see how we now understand the lesson of Job. It is also the anniversary of the 9-11 attack on our nation, which seemed to fit well with this new disaster, except that now it became extremely personal.

Scripture: Philippians 1:12-20

Paul had his "Job times", as did nearly all of the disciples and many in the early church. Even Jesus had his trials and storms, and Good Friday was his 9-11. The only difference is that he also had an Easter morning, and one day, and so shall we.

The message was informal and interactive, so it is not reproduced here.

And as an afterthought, the title of this blog is a reproduction of a text message that I received from a parishoner the day after the rains stopped, and he was able to get back into his home to discover the significant damage that had been inflicted.

Praise God Indeed!

“Lessons From the Whirlwind: Overcoming”

Scripture: Job 38:1-7; 40:3-5; 42:1-6,10

After taking 3 weeks to consider the struggle that Job went through, today we approach the resolution that he has so desperately needed. He doesn’t get an answer to his “WHY?” question, but he will discover that not only is the question irrelevant, but the answer to “Why” isn’t all that important, either.

The author Sister Ritamary Bradley writes:
“It is not why does God not hear me, but why do I not hear God?”
--Ritamary Bradley,
Praying With Julian of Norwich.

When you ask the wrong question, you either get the wrong answer or no answer at all. For Job, it was never a question of “Why?” or “How?” or anything else! It had to be a statement - his response to the struggle had to be the exclamation “Yes!”

A fourth friend by the name of Elihu comes to Job, and for 7 chapters begins to unfold the majesty of God to Job and the other three. He would be the last and the youngest to address Job’s condition and, apparently, the wisest. As a brief summary of what Elihu tells the others, it is this: “Job – you’re not as perfect as you seem to think you are. The suffering that you are experiencing is the pain of death that comes to all who sin. Relief and redemption from the pain of this life can only come from God, not by our own hand.”
And he tells the other three that they aren’t quite as smart as they seem to think they are. Not one of them has proven Job wrong, and none of them has truly answered Job’s arguments. And regardless of how much they had to say about the Lord and his ways in Job’s life, none of them actually understands how just and powerful and all encompassing and magnificent God really is.
And Elihu ends his speech in 37:23-24 with these words “The Almighty is beyond our reach and exalted in power; in his justice and great righteousness, he does not oppress. Therefore, men revere him, for does he not have regard for all the wise in heart?”
When God knew that Job finally understood that, he began to tell the man exactly what he needed to know.

Read Job 38:1-7

Job was a righteous man – God told the Accuser that back in Chapter 1. But the man wasn’t perfect and suffering came just the same. But through it all, Job’s only plea was not necessarily for relief, although that would have been welcome, but rather that he might once again see his Lord’s image and hear his Lord’s voice.

God tells the man to fasten his seat belt and to hold on tight, because now the tables would be turned – the Almighty would do the questioning, and the man would give the answers, if indeed, he could! And the divine response would last for four chapters

But the answer isn’t the one that Job or the other four were expecting, and it isn’t the one that any of us would want, either. We want to hear that God suddenly spoke words of compassion and hope to Job and would immediately take pity on his sorry state and heal him on the spot. But he didn't.
As for the 3 friends, we want God to offer them words of condemnation and correction for the way that they treated Job. But he doesn’t. The words that come from God, basically, remind these men - all of them - of the power and mystery that is behind the very nature of his Almighty hand, and that there isn’t one of them (or one of us for that matter!) who has the right to question God’s ways; that no one can have even an ounce of understanding of him. He offers one point after another, and every one of them is intended to reveal the glory that is God and the miracle that is his creation. There isn’t a single word of deep theological thought here, and yet it lays out the Divine purpose in such visual and understandable way that it is unmistakable.

Job had been waiting to plead his case to God, and it seems that it is God who asks the questions and makes the case for Job! And the man and his friends sit in awed silence until God asks: “Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? Let him who accuses God answer him!” >(40:2) And then Job replies:

Read Job 40:3-5

Job tells the Lord that he has nothing to say in response. He’s starting to get it, but God isn’t done yet, and continues:

Read Job 40:8-14

I wish more people would consider these words and try, just try, to understand what they are saying to us. After all of the “Can you’s” and “Where were you’s”, and “Do you’s” of chapters 38 & 39, God tells Job that if he can even begin to do the things that the Lord has already been doing, then he will acknowledge that salvation by human hands is, after all, a possible and viable option.
But there are a lot of folks out there who don’t appreciate this fact.
They discount God’s solitary authority over control of the universe, over who will be saved, and over who can’t and won’t.
They don’t, or won’t, understand, that while the decision that they make is the difference between salvation and condemnation, it isn’t going to be based on their standards!
Salvation is not the default for our lives! The lack of a conscious decision will not bring about the desired effect for our life in eternity! Even Job the Righteous knew that he was incapable of controlling anything that God had made – items that the Lord has had power over and has commanded in every moment of every day since the beginning of time.

The renowned story teller John Henry Faulk tells a story from his early childhood:
While growing up with his cousin, Billy, deep in East Texas as nine-year-old make-believe Texas Rangers, they were the scourge of all bandits, robbers and desperadoes when they rode their trusty stick horses on the range between the kitchen door and the corn crib.

One day John Henry's mother sent them out to investigate a commotion in the henhouse. They cautiously entered where all the chickens were squawking and fluttering around and began to examine the nests. About half way through their investigation, as they peered into a nest, a black snake raised its head about six inches from their noses. John Henry remembers how all of their make-believe heroism fell away as they made a new door in the side of the henhouse.

When John Henry's mother questioned them about the incident, she wondered how the two bravest lawmen in East Texas could be afraid of a harmless black snake, adding, “After all, everybody knows a black snake can't hurt nobody.” To which young Billy replied, as he rubbed his bruised head and backside, “Yes, Ma'am, but they sure can cause you to hurt yourself.”

The struggle that Job went through, and the attacks of his friends, and the frustration that Job felt during those months of pain and suffering and agonizing hopelessness, was not caused by either God or the Accuser! God allowed Satan to take blessings away from Job, but the greatest pain came, not because of the loss of family or possessions or health, but because of human perceptions and attitudes and disjointed faith.
The point of the suffering, as well as that of the Divine lecture, was not to humble Job and to beat him down into submission. It was to teach a lesson to all who were involved – Job, Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, Elihu, and especially Satan the Accuser - and to grow the man Job into even greater faith and righteousness.
And it was successful.

Read Job 42:1-6, 10

The lesson of Job is not about enduring pain, and as much as tradition would tell us otherwise, it is not about patience! Job was not a patient man! It’s about living a life in faith that is so strong that nothing can come between us and our Lord. And in our lives, whether in tragedy or in joy, we need to claim the words that showed the world that Job had learned the lesson well.

“My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.”

Then God tells the friends that they have to go to Job to seek his forgiveness for all of the wrong advice that they had given. He knew the commandment “Whatever you forgive on earth will be forgiven in heaven ..” (Matthew 18:15-19) some 2,000 years before Jesus ever spoke them!
Have you forgiven your friends of all the hurt that they have brought into your life? And if you have, have you seen your Lord today? Have you heard his voice? If you’re not sure, then just look around you and marvel at the creative and restorative and redeeming powers that he gives to our benefit every day. Open your ears to the glory of a newborn’s cry, or a breeze blowing through a tree, or an unexplained word or sense that gives you the very answer that you need. Claim the forgiving power of God, and be part of that restorative work in our world.
See with the eyes on your face, and with the eyes of your heart; Hear with both the ears of your body and with those of your soul. Know, without question, that he and he alone is God, and that our very existence is based in his grace and his love for the likes of you and me.