November 30 -- First Sunday of Advent, Habakkuk

I know I shared this story in the summer, but I can’t help but think of it, and share it again with you now as we reflect on our text for today from the book of Habakkuk.

It’s the true story of a pastor, who suffered deeply, in his wife’s recent fight with a brain tumor.  The road was long, still is, she survived the operations, but life is difficult.  And when asked what he makes of all this -- the good pastor says calmly and honestly, “You know, its as if I’ve been preparing for this my entire life.”  In other words all the years of church: all the studying, all the worship, the prayers, the songs, the living among his community -- through their joys and sorrows, the ho-hum days, the the intense days -- all of it.  Preaching year after year that God is a God of compassion and forgiveness, that God chose to come to earth in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, that God gets close to us in our pain and our suffering.  All those good, happy and healthy years of proclaiming that good news -- he realized -- were preparing him for the challenges of the day, for the illness of his beloved spouse, for the doubts and the anger that inevitably creep in.  

I imagine he too had moments -- as we all can -- of wanting to cry out to God, “Oh God, why are you silent?  Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble?  How long shall I cry to you for help, and you will not listen?”  Why, why, why? [pause]

Katie, our 5-year-old has been talking a lot lately about God, in everyday life.  She openly prays to God to get things that she wants.  The other day, she was hoping Mommy would let her and Micah watch one more 20 minute episode of her favorite show, and I heard her say to Micah, “Micah, just pray to God, and God will give us whatever we want.  [looking up to heaven] Please God, let Mommy say ‘yes’, let Mommy say ‘yes’.”  I offer that image as a contrast.

Here is a child (who I love like crazy), but a child who has not yet had a lifetime to prepare, to train, to live by faith.  She’s still working through how God’s presence is real.  And that’s wonderful.  I hope she works through God’s existence and blessings in her life...even and especially when bad things come her way, even when the answer about a TV show and many other things is a resounding no.

Sometimes that’s all it takes, even for us adults, to give up on God.  “I asked God, and God said no.  Look!  See:  no fruit on the vines, the flock is cut off from the fold, the fig tree does not blossom.  See?!”  

As if faith were that simple: a quick and easy answer.  The answer I want.  

The prophet Habakkuk starts with that demand and even anger toward God, but eventually, calls us all back to the truth: that faith is not a simple answer, it’s a whole way of life.  “The righteous live by faith.”  The righteous don’t answer quickly, “Faith.  Just have faith.  Just believe hard enough.  Just pray long enough, and God will make all your dreams come true.”  No, no the righteous live by faith.  They spend their whole lives in training.  And they remain faithful through it all.  They can’t help themselves...just like muscle memory in athletic training.

There are questions that may never be answered in this life.  That was the prophet’s experience.  Habakkuk begins in anger and sorrow and deep disappointment.  

Today is the first day of the new year -- in the church calendar.  And maybe, even as happy Christmas music plays at the mall and in your homes, maybe there is a part of you that begins, like Habakkuk, in anger or sorrow or deep disappointment too.  I wonder if one of the reasons those-of-us-who-do get so excited this time of year is because there is such great distraction to drown out our deep angers, and fears and sorrows.  So much decking the halls, sprinkling the sugar, chiming the bells, lighting the candles, making the plans, wrapping the gifts this is a time to run and deny the deepest anxieties of our souls.  (And the denial, I actually think, is healthy to some extent.  It’s a part of grief and loss.)

But, here at church, here among the faithful, the prophet pops that bubble, and is straightforward and honest before God.  

It’s a stark message, this first, peaceful Sunday of Advent.  But thank God for it.  Because to get to the joy of the Christ child, we have to be honest about where we begin.  [pause]  And so many of us do indeed begin sitting in some kind of darkness.  

But as the prophet proclaims, “The people who sit in darkness have seen a great light.”  

“Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation.  God...is my strength, he makes my feet like the feet of a deer.”

Sisters and brothers in Christ, we are still in training for these challenges that we face.  We live by faith.  We wait for the Lord.  Here’s what Martin Luther wrote about this book of Habukkuk: “The godly people are waiting for the Lord; therefore they live; therefore they are saved, therefore they receive what has been promised.  They receive it by faith, because they give glory to the God of truth, because they hold the hand of the Lord.”  (LW 19:123)

During these days, God takes us by the hand.  God is with us while we question, when we stumble, wherever we get distracted, if we lose heart, as we pant for redemption and a new day.  God does not abandon us, and these are the days that we celebrate the arrival of that good Christ into our midst -- into our pain, into our lives.  We need not fear, for we live by faith.  God calls us righteous, sisters and brothers in Christ.  And so we live by faith.  Faith is that gift, remember, given to us in our baptisms, and now we can spend the rest of our lives living by that faith.  Now we spend the rest of our lives unwrapping that gift of faith.  

God takes our fears, 
God wipes our tears, and 
God holds our hand as we move forward through the years.  TBTG for this gift of faith.  
TBTG for this day of grace.
AMEN.