Screaming prayer [Wednesday in Lent 3]

-~ -~ T E X T O N L Y -~ -~

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Job 10:1-7, 13:15-25

• 1 Peter 4:12-19

• St. Mark 9:14-27

 

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 1)

 

Who speaks to you, as we continue in His Book of Job heard, saying:

“I cry to You for help and You do not answer me; I stand and you only look at me” (30:20)

 

Ah, very familiar words, close to my heart, and even very Jesus-like, as we remember Jesus’s prayers from the cross of His death. For tonight we get to the heart of Job’s complaint, in his book. It is that he is complaining and he wants to speak to the manager. 

 

“Hear, O God, my voice of complaint” (Psalm 64:1) is actually a line from the Psalms and it is a hymn that the Lutherans have sung in the past. What this reveals to us is another aspect to prayer. It is no mere small talk that we are invited to God with, but actual, meaningful talk. Life and death talk.

 

Thus, Job reaches this point tonight, in our study. He has encountered God as his apparent enemy, when God initially attacked Job’s goodness. If that wasn’t confusing enough, all the blessings Job thought were God’s rewards to him for his life of piety, turned out to be the very thing holding him back. And last week, Job almost got some comfort from friends, but it turns out they wanted Job to just admit how evil he was, so God could change His mind about Job.

 

Overwhelming and crushing are those experiences. They leave little room for a man to even find a quiet place to think, let alone get sorted with God. So what is a crushed soul to do? Cry out. Scream and kick until you get what you want. Just as Job has been stripped of his earthly possessions, now is he stripped of his dignity.

 

Not that he is acting shamefully, just that now all he is is laid bare. Nothing is between him and the entire universe. He has been exposed so might as well use it to his advantage and let it all out. In chapters 10 and 13 we hear of the real, raw Job. When he was prosperous, he had self-control. Now in his poverty, he is ready to take God to court.

 

Look again at how chapter 10 opened up. “I loathe my life; I will give free utterance to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. I will say to God, Do not condemn me; let me know why you contend against me”. And finishing the thought, chapter 13:3 “I desire to argue my case with God”.

 

Job does not “behave” as some sort of pure, “Christian” man, here. He complains. He argues. He yells at God. This is an excellent understanding of prayer, for us, because this is honest prayer. We hold back from God, in our prayers, because we think we’re being humble. “Oh don’t worry about that God…” or “that’s asking too much”, or “even if I ask, God won’t heal or give”.

 

Job is finally being honest and God approves. Not that Job’s prayers before weren’t honest, its just that Job had nothing to pray for. He prayed for purity without knowing the full extent of his impurity. He prayed for protection without knowing the full extent of his rebellion. He prayed for rescue without knowing the full extent of his depravity.

 

Instead of the pious “lies” of Job’s friends, “it’ll get better”, “just try harder”, “confess your guilt”, the Christian is given freedom in prayer to tell God exactly how much it hurts. Yes, it is important for us to do better and try harder, but God can also actually heal. He can change things and so our belief, our prayers should reflect that. 

 

Unless we think God is too little? You hesitate to pray for healing, especially cancer, but God is the Perfect Physician, is He not? Pray for hard things, because your God is the God Who does impossible things. Things like the marriage of God and man in one Jesus Christ.

 

Believing that our Baptism saves us in that Union, we pray. We pray as our catechism teaches us, “with all boldness and confidence”. Not some boldness, all of it. That means being raw and vulnerable. That means speaking the awkward out-loud and saying the hurting things out loud. God is not holding back from you, so you should not hold back on Him.

 

He can handle it. He is God. Job says, if his complaint was against man, he would not be impatient, because people are people. He is impatient before God because it is pressing and because he knows and believes that only God can do something about it. Question, doubt, be angry, just be sure to return to the God Who Hears.

 

Think of it this way: it may be that prayer is not us trying to overcome God’s reluctance or to change His mind. But, that prayer is clinging to and laying a hold of God’s promise and willingness. The Lord has promised good to me and I’m going to hold Him to it.

 

To Job, God has seemingly disappeared. Job says in chapter 23, “Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his seat! I would lay my case before him and fill my mouth with arguments” (v.3-4).

 

Yet, even though Job cannot find the Complaint Department, his resolve is filled with faith. From 23:10, “He knows the way that I take; when He has tried me, I shall come out as gold.” Though Job can no longer “feel” God’s presence, he believes that God knows what’s happening and will still do His work of salvation.

 

Job plans to keep right on believing until God acts again. He plans to go right through the dust and ashes, until he comes out clean on the other end. His hope is that he will find that place where God is, to face Him, and talk with Him. His hope is in His Savior to come, Jesus Christ, Who both locates God and has the face of God.

 

Job is not going to listen to the devil who says curse God and die. He is not satisfied with the empty piety of “just try harder”. He knows sinful life needs a Savior, a Savior that takes away the sin-filled, onto Himself, and opens Himself to debate.

 

In Jesus, God has opened up the Psychiatry stand. He has laid the plan out for all to see. There is no secret. The rich can get into heaven as well as the poor. The healthy get in, just as the sick do. Jesus universalizes God’s favor, because God’s favor depends on Him alone.

 

Job doesn’t have to think that hard about what God is doing in his life, he just wants to. He wants there to be a reason when things go wrong so he can fix it, instead of going to Jesus. He wants God to be fair about things so that he can also be fair, instead of going to Jesus. Job wants his prayers answered by God, so that he doesn’t need a middle man.

 

Sometimes the best course of action is to just stay the course when you can’t understand what God is doing in your life. In order to get through the valley of the shadow of death, you have to go through the valley of the shadow of death. There is no other way. Head down. Elbows in. Knees bent.

 

That is how we get through to the man Who has heard our complaints, taken them to the cross, and changed them into eternal blessings for us. In Jesus, the entire plan is revealed, where Job only had part. God planned to love us from the beginning, He planned to love us in the moment, and He plans to love us eternally.

 

And the present is where it counts, so the cross of Christ is what covers the present. That no matter what we go through, God’s answer is the cross. The cross where we are paid for, saved, and redeemed. Job loses all, but all is paid for. Job gives up on all, but all is saved. Job forsakes his own life and birthday, but all his joy is redeemed with back pay.

 

For in Christ, God is not just restoring former prosperity, but restoring it to eternity. Though God hears our complaints, the Holy Spirit interprets them as cries for a Savior to intervene and redeem all the days that sin, death, and the devil have stolen.

 

Jesus says, “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life” (Mt 19:29). “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom 8:18)

 

So pray with Job, that you: “be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for all endurance and patience with joy" (Colossians 1:11) and “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer” (Rom 12:12).