Questions we have for God in the Attack on America
Job 1:1-2:13
sept 16, 2001
At 8:45 a.m. on Tuesday morning September 11th, our world changed. America under terrorist attack in a way that is ushering the US into the 1st war of the 21st century. Just as things have never been the same since December 7, 1941, they will never be the same from here on. "I looked at the television and an airplane was crashing into a building," Barry Bonds said of the SF Giants. "I didn’t know what was going on. I just feel for those people. I don’t know what to say in words." Today we feel for the people in America, today we pray for that nation as they mourn. Preachers throughout North America will be stumbling over words to say, I include myself in that company. I trust my feeble attempts will help you.
So many questions confront us and so few answers are available. As I watched the TV, listened to the radio, listened to people: I have been struck by the questions: Why did they do that? How can people be so evil? Who is to blame? Where is God? What can I do? And are we still in danger? Questions are so hard to answer in tragic times. But we ask questions nonetheless in the moments of pain and crisis.
If you were to take a tour of the Bible you would find that one book has a more disproportionate number of questions than any other. Which book is that? It is the book of Job. Job has over 330 questions in it’s 42 chapters. The first book of the bible, Genesis, only has 160. Matthew, the first book of the New Testament has around 180. And that’s odd because it seems that Jesus was asking questions every time he opened his mouth. Even the book of Psalms with its 150 chapters has only 160. So why does the book of Job have so many more questions? There is a very simple reason. It is because the book of Job deals with a horrible tragedy.
Here is what happened. Job is a righteous man. Greater than all others. A hedge, a barrier, a fence, is set around him, his family, and his business. Suddenly, without warning, and for no reason other than his being blameless and upright, his family and business is wiped out. In the middle of the business of everyday life two rogue groups from Arabia and Mesopotamia conduct a raid taking away Job’s livestock and putting his servants to the sword. Then his family is lost in a freak accident when a mighty wind sweeps in from the desert, strikes the four corners of the house, collapses it and all are lost. It was swift. It was unwarranted. It was unthinkable just like what occured in America on Sept.11.
Today, our very large neighbor, the US, their economy has been hit and hit hard, it too affects us deeply in Canada. In many ways the events of this past week seem eerily echoed in the story of Job. Why is there such a similarity between the events of Job and the events of our life this past week? It is because, even though 4000 years separated the two events, life, and I mean the things that make life meaningful, have not changed at all. Not even over 4 millennium. Today we can thank God He left us this book, we need to hear from God in this time of terror and mourning that has gripped many lives.
I. So what do we do?
We do what Job did when he learned of his loss. We mourn. He was silent when he received the first two reports that his business and livestock had been wiped out. But when he received the news that his children were lost… He got up and tore his robe. Then, he feel on his knees and mourned and worshipped (v.1-20): “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will return, the LORD gave , and the LORD has taken away, blessed be the name of the LORD.” In other words, everything that had meaning in his life was gone. But yet he comes and recognizes that God is in charge. Somehow, this has not escaped God’s eyes. In his heart of hearts, Job did not, as we see in 1:22, bring any charges against God. As he came into this world so Job felt he was leaving it: Barren and he feels the pain that death and sorrow can bring. And it is so right to mourn and mourn by pouring out our brokeness barrenness, emptiness, hurts and pains before God. It is so right to worship, to tear the robes, shave the head, be mournful and yet it is all about worship.
As the news poured in, we learned that many children of our country were lost: Dads, moms, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends. The news has shown their faces and told their stories and the mourning has rippled across the country. We mourn for every family lost. Every family that is torn apart. We weep for the Americans not because it has been weakened and therefore Canada is threatened and we feel vulnerable. No, we mourn because of the loss of human lives. We mourn because there is real evil that exists, We mourn because this world that we have built up with our hedges, our fences, has proven to be vulnerable and we need for God to understand the pain. Does mourning demoralize and paralyze and say we have given up? No, it does not. It rather undergirds our strength and reveals our soul. That we are people connected to each other, in the family of humanity, there is something of the image of God in us all, that reaches out to the Divine and pulls us together and we recognize, in our pain, somehow there is something bigger than us, in fact Someone watching over us.
The world of pro sports stopped and mourned, MLB, NFL, PGA cancelled their games, I think that’s right to do.
2:13 we read “They sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was great.” That’s a long time to sit and mourn, isn’t it. Gotta admire them. And so we need to mourn, it is good, natural, it is biblical, it is truly a way to process our feelings and to come to terms with tragic events.
II. Who’s to blame?
Now, after we feel we have cried about as much as is possible, we start asking questions. Who is to blame? That is where we stand now. The very scary thing about answering this question is that in this situation the implications are so profound. Our world is now so small. How we answer this question involves the world. Job had a hedge of protection. A barrier which God erected but then took it away allowing Satan to have his way with Job. It is the Old Testament’s way of saying even the most righteous and best of this earth are not immune to evil. Just because we are good Christians, it does not mean we are protected from bad. Well, not in this life, not on this side of heaven. The writer of Job understood this. But Job himself could not. He was too caught up in his grief and loss. Neither could Job’s friends comprehend what had happened. His three friends come to him and say, in effect, only those who have done evil perish. Those who are righteous are never destroyed. They thought Job had done some terribly evil thing and this is why he was suffering. God had lifted the barrier to punish you, they said. They are. of course, wrong. If there is any wrong theology in the Bible, it would be this, the dialogue of Job’s friends. If there is a wrong way to approach tragedy, it is to blame the victims.
If we think we are impervious to attack because of two great barriers God put in place—the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, we are wrong. Those are no longer barriers. Technology has proven those barriers can be removed. Our security does not lie in our government, for it seems no matter what had happened before with the other time the World Trade Center was bombed, they cannot protect us and our protection is gone. The Disney song was correct: It is a small world after all. A World War II Vet said, “Most of us think we can’t be hurt over here. But most of us who have been through it know better.” I have heard Christians say who have good intentions that this was God’s will and we need to have faith that something good will come out of this. They are wrong. You cannot pin this on God. We must learn what Job eventually learned. That as good and great as America is we do not have an exclusive and closed relationship with God. No one does. There is a third party in this world who at any moment can intrude. And Satan and all the evil he inspires intruded this Tuesday through the hearts and minds of ruthless men.
III Where is God?
There is a final question. Where then is God? Where is God when terrible tragedies befall us? Job’s friends are silenced because they are wrong. But, Job continues to speak. He wants to know why he has suffered. Why God has allowed this to happen. He finally gets his answer when God visits him from out of a storm and asks Job 86 questions. 25% of the questions in the book of Job are asked in four chapters where God is interrogating Job. Listen to some of the questions: Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me if you understand. Do you have an arm like God’s, and can your voice thunder like his? Do you give the horse his strength or clothe his neck with a flowing mane. Job is silenced and he realizes he is only a man, that he cannot possibly comprehend the meaning of the events around him. In the end Job repents in dust and ashes. So we cannot have all the answers, but realize that somehow God knows all, and still loves us and desires the best. John 3:16 says it the best:
16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
God suffers with us, or else He would not have sent His Son to a world that is filled with pain and suffering and to die a humiliating painful death on the cross. God suffers with us, as He left us the book of Job so we can put to words our grief and questions, and pain.
Let me quote Romans 8:31 ff. (NLT):
31 What can we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? 32 Since God did not spare even his own Son (i.e. consequence of world mad with evil and sin) but gave him up for us all, won’t God, who gave us Christ, also give us everything else?
33 Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? Will God? No! He is the one who has given us right standing with himself. 34 Who then will condemn us? Will Christ Jesus? No, for he is the one who died for us and was raised to life for us and is sitting at the place of highest honor next to God, pleading for us (I like that God is praying for us even now.)
35 Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or are hungry or cold or in danger or threatened with death? 36 (Even the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”) 37 No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.
38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can’t, and life can’t. The angels can’t, and the demons can’t. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can’t keep God’s love away. 39 Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Where was God this week? Hear me now. God was not in the cockpit of those four planes. I’ll tell where God has been. He has been in the fireman’s suit. Behind police badges. Holding a scalpel and a syringe. He is near the heart of all who in the face of this tragedy love their neighbor and turn to God in repentance--those who in the ashes of these last few days turn to him, not for answers, but because in the end tragedies teach us that we are mortal. And as mortals it is only natural for us to ask questions. Lift your eyes and trust today in God’s unending commitment to you. Today, I trust you know in your hearts that Christ’s love can’t depart from you. One of my favorite verses is Is.54:10: Though the mountains may depart and the hills may be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed says the Lord who has compassion on you.
What should we do? We should mourn, yes, but we should also rebuild and we should start as soon as we honor in death those who have fallen. If you have never worshipped God, I trust you will do that today. Will u worship Him with the depth of feeling that comes from the shock and the pain of evil visited upon us.
Who is to blame? Those of us who stand with faith in Christ, know that before God we are justified by faith in Christ who shed His blood and suffered died to redeem us. Before God we are spotless, holy and right. In short, there are Christians there who perished and have done nothing wrong to warrant such atrocities, just as Job but they were visited upon by Satan and evil. We are not immune to suffering and evil while we are here. This is the work of evil men inspired by the devil.
Where is God? He is here. He will never forsake us.
FROM PRESIDENT BUSH’S SEPTEMBER 11TH ADDRESS TO THE NATION
“Tonight I ask for your prayers for all those who grieve, for the children whose worlds have been shattered, for all whose sense of safety and security has been threatened. And I pray they will be comforted by a power greater than any of us spoken through the ages in Psalm 23: ‘Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I FEAR NO EVIL FOR YOU ARE WITH ME.’”
For God has said,
“I will never fail you.
I will never forsake you.”
6 That is why we can say with confidence,
“The Lord is my helper,
so I will not be afraid.
What can mere mortals do to me?” Heb.13:5-6 (NLT)
Next week, I will dealing with the question of how to live with terror based on Daniel 3. I trust you will come back next week. God bless you and may God help us as Canadians to pray for healing in the US.
Credit: I relied on Rev. Brett Blair for help and his ideas in getting this sermon to you.
