Waiting on the Vision

Habakkuk 1: 1-4, 2: 1-4

 

 

          Timing is everything. You hear that all the time. Timing is everything. There’s a lot of truth to that. In baseball, a batter must match the break of his wrists with the variable speed of a baseball thrown in his direction. If he is off a tenth of a second, he has failed. A skier hurls him or herself down a mountain slope at breakneck speed and medals are won and lost over a hundredth of a second. Timing is everything.

          History is full of last second reprieves from danger and destruction. Romance novels are loaded with chance encounters that change the course of lives. Everywhere we look, we see timers, from clocks to ovens to microwaves to appointment books. We seem to be a people who want to know when. We don’t have a lot of patience and what patience we do have is conditioned upon our contracts with time.

          The scriptures are replete with warnings about changing and turning back and repenting while there is still time. The prophets warned of it. Jesus talked about it. He warned us in parables and stories about staying ready, for when the time is up, it’s too late. Paul echoed that in his letters. Yet the Psalmist reminds us that “a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night” [Psalm 90].  Then Peter, the guy who was always so impetuous, echoes the words of the Psalmist, saying that “with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” [2Peter 3: 8].

         So with God, timing isn’t important, right? Wrong. Nothing could be further from the truth. It just that we folks down here don’t tell time the way God does. God orders the world, watches over his creation, adjusts the passage of nations the way we adjust our watches. It can be very frustrating for us to try to get his rhythm. We Westerners, especially Americans, are used to regulations. We always want to know what time it is.

          The book of Habakkuk is a pretty good example of what we’re talking about when we try to understand God’s timing. Habakkuk was a prophet to the southern kingdom of Judah, and probably in the sixth century BC along the time of good King Josiah. But Habakkuk probably also saw the reigns of Manasseh and Amon, who preceded Josiah. Under their reigns, the nation turned to Baal worship, engaged in child sacrifice, and in general became corrupt. Josiah turned it around for a time, but after his death, the nation quickly returned to its moral decay. Habakkuk lived in these times. The book itself is not a narrative or a sermon like so many others, but rather a conversation, much like the book of Job, between Habakkuk and God. Habakkuk asks. God answers. Habakkuk complains. God again answers.

          Habakkuk starts by crying out for God’s justice. Commentators call it a plaintiff cry. I know about plaintiff’s cries from practicing law. Every civil complaint is framed with similar words: “Comes now the plaintiff and prays the court.” The complainant is about to ask for relief, just like Habakkuk, who asks God: “how long shall I cry for help…Why do you make me see iniquity.” There is corruption in the land, and Habakkuk wants to know why God tolerates it. Then, Habakkuk complains. There is destruction and violence and strife and contention. And the law is paralyzed and justice never comes. Why, cries Habakkuk.

          By the end of this short prophetic book, the prophet has resolved to endure…to endure the wait, to endure the judgment. He commits himself, like Job, to rejoice in the Lord. Remember that phrase, for we will come back to it. So what happens in between the first and third chapters that causes so much movement on the part of the prophet?

          Habakkuk cries out to God in question and in protest. Don’t we do the same? We believe that the Lord is on our side, but there are many times we do not understand or we are hurt and we too cry out. This passage speaks to us because here is a prophet who cries out how long and why, looking for answers. He has not been heard, or at least, that is his position. Believers are promised answers and Habakkuk isn’t getting any.

          But God does answer. He speaks to the prophet, but his words do not soothe. God says he is doing a work in that day that would not be believed if told. Then he does tell Habakkuk. God tells him that he is sending the Chaldeans, i.e. the Babylonians, to destroy and capture Judah. This is not the news that Habakkuk wants to hear. And yet, Habakkuk does something remarkable. He complains, of course. He objects. He in effect calls God on the carpet, asking if God will keep on killing nations forever. He compares God and his nation-killing to a fisherman emptying his nets.  But then, the prophet does this incredible thing. He says to God: “I will take my stand at my watchpost…and look to see what he (God) will say to me.”  He is a watchman, looking out to find and discern God’s Word, not just for him but also for God’s people.  Habakkuk is hurt and confused, but at God’s actions and inactions—not at God himself. There is a difference, and that difference is profound. He understands that he does not have the wisdom to digest these divine actions.

          God answers again. He tells the prophet to write the vision, to make it plain on tablets. The tablet reference may be a cue to remind Habakkuk and his people of the days of the Exodus, of Moses and the Ten Commandments written on two stone tablets. And God’s answer is as mystical as his existence. It is not meant so much to be understood as to be obeyed. He tells the prophet that the vision awaits its appointed time. We have heard about appointed times before, like the appointed time for Sarah to bear a child, or the appointed time for Christ to come on earth. God’s vison awaits its appointed time, and so do the people of the covenant. Here we are again looking at things of the end times, the eschaton. When will God’s appointed time be? It will be at the end, says God in the book of Habakkuk. God says that his appointed time hastens to the end.

          Well, it sure doesn’t seem like haste to us. I bet it didn’t feel like haste to Habakkuk either, especially in light of God’s promise of destruction of Judah for its sin. If the end is the Day of the Lord, the end of the age, then we are back to waiting on the end of time as we know it.  And God tells Habakkuk that if it seems slow, wait for it. Not much comfort. God promises that the end will come, and he tells the prophet that between here and there, we, those who would be righteous, that is, right with God, shall live by faith.  John Calvin commented on the grace to which Habakkuk refers in this way: it is “that faith which strips us of all arrogance, and leads us naked and needy to God, that we may seek salvation from him alone, which would otherwise be far removed from us.”

          God’s message is far from doom and gloom. God goes on to promise that the Babylonians will be destroyed and that there will be restoration, that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. In a final statement of his sovereignty, God’s answer is this: “But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence.”

          And what of our prophet? Has he been answered? Have his questions been resolved, his complaints addressed? The answer is yes. For Habakkuk, his faith will be enough. He says that though there is no harvest, no blooms, no flocks, yet still, he will rejoice in the Lord. He will take joy in the God of our salvation, who is our Lord and our strength. The man has come from complainant to relieved. He has his prayer for relief answered in his faith. Remember Peter’s words? With the Lord a day is like a thousand years. Here is the rest of that passage. “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”

          I’m thinking about a few times in my own life when I had to learn to wait upon the Lord. There was a time when I thought I would be childless. Now I have four children and six grandchildren. There was a time when I thought I would practice law all my life. Now my office building is for sale. There was a time when God called me and yet, it is ten years into that journey and only now am I qualified to seek ordination. I too asked why and how long just like Habakkuk. Now I think I can begin to see. I had to learn to live by faith. I had to learn to wait upon the Lord—to wait on the vision.

                              The Lord is in his holy temple

                              Let all the earth---keep silence.