Finding God in the Storm
A sermon based on Job 38:1-11 and Mark 4:35-41
by Richard Gehring

            Some years ago, a devastating tornado made its way across the countryside of central Kansas, very close to the area where I grew up.  The tornado stayed on the ground for an extraordinarily long time, tearing up virtually hundreds of miles of farmland, destroying homes and generally wreaking havoc.  As the funnel cloud approached the one town, it was on a direct course for a Christian college  that is home to hundreds of young men and women. 

            Incredibly, just outside of town, the tornado veered suddenly to the north, sparing the college and its residents from harm.  And, although it did destroy numerous homes and businesses in town, no deaths or serious injuries were reported there.  There were many people, including some members of the local media, who saw the tornado's sudden change of course as a sign of God's intervention.  It seemed as though a divine hand had protected the college and prevented the likelihood of numerous injuries or even deaths.

            But I have to question that sort of assessment.  If God saved the people at the Christian college, then why not the little boy who was crushed and killed by the chimney that fell on him in a nearby town during the very same storm?  Or why not all the people gathered for a Palm Sunday service in Alabama fifteen years ago when a twister destroyed their church killing nineteen?  Or why not all those folks across the south last year when 57 people died in a single outbreak?  Why would God act to save some people from a tornado and not others?

            It is this same question of "Why, God?"  that I find in the two texts that we've had read for us this morning.  In the Old Testament passage, we find God responding to Job at the end of the book which bears his name.  Job at this point has lost virtually everything.  All of his possessions, all of his children, and even his own health have been gradually taken away from him.  His so-called friends have come to him with well-meaning words of advice and admonition.  But their talk, intended to comfort Job, merely confuses and depresses him even more.  They raise more questions than they answer.  And in the end Job still is left wondering why such calamity has befallen him.

            It is then that we read the words of our Old Testament text for today.  At last, God speaks directly to Job.  In the midst of a whirlwind, the voice of the Lord calls out and chides Job.  "Where were you when I made the earth?"  God asks.  "Who was it that separated the waters in creation and formed the continents?"

            This is, in fact, only the beginning of God's challenge to Job.  For four entire chapters, God storms on, declaring his wonderful works and questioning Job's audacity at demanding an explanation from the one who created and controls all things.  At last, Job relents, humbles himself and repents of his anger at God for the terrible things that have happened to him.  Because of this, God sees that he receives double of everything he had before his time of testing.

            And just as God spoke to Job out of a storm, so also Jesus speaks to his disciples in the midst of a storm in our New Testament passage this morning from Mark.  Having spent the day teaching the crowds, Jesus gets into a boat with his disciples and heads across the Sea of Galilee in search of a break from the throngs that have been pressing upon him.  Exhausted by all the demands he has faced, Jesus falls into a deep sleep in the stern of the boat.

            Suddenly, a fierce squall descends upon the lake and whips up the waves into a frenzy that threatens to destroy the boats carrying Jesus and his disciples.  Now, such sudden storms are not an uncommon occurrence on the lake.  But the disciples are unprepared for the intensity of this tempest.  In spite of the fact that many of them made their living on this sea as fishermen for many years, they are afraid that they now may drown.  Somehow, Jesus himself has managed to sleep through the storm until his disciples wake him up and ask, "Don't you care that we are about to die?"

            Jesus appears unfazed by the situation, however.  He turns into the wind and commands, "Peace!  Be still!"  And immediately the wind dies down so that they can make the rest of their trip on calm water.  Then, turning toward the disciples, Jesus asks, "Why are you afraid?  Have you still no faith?"  And the disciples, terrified by what they have seen, are left to marvel as they ask, "Who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?"

            There are some obvious parallels between these two stories.  In both of them, God's voice is heard through a storm.  For Job, it is in the midst of the storm itself that God speaks, while in Mark it is the act of Jesus calming the storm that speaks loudly to his disciples.  And in both instances, the message heard through the storm produces a profound response.  Job humbly repents and receives his reward, while the disciples are left to wonder fearfully about the true identity of the one they call "Teacher" and "Master."

            What, then, do these two passages say to us?  How can they help us as we face the many storms that blow us to and fro in our lives?  What is it that God may be saying to us?

            The most basic lesson that we can glean from these texts, it seems to me, is that in the midst of life's storms God is with us.  While Job loses everything of value, while  Job's friends spout off their ideas that God is somehow punishing Job even though he knows he has done nothing wrong, even while Job himself angrily demands that God explain himself, God is there.  Ultimately, God does respond, affirming that God has indeed been present and paying attention all along.  And when God responds, Job is finally satisfied.  Why?  God does not explain everything so that Job can understand it.  God does not reveal that Job's suffering is all a part of some cosmic wager with Satan.  God merely speaks; and that, apparently, is enough.

            In trying to understand what happens in Job's encounter with God, Margaret B. Hess, a Baptist pastor in New Hampshire, notes that, "It is not the content of the speech that heals him.  Rather, it is the fact that a God whom he had only heard about has now come to him personally.  Theological constructs are not the source of Job's redemption; rather, it is relationship with God that transforms his profound suffering. . . .  Best of all, Job realizes that in all things his path was held in the hand of a God who was waiting to take him in God's arms and wipe his tears away."(“The Labyrinth of Life,” Christian Century, June 4, 1997, p. 557)

            I see something very similar in Jesus' encounter with his disciples.  As the storm is reaching its peak and their boats are filling with water, the disciples awaken Jesus.  Frightened by the prospect before them, they ask, "Teacher, don't you care if this storm kills us?" 

            What strikes me about that question is that they do not ask Jesus to save them from the storm.  They don't say, "Jesus, stop this wind for us."  In fact, their reaction when he actually does just that shows us that such a possibility had never crossed their minds.  It had never occurred to them that Jesus' power extended over even the forces of creation.  So when he reveals that power by calming the storm they are afraid—even more afraid than they had been in the middle of the storm.  They had seen the power of such storms before.  But they had never seen a power so great that it could stop the storm.

            If we could ask the disciples why they bothered to wake Jesus up, I suspect they might answer something like, "Well, we sure didn't expect him to make the storm go away.  We just wanted some company.  We didn't want to be alone in the midst of the storm."  The disciples were merely seeking Jesus' alert presence with them, and they got more than they bargained for.   Our problem, it seems to me, lies in the fact that we have very different expectations.  Unlike the disciples, we want more than a God who rides out the storm with us.  Unlike Job, we want more than a God whose response reveals one who has been with us and is paying attention to us.  We want a God who will fix things for us.  We want a God who will give us clear answers to our questions.  We want a God who will get rid of the storms, not just hold our hands as we try to get through them together.

            What we have instead is a God who suffers alongside us.  What we have is a God who mourns our losses, feels our pain and experiences our sorrows.  What we have is a God who has willingly gone through all the pains and hardships of being human, including suffering a torturous and humiliating death by execution so that we might live a more fulfilled and abundant life.  Still, it seems that we want more.

            Philip Yancey, in the preface to his award-winning book Where Is God When It Hurts?, notes that books on the problem of pain fall into two categories.  Older books, written by people like Martin Luther and John Calvin, accept suffering without questioning God's actions or inaction.  Modern writers, on the other hand, are much more accusing and blaming of God for allowing innocent people to suffer. 

            Yancey writes, "It's as if we in modern times think we have a corner on the suffering market.  Do we forget that Luther and Calvin lived in a world without ether and penicillin, when life expectancy averaged thirty years?  Ironically, the modern authors—who live in princely comfort, toil in climate-controlled offices, and hoard elixirs in their medicine cabinets—are the ones smoldering with rage."[Philip Yancey, Where Is God When It Hurts?, 2nd edition (Grand Rapids, MI:  Zondervan, 1990), p. 13]

            The fact is that we live in a society where we are taught that we deserve to have comfortable, carefree lives.  We believe that we deserve to be healthy and happy.  We think that we deserve a pleasurable, painless existence.  Now, I firmly believe that God does indeed want that for us.  I look forward to the fulfillment of the promise that one day every tear will be wiped away.  But until then, we must learn to live with disappointment and pain.  Yes, God does want us to be healthy and happy and comfortable.  But that's a far cry from saying that we deserve those things, or that God somehow owes us good things.

            When was the last time you heard someone who had just won the lottery ask, "Why me, God?"  Or when have you heard somebody on the newly crowned championship team exclaim, "How could you do this to us, Lord?"  Those are things that we ask only in the dark times:  when we or a loved one are diagnosed with a serious disease, when a relationship that we thought would last forever comes to a painful end, when a freak accident or natural disaster unexpectedly alters the course of our lives.  It is at these times that we question God, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.  It's just that we never seem to ask why God allows good things to happen to us with the same intensity.  Why are we not perplexed that good things happen to good people?

            The simple but uncomfortable fact is that life is not fair.  We rarely get exactly what we deserve.  And most of the time we should be glad that we don't.  But the most important thing is that, whether or not we get what we deserve, we are accompanied on our life's journey by the God who created all things good, the God who redeems us from evil and the God who sustains us in the midst of life's storms.  Our problem is that we too often fail to recognize God with us in those times.  We tend to forget God when things are going well; and so then we wonder where God went when things turn bad.  God is where God has always been.  We just need to remind ourselves how to look for God.

            In answering the question posed by the title of his book, Where Is God When It Hurts?, Philip Yancey concludes his study with the following words:

            "Where is God when it hurts?

            He has been there from the beginning, designing a pain system that, even in the midst of a fallen world, still bears the stamp of his genius and equips us for life on this planet.

            He transforms pain, using it to teach and strengthen us, if we allow it to turn us toward him.

            With great restraint, he watches this rebellious planet live on, in mercy allowing the human project to continue in its self-guided way.

            He lets us cry out, like Job, in loud fits of anger against him, blaming him for a world we spoiled.

            He allies himself with the poor and suffering, founding a kingdom tilted in their favor.  He stoops to conquer.

            He promises supernatural help to nourish the spirit, even if our physical suffering goes unrelieved.

            He has joined us.  He has hurt and bled and cried and suffered.  He has dignified for all time those who suffer, by sharing their pain.

            He is with us now, ministering to us through his Spirit and through members of his body who are commissioned to bear us up and relieve our suffering for the sake of the head.

            He is waiting, gathering the armies of good.  One day he will unleash them, and the world will see one last terrifying moment of suffering before the full victory is ushered in.  Then, God will create for us a new, incredible world.  And pain shall be no more."(Yancey, p. 256-257)