Living in Awe
based on Job 38:1-7, 34-41
by Rev. Randy Quinn
Last summer, I saw a film
clip from the award winning British film, Touching the Void. I
don’t know if any of you have seen it – or even heard of it. The movie
is based on the true story of Joe Simpson and Simon Yates. They were
climbing a difficult mountain peak in Peru in 1985 when disaster struck.
They were actually on
their way down when Joe’s ice ax lost its grip and he fell. The fall
shattered his leg in several places. Simon, his partner, worked to save
his friend by lowering him on a line and then climbing down himself.
But then Joe fell again.
This time he fell over a ledge beyond Simon’s view or reach. They were
tied together, but neither one of them could do anything to help the
other – Joe was dangling over an empty crevasse with a broken leg; Simon
was clinging to the rope, using his own weight to keep Joe from falling.
Finally, comes what is
arguably the most controversial scene in the movie, the most
controversial part of the story: Simon cuts the rope. Out of
desperation, he lets go and allows his friend and partner fall to his
certain death, far beyond the possibility of help every finding him –
even if he were to survive.
The movie then follows
Simon as he works his way through his guilt, his grief, and his
self-doubt while making the trek over the ice to their home camp. From
there he reports the tragic end of his friend’s life.
But the miracle of the
story is that, unbeknownst to Simon, Joe survived the fall. He ended up
at the bottom of the snow pack and follows a river between the ice and
the earth until he finds help. He is often surrounded by the shear
beauty of the ice caves, but he is oblivious to the wonder of it all.
He simply works his way out of the snow and ice and down the mountain.
In many ways, Job is in a
similar position. Job, too, was cut off from all that he knows is
good. His children have died (Job 1:18). His property has been
destroyed (Job 1:14-17). And then his own wife blames him for the
tragic circumstances of their lives (Job 2:9).
Even his friends all but
abandon him to death as they come and plead with him to simply curse God
and die rather than cling to the obnoxious belief that he is an innocent
man.
While Joe had been left
for dead, Job was wishing he was dead (Job 3:11).
But Job has also built a
trust in God over the course of his life that allows him to continue
living. He seems to act and speak as if his friendship with God should
somehow work to his advantage in his time of need. He pleads for an
audience, for a chance to explain his side of the story (Job 23:4-6).
For those who read the
story from beginning to end, this is a clear and certain turning point.
For over thirty chapters we hear Job and his friends discuss why things
are happening the way they are and making attempts to explain God’s
purpose in the midst of their circumstances. In the absence of truth
they fabricate myths.
Finally, God speaks. God
interrupts the conversation. But what God says isn’t exactly what they
expected to hear.
Let me read some of what
God said to Job.
Read Job
38:1-12, 19-24, 34-41; 39:26-27
I don’t really know where
to stop. I could go on.
In response, Job simply
“shuts his mouth” (Job 40:4-5). He is overwhelmed b God’s power and
might. There is absolutely nothing he can say.
One pastor tells the story
of the day he took his four year old daughter to the emergency room.
She had fallen and needed several stitches in her bottom lip. He says
the nurses strapped her into a Velcro blanket they called a “papoose,”
that wrapped around her so tightly she couldn’t move.
She was crying as they put
a sterile shield around her mouth.
Her dad tried to hold her
hand, but it was wrapped in the papoose. All he could do was look at
her fear-filled eyes. She pleaded with him to make them stop, but all
he could do was tell her it would be alright – even though he wasn’t so
sure about what they were doing, either.
“Hold on,” he said.
“Daddy’s right here. It’ll be alright.”
Her pleas turned into
accusations when she told him to make them stop.
Still he didn’t. He
allowed the emergency room crew to continue their work.
Amazingly, he reports, her
response after the procedure was over was to jump into her daddy’s arms
and hug him. She didn’t accuse him of not loving her or not caring for
her. She didn’t run away from him.
Even though he had done
nothing to help her in her time of need, she clung to him with complete
trust – a trust that had been developed over the course of her young
life. She was not going to stop trusting him just because of her
confusion during this one particular set of circumstances.
That is how Job eventually
leaves this scene. He is overwhelmed with awe and wonder. He now knows
what he had always known: God is bigger than his problems. God is able
to see things he cannot see. And God can be trusted – no matter what
the circumstances of our lives.
As we watch the leaves
turn colors, as we experience the days becoming shorter, as we listen to
the autumn winds blow, we are invited to experience that same sense of
awe and wonder about God.
Now, unlike Job, we can
look at the heavens and can explain the difference between a star and a
planet. We know the earth is round and it revolves around the sun along
with the other planets, including Pluto – even if the scientists no
longer refer to Pluto as a full-fledged planet. Scientists can tell us
about black holes swirling around one another and stars burning out in a
blaze of glory.
We also know how animals
hibernate in the winter and how the monarch butterflies make their
seasonal trek from Canada to Mexico and back again. We can train the
dolphin and the killer whale and we can watch as turtles lay their eggs
and go back into the sea.
But even knowing what we
know, there is still a sense of wonder that comes when we see the
miracles of birth and the mystery of death. I know I am filled with awe
and wonder every time I hear about the incredibly fragile balance of
nature that God intended.
Have you ever realized,
for instance, what a miracle it is that ice floats?
If water behaved like most other substances and the ice sunk, there
would be no polar ice cap. The sun could not melt the ice from rivers
and lakes in the summer. The mountain snow packs would melt from the
top rather than the bottom and we would eventually lose our underground
water supplies.
It really is true that the
more we know the more questions we have to ask. And every answer leads
us closer to the One who created us and our world.
While the movie
Touching the Void comes across as a heroic tale, in my mind it is
actually a tragedy. The tragic truth is that neither Joe nor Simon ever
thinks to pray. There is no prayer for help. There are no prayers of
thanksgiving. We watch, but we are not led into a prayer of wonder and
awe at the beauty of their settings.
Tragically, their life has
no meaning outside of the fame and fortune they may gain from telling
their story on the screen. God is not absent, God is simply not
acknowledged in their story.
Job may have had his
fortunes restored, but his story has long term power because of his
trust in God (Job 19:25).
And our lives have the
potential to be more like Job’s than either Joe Simpson’s or Simon
Yates’. Our lives can have eternal meaning. We can learn to trust the
One who created us and we can ask for God’s guidance and direction
throughout our lives. As the songwriter has suggested it, we know whom
we have believed and we are persuaded that he is able to keep that which
we’ve committed unto him.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
