Mary’s Song: HOW CAN THESE THINGS BE?
Luke 1:46ff

How can it be that a minority of Christians can make a difference in a secular society; one that is often hostile to the welfare of the inhabitants of the land?
How can it be that a communion of Christians, or a tiny mission church can make a difference? How can it be that a single man or a woman can change human destiny?

Our blessed Lord said that a little leaven, leavens the lump. He assured His followers they could be the salt of the earth, a light in a dark place.
Luke’s Gospel begins with the story of a peasant girl who heard extraordinary words from Heaven: “Be Joyful, most favored one. The Lord is with you.” The heavenly visitor announced that Mary would give birth to “the Son of the Most High” who would be King and reign for ever.”

Mary’s first answer may not be a protest. She is apparently obedient as reflected by her second response, “Here am I; I am the Lord’s servant; as you have spoken, so be it.”

Her first response was, “How can these things be?”
That may be asking, in our terms, “How can it happen?”
People of good will often think of wonderful ways to improve the lot of those around them, and then begin to doubt saying, “We are too small, to weak for the task; we lack time and money and strength.”

Mary’s first response, “How can these things be” may have been asking simply “How do we do it, since I am a virgin?” How can it be since I lack a husband?
We don’t serve our Lord in order to gain honor or praise. However, we can share Mary’s joyful song if we are willing to ask the heavenly visitors when they come to us, “how can it happen” and then be obedient to the Lord's words.

Mary allowed herself to be filled with grace, saying “Here am I; I am the Lord’s servant; as you have spoken, so be it.”

If we can be open to grace and obedient to our Lord we may also sing:

“Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord, rejoice, rejoice, my spirit, in God my saviour; so tenderly has he looked upon his servant, humble as she is, For, from this day forth, All generations will count me blessed, So wonderfully has he dealt with me, The Lord, the Mighty One.
His name is Holy;
His mercy sure from generation to generation Towards those who fear him.”

An Example of Suffering and Patience
JOB 41__1-6

The Book of Job is not often read in our times. It is one of the most misunderstood books in the Bible.

Job is referred to in the Epistle of James, chapter 5. “Do not grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be judged. See, the judge stands before the gates! As an example of suffering and patience, brothers and sisters, take the prophets who spoke in the Lord’s name. Think of how we regard as blessed those who have endured. You have heard of Job’s endurance and you have seen the Lord’s purpose, that the Lord is full of compassion and mercy.”

That line from James is an immense help in understanding today’s reading from Job. The book of Job is about suffering, prayer for the suffering, and the ultimate purpose of God and his intention for us.

There is a line in our catechism that states: “Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins and thankful acknowledgment of his mercies.”

That description of prayer sounds like a rational, sober, Presybterian /Anglican way of praying. It is reflective of proper English ways of approaching our Lord. For tidy people with tidy minds and proper expressions, I suppose that describes prayer adequately.

People who write religious books, especially very literate people who write religious books, often are so far removed from real life that their descriptions of prayer are too pious; lacking the feel of reality.

When we consider the prayers of Jesus and of Job, we see that prayer often comes out of deep agony and questioning of life.

To understand Job requires that one realize he is reading a very complex piece of ancient poetry and drama. There are many understandings of God and his ways presented in that play. The author of the Book writes lines for the “miserable comforters” and the wife that offers what seems to be insights into Job’s relationship with God, but as we see at the end, they were wrong or at best, inadequate. They reflect views popular hundreds of years before Christ.

I remember as a teen-ager seeing a headline over a chapter in a commentary that said of Job, “he struggled with the Question of the Ages.” Job indeed struggled with the question of the righteousness and the justice of God. God had to be vindicated in his dealings with men the book said. In his first speech after tragedy had brought him to the edge of despair, Job questions why he was born. In my early teens I didn’t understand the commentator’s meaning when he said, “Gods ways had to be vindicated.” I had been told to take literally that first chapter of Job. The book is a story of a prayer struggle with God, not an instruction manual on prayer. The struggle described in the book, by showing the inadequacy of false views of God, does vindicate God. God is revealed as just and one who rewards righteousness and more than that, as one who is merciful.

The Book of Job begins with a view of God, common to the ancient mid eastern world and not unknown in our own USA. The first chapter presents an ancient Pagan answer to the problem of evil. Humans suffer, that view alleges, because there are two gods struggling for dominance of the earth and a man’s life. Unhappily, I have heard sermons preached in which the preachers assume that the point of Job is revealed in the opening chapters of the book. That chapter is the beginning of the play, not the end of the story.

A major question raised in the Book of Job is “Why do the righteous suffer?” Implicit in the opening chapters is the question, “Is God the efficient cause of evil and our suffering?” And, concomitant with that question are the questions of whether there is such a thing as Divine Providence; whether God is good and whether there is justice in the world, and whether God is One.

The answer to the question as to why righteous people suffer found in the first act of the drama of Job is that there are two gods, one is good, the other evil. This is dualism: light and darkness. The evil god, Satan appeared before the Lord and challenged him to a duel for the allegiance of Job. In this scenario, the Lord allowed all sorts of evil to be afflicted on Job so as to test his resolution and prove him to be upright and faithful. The Lord allows Satan to strip Job of wealth, family and finally health. The preachers who dwell on this part of the book as if it were the true and final answer as to why people suffer, reveal to me that they really haven’t read the rest of the play and fail to understand much of what they were reading and the literary genre of the book

The entire book is a dialogue, a prayer conversation between Job and God presented in poetry and drama. Questions regarding the purposes of God are lurking beneath the dialogue; implicit if not explicitly expressed. As the play progresses, one after another, false views of God and of his providence are taken up, discussed by the players as they strut across the stage, and then the views are dispensed with as inadequate.

Evidence that this is a morality play is provided by a description of Job as “righteous.” This is a quality ascribed to God, but not to man in the Scriptures. Three friends, actors, appeared on the stage and gave long speeches about their understanding of why Job is afflicted. Most of their speeches amount to allegations of un-repented evil on the part of Job. Job’s wife joined the chorus of the accusers saying, “Get it over with, stop this misery, curse God and die! End it!” She is perhaps the first person to promote euthanasia, an extremely depressing and inadequate answer to the problem of human suffering. Though, as a seminary professor observed, we have some of these sayings by inspiration, they are hardly divinely inspired. It should be evident that much of the book is a presentation of commonly held opinions by an ancient tribe of people whose name and history we do not know and whose knowledge of God was limited.

Another great playwright, Wm Shakespeare took up the problem of evil in Hamlet’s famous soliloquy. Hamlet faced horrid evils in his family and in the government of Denmark. Should he take up the sword against the King, his evil stepfather? That would purge the kingdom of an evil person but it would also be patricide, regicide, killing the Divine Right King and overthrowing of government.

Should Hamlet put to death his mother who was wed to the man who not only committed murder to gain the crown, but also had committed the crime of Cain by killing his own brother? Hamlet is paralyzed as he contemplates the evil inherent in killing one’s mother. Perhaps he should kill himself. What to do? Wm Shakespeare’s characters like Job, often question heaven.

By comparing Shakespeare’s Hamlet with Job, and their manner of using poetry and drama in analyzing the problem of evil, perhaps you can see why I regard the author of Job as a literary genius. He is also a theologian, a man who makes words about God. Interestingly, both Shakespeare and the author of Job consider the ultimate question, the ultimate concern of every human being, “To be or not to be, that is the question.”

Consider again the evidence that this is a morality play in that Job is described as perfect, and righteous. That is part of the problem the author is presenting in this play. Although Job always prayed, his prayers go unanswered. One of his obstacles in understanding his plight was the silence of God. If Job perceives of himself as perfect, perhaps the drama is telling us he needs no divine communications, or wants none from God. He perhaps prefers to maintain his integrity, his grasp of his situation and complain as he does in the first lament. Is he judging God’s actions? If he is, is his assessment just? Will God be vindicated?

Though Job cried in great distress, God said nothing to him until the last scene in chapter 38. God is a player always on the stage, but with no lines. His presence is felt but not seen. The play forces the audience to anticipate what God would say when he finally speaks. The audience waits, hoping God will appear with an answer, but through most of the book heaven is silent.

Is a divine answer ever going to silence the numbingly long clatter of tongues the three miserable comforters provide? Will God ever provide respite from the nagging wife and come to comfort Job?

God finally did speak to Job and the rest of the cast out of a whirlwind.

The entrance of God on the stage in the last scene, though anticipated, has a surprising force and power. As He speaks from the whirlwind, it is like “the voice of many waters”, an immense force of nature. Job is forced to examine himself, and to consider his fitness to deal with God. How was Job to answer, to be able to properly question and debate?

God was apparently not upset with Job’s asking, “Why God? Why me? Why was I born?”

Would he not have thought other questions as well? “Why did you take my precious children, my lovely daughters? Have you no heart?” God, in this play, did not despise Job for the questioning; rather he honored Job with an answer. But first, Job must endure the inadequate explanations of his three comforters and the bitterness of his wife. Job said of the three friends and the wife, “Miserable comforters are ye all.”

The three windbags and the nagging wife had revealed their ignorance, their shallow, callous attitude, and their lack of humanity as they accuse Job of some secret evil as the cause of his suffering. God answered them and Job out of a whirlwind. The answer in part, to Job and the rest of the cast is, “You know nothing!”

Job’s wife and the three miserable comforters knew nothing of God, and nothing of the character of the afflicted Job. As men go, he was a good and true man. His concern was not so much with the loss of things, and even of family. His concern was with the ultimate question of the purpose and meaning of life.

All through the narrative, Job was growing, and he approached his cross in much the same way as Jesus did, when he said of God, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust Him.” That is an ultimate concern: life and death, being and non-being. Thus Job displayed the quality of faith: that is a life with demonstrable submission to the will of God. His faith is not so much a system of beliefs about God as it is a trusting attitude in life with God, come what will.

God answered all of the players in the last scene. He answered the nagging wife, the three friends and Job himself by demonstrating that Men are incapable of understanding all that is going on, but sufficient answers will be revealed as we trust and obey.

Job repented and said the prayer recorded Job 41:1-6. He repented of his presumption and said, “I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.”

God questioned Job further. Job acknowledged his ignorance and neediness. He repented and said, ”Now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” “Now I see”, said Job as he had gained a vision of God and understanding. “The fear of the Lord” is the beginning of wisdom.”

In this drama, God was not upset with the fact Job asked questions and defended his integrity. God answered. The questioning can be seen as a necessary step in the approach to God. It is not the doubters that are so much in danger of being lost as the uninterested, the distracted, the uncaring, the uncurious and those pious souls who think they have all the answers but are resigned to evil in the world.

In Job 42:10, there is a Hollywood ending. At the last, God’s answer vindicated Job’s trust in him. It is interesting that God is depicted as being angry with the three “comforters” because they had not “spoken about me and about what is right”. God approved of Job, in spite of his inadequate grasp of his situation, because he is concerned with God and what is right.

God vindicated Job because he was concerned with the ultimate question, whereas the three comforters and their petty charges against Job stirred the wrath of God. Furthermore, Job was granted the privilege of praying for the three who had accused him. At Job’s request, God forgave them for their wrong answers and their verbal assaults on righteous Job. Intercession is a privilege.

In this happy ending, there is for Job, a resurrection from the death of destruction, poverty and deprivation of family. All that Job lost was restored to him.

If you re-read Job, you will note that Job’s pain stopped and his fortunes were restored when he prayed for his persecutors. It was when he prayed for the others that his pain ended and his fortunes changed. It may be a fine distinction, but his fortunes were not restored at the moment of revelation, when he was granted a vision of God, and repented. His fortunes were restored when he prayed for others. Was this the author’s way of saying “Faith without works is dead?” There are parallels between Job and James.

As life assaults us, we don’t need to know everything. As in the case of Job, all the questions are not to be answered now. But, we can trust as Job did, that sufficient answers will come. The daily bread will be enough for us, and enough to share..

Why can we be content with, as St. Paul said, “knowing in part”? Because we know, through the incarnation, through the entry of God into the world in the person of Jesus Christ, that God’s purposes are redemptive. If man’s ultimate concern is with being or non being, we learn through the incarnation that God’s purpose is saving our life. There is a redemptive answer to our ultimate concern, our ultimate question. The answer to the problem of suffering is this: “suffering is redemptive.” Suffering is part of the process by which we are granted life, being and come to the vision of God. It is a great privilege to suffer as a Christian, following in Christ’s footsteps. (I Peter

Righteous Job suffered. Why? Because God loved him and all the erring humans in the play and wanted them to stop and consider the ultimate questions.

God so loved the world; he entered the world to suffer in it with us. It is the way we learn of the humanity of God reveled in Job and in Christ Jesus. There is a heart of love at the center of the universe. Our suffering is but one way, in the Providence of God, we are advised to stop and consider. The Cross is one stop sign large enough for the whole world to see and comprehend.

Suffering is a sign that reads, “Stop and consider, I am here.” We needn’t rely on our own striving, our own wisdom, our own understanding or our own imagined righteousness.

Over and over a lesson in the New Testament from Christ and the apostles is that we must forgive to be forgiven. Our healing will come when we forgive others and help them in their healing. “If you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your heavenly father forgive you of your trespasses (Mat 6:12-14).” Job’s vindication came only when he overcame his own self- righteousness and prayed for his erring friends.

Consider Jesus’ prayers. The prim and proper catechetical description of prayer hardly fits the reality of Jesus’ agonizing prayers in the Garden that finally end with the triumphant saying, “Not as I will, but as you will” when the human Jesus submitted to the Father.

The prim and proper description of prayer as “offering up our desires unto God for things agreeable to his will” left out the crisis, the human despair, the blood sweat and tears shed in Gethsemane and on Mt. Calvary as a human cried out, “Why? God help me!”

In the Gospel story of Thomas’ first meeting with Jesus after the resurrection, Thomas expressed doubt when told of the resurrection by the women and the rest of the apostles. “I want to see those hands and feet. I want to see the suffering, the hole in his side before I believe.” Thomas was no different from the others who had fled from the cross. Each one, including Peter, had to see the risen Christ before he could trust. Then, once having seen him they could say Thomas’s confession: “My Lord and my God.”

Peter doubted, denied his Lord and fled during the crucifixion of Jesus. He later repented and returned. Thomas was no different. We are no different. We want to see the resurrection from the death and destruction about us before we believe. We want a sign of God’s presence.

If you were given a sign, what would you do next? Would you like Thomas make a good confession? God places signs all around us. Even Judas was given a sign that should have stopped him from completing his evil intention when Jesus said, “The hand of him who betrays me is on the table.” Judas was conscience stricken, but determined to have his own way. He first betrayed Jesus then in utter despair committed suicide. Job chose the better way, he didn’t commit suicide when in pain, he waited in hope saying, “I know that my Redeemer lives. . . .”

Thomas, unlike Judas, received a sign and became a missionary. The purpose of the signs God gives, including our suffering, is to bring give us insight, a vision of God and with it trust and an active faith. The question is not what God wants of us, that is settled. God would not have any perish, but that all would come to repentance. The question for us is, “what do we do with the signs God has given?”

The writer of Hebrews dwelt on the role of Jesus Christ and of his church as priest. Hebrews 5 states that Jesus Christ’s priesthood was “granted by God, who said to him, ‘You are my son; today I have become your father; you are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.’ In the course of his earthly life he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears, to God who was able to deliver him from death. Because of his devotion, his prayer was heard: son though he was, he learned obedience through his sufferings, and, once perfected he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, and by God he was designated high priest in the order of Melchizedek.” Hebrews chapter 5.

We, as Christ the Church, will find our place in service, peace, and our answers as we, with loud cries and tears to God offer prayers. Jesus said, “The Disciple is not above his Lord.” We will learn obedience through sufferings and be perfected. We will be forgiven as we forgive and love others, including our enemies, enough to pray for them and serve them. As we live out the Christ life today, we will not complain. St. Paul says, “Be kind, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven us.” (Eph 4:32)

Job was hardly perfected at the start of the drama. Heaven was closed to him. Job is pictured at the end of the poetic-dramatic Book as a perfect, a righteous man, because he offered himself in repentance and obedience to God in prayer and brought the others to God’s throne. When he prayed for others his fortunes were restored, he enjoyed a resurrection from the death of suffering and deprivation he had endured. He stopped proclaiming his own righteousness when he caught a vision of God.

Hard times come upon all of us. In bitterness and tears we wonder about the Providence of God and what on earth he is doing. When we begin to appreciate that we don’t know, but live by faith, then we begin to see his glory and power. We are able then to wait in joyful hope of the resurrection and the life of the world to come.

Paul learned this lesson in his walk with Jesus the Christ and wrote: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger of sword? As it is written “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. No in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, no anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:28-39)

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