Our Hope in God
Habakkuk 1:1-7; 2:2-4; 3:3-6, 17-19

Last Sunday we read from the Prophet Isaiah. The army of Assyria had surrounded Jerusalem and was demanding that the city surrender. The year was 701 B.C. Miraculously, by divine intervention, the Assyrians abandoned the siege of Jerusalem and returned to Nineveh, their capital city. Jerusalem was spared.

The Prophet Habakkuk wrote around the year 600 B.C. A lot can change in one hundred years. The Chaldeans replaced the Assyrians as the super-power of the ancient near east. Nineveh was usurped by Babylon. However, some things remained the same. The kingdom of Judah, with its capitol in Jerusalem, was still threatened with invasion. Furthermore, the religious and moral declension of Jewish society had worsened. Neither their external nor internal affairs had improved one bit.

Habakkuk gives voice to the plight of the righteous caught up in all of this chaos and degradation. He complains bitterly that the Lord is unresponsive to his anguished existence. He prays, “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you ‘Violence!’ and you will not save?” (Hab. 1:2). The prophet is surrounded by wrongdoing, trouble, destruction, violence, strife, and contention. God’s law has become like an enfeebled person who has no strength. The law has grown slack. Justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous. Judgment is perverted (see vs. 3-4).

Habakkuk’s complaints transcend the sixth century B.C. They are as applicable today as they were two thousand six hundred years ago. As one commentator observes, “The prophet is one with all those persons who fervently pray for peace in the world and who experience only war, who pray for God’s good to come on earth and who find only human evil. But he is also one with every soul who has prayed for healing beside a sick bed only to be confronted by death, with every spouse who has prayed for love to come into a home and then found only hatred and anger, with every anxious person who has prayed for serenity but then been further disturbed and agitated.”

Habakkuk gives voice to our weariness with the world as it is. The world is like a bone dislocated from its joint. We wonder when God will intervene to set things right. We wonder where it will all end. Will the wicked be defeated and God’s order be established over all? What is God doing about setting up his righteous rule on earth? When will God’s kingdom come? When will God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven?

Thankfully, God does not meet our questions with silent indifference. As Habakkuk says, “The LORD answered me” (Hab. 2:2). God commanded the prophet to write the vision plainly so that anyone could understand it. Next, God instructed him to wait. “For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay” (vs. 3). This is the hard part.

Most of us are not good at waiting. We are not very patient. Some people in the early church wondered about the fulfillment of God’s promise. They asked, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the ancestors died, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation” (2 Peter 3:4). But the Apostle Peter points out that “with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, but is patient with you not wanting any to perish” (2 Peter 3:8-9). We are not patient, but God is supremely patient.

There is no remedy but to wait on God. God acted decisively two thousand years ago in the miraculous birth, sinless life, sacrificial death, and glorious resurrection of the Son of God. God has promised to act again at the end of history. God does not act on our timetable, but he always keeps his promises at the divinely appointed time.

The content of the vision God gave Habakkuk is recorded in Chapter 3. “God came from Teman, the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise. The brightness was like the sun; rays came forth from his hand, where his power lay hidden. Before him went pestilence, and plague followed close behind. He stopped and shook the earth; he looked and made the nations tremble. The eternal mountains were shattered; along his ancient pathways the everlasting hills sank low” (3:3-6). Habakkuk is describing the second coming of Jesus Christ as the cosmic victor over evil. When he comes again it will not be as “gentle Jesus, meek and mild.” He will be more akin to “grim Jesus, mean and menacing,” at least towards the wicked. This is a rather jarring image for us, but we must remember that the coming of the victorious Christ will mean the rectification of all things. God will finally mend this disjointed world.
It is only a promise for now, but it is God’s promise. God’s promises are unbreakable. As one commentator writes, “It is not an idle dream of the pious, nor a lie on which they have set their hearts, not a vain hope which will bear no fruit or be destroyed by earth’s overwhelming evil. The world is not as God intended it, and God is setting it right. His will be the final order established in human society. The hope of all good persons everywhere who have trusted in the Lord is a sure hope, firmly anchored in the promises of God.”

Given the promise of God’s return to planet earth, how should we live in the present? Must we settle for a passive resignation to evil or stoically clench our teeth and accept whatever comes along? Absolutely not! In Chapter 2 verse 4 God says, “Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous will live by their faith.”

First, God tells us how not to live. We are not to be proud. Pride is the original sin. Satan said, “I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit on the mount of assembly on the heights of Zaphon; I will ascend to the tops of the clouds, I will make myself like the Most High” (Isa. 14:13-14). Adam and Eve believed Satan’s lie that they would not die but instead become like God (Gen. 3:4-5). One commentator describes the danger of pride this way. “Whenever human beings rely on something of this earth – whether it be intellectual achievement or wealth or military might or aesthetic ability and appreciation or pride of birth and status or even the ability to cope and solve problems and master the complexities of modern life – wherever confidence is placed in human power and not in God for the achievement of a satisfying and secure manner of living, there true life cannot be had.” “Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them.” Do not be like them.

In contrast to the proud, the righteous live by their faith or faithfulness. “Righteous” in the Bible is a relational term. It means fulfilling the demands of our covenant relationship with God and our fellow man. Similarly, “faithfulness” is a relational term. “Faithfulness” can be defined negatively. “Faithfulness does not mean moral steadfastness, rectitude, and earnestness. It does not signify the proper performance of ethical or religious duties.” This is how we usually think of righteousness and faithfulness. But the words denote trust, dependence, or clinging to God. A person is faith-filled when he or she has placed the entirety of life in God’s hands trusting God to fulfill all righteousness. As one commentator writes, “This means that despite all our outward or inward circumstances, despite all our personal sin and guilt, despite all our psychological, social, and physical distortions, God will take care of us. Faith or faithfulness is living by God’s power rather than our own.” The faithful cling to God come what may.

That brings us to the concluding song of faith in Habakkuk. “Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails and the fields yield no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold and there is no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, and makes me tread upon the heights” (3:17-19).

Habakkuk begins with a description of utter desolation: no meat or food or drink, but he does not tarry in the vale of tears for long. He exults and rejoices in God. He affirms that there is strength to be had from God. Not only do we live by our faith and faithfulness as the righteous, we can know real joy, exultation and strength in this life. Even when our outward circumstances are bleak, we can trust in the LORD. Far from passive resignation or clenched-teeth stoicism, we can know the joy of our salvation. We can know the strength that comes from God. We can experience firsthand the joy and security and meaning that come from a daily walk with our Savior and Lord.

The prophet Habakkuk is not a traditional text for the season of Advent. Yet its themes capture the essence of the season in Old Testament terms. We believe that God acted decisively two thousand years ago. Jesus was born of Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. He rose again from the dead and ascended to heaven where he is seated at the right hand of God. We also believe in the vision, even if it tarries. From thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead. His kingdom shall have no end. As we say in our Advent wreath liturgy, “Advent means coming.” We tend to think primarily of Jesus’ first coming as a gentle Savior, but we must also think of his second coming as the victorious Son of Man who will set all things right.

We have a sure promise from God. Christ will come again. We can live as the righteous by our faith and faithfulness, by our dependence on God. We can know joy and strength the world cannot give, the joy and strength of walking faithfully with our God all the days of our lives.

Thanks be to the God of all hope and comfort. Alleluia! Amen.