Hard Times

“Do you not care that we are perishing?”

It was the cry of disciples in a storm-tossed boat on the sea of Galilee. It was the cry of people at the edge of despair, the cry of those trapped in darkness and chaos and afraid for their lives.

“Do you not care that we are perishing?”

Maybe there’s been a time when it’s been your cry as well.

“Don’t you care?”

“God, don’t you care that I’m frightened, overwhelmed, grieving, in pain? Why don’t you answer? Why don’t you do something?”

Why is this happening?

It’s such a natural question when things go wrong. And it’s such a hard question to answer. We so desperately want life to make sense. To be fair. We want to feel in control. But sometimes we just aren’t.

This morning, our readings began with a lesson from the book of Job. Job is pretty much the patron saint of people trapped in unfair circumstances.

Job was wealthy, successful, generous, and faithful to God—at least until the day when everything fell apart. In one day, his ten children died and his property was destroyed. Soon thereafter, he was inflicted with painful sores that covered his body.

And everyone wanted to understand why.

You see, there was an idea way back then that if you were good and faithful and generous, then God would take care of you. Good things would come to good people, and bad things to bad people.

It was an idea way back then, and it’s an idea way too often still heard today.

It might not seem too harmful to think that good things will come to good people. But when you take the idea to its logical conclusion, it turns to poison.

Because if good things come to good people, then the people who have good things must be good.

And, even worse, if good things come to good people, then if bad things come to you, well, that must mean you deserve them.

And that’s what Job’s friends concluded. They came to visit and said they were there to comfort him, but mostly they tried to convince him that he must have done something to deserve all the terrible things that had befallen him.

You may have heard someone described as “as patient as Job”? Whoever came up with that phrase didn’t read the whole book.

Job is patient in Chapter 2.

Then he starts to complain—and he complains and complains and complains—at least whenever he can get a word in edgewise with his very unhelpful visitors. Job complains for thirty-five chapters. He and his friends go back and forth on the whys and wherefores of suffering, reaching no conclusion.

This goes on until, finally, God appears. That’s where today’s reading begins.

“The Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind.”

God’s answer to Job’s complaint actually isn’t in itself all that helpful. It almost sounds sarcastic. “Where were you?” God asks. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know!”

The implication is clear. How could Job possibly understand the mind of God? How can we?

On the other hand, God does show up. And God’s presence makes a difference.

In a passage after what we read today, Job replies to God, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.”

Job sees God, and Job has nothing more to say. The mystery of evil and pain will just have to be. It’s not so important in the presence of God, before the face of God.

Maybe you’ve had an experience like this yourself. Maybe it wasn’t a good time—it might have even been the worst of times—but it was a time when you felt God’s presence, God’s love. And, as it was for Job, maybe that was enough.

Let’s go back to the boat on the sea of Galilee for a moment, on that night when Jesus slept through a storm.

Let’s go back to the cry of the disciples: “Do you not care that we are perishing?”

We all know what happens next. Jesus calms the storm—saving his friends—and terrifying them even further.

The miracle is important, I suppose. It demonstrates Jesus’s power and his identity. But for me, the comfort in this story isn’t in the miracle.

For me, the comfort is in Jesus’s presence, even while the storm continues, even while he still sleeps.

Even when there are no answers, even when storms rage, Jesus is there, maybe even resting, taking a nap, unworried, present, and yes, caring.

I sometimes think of this scene as I fall asleep at night. I imagine myself on a boat with Jesus sleeping nearby, and know that even if a storm comes, all will be well.

Look up at the ceiling for a moment. It takes the form of the keel of a boat, and that’s no accident.

We’re all inside that boat. We’re all secure in God’s presence. We may not always have smooth sailing, and we may never know exactly why storms come. But we never have to face the storm alone.