Let’s just imagine…  Imagine that we’re all looking down from a satellite, way up in the sky.  We’re able to focus in on various locations throughout the world, at this moment—and sort of take a God view of things.   We might see a dairy farmer in Minnesota over here, diligently milking his cows, nursing a sore leg from an injury last week, yet concerned about making enough money this month to make the mortgage payment on his farm.  We might see a hot and dust-covered soldier in Iraq, working side by side with an Iraqi citizen, a soldier who barely got a chance to put his head down last night, who hasn’t had a decent meal in days, yet is forced to stay alert, is depressed and in pain from a headache that won’t let up.    And here in Prescott, Arizona, there’s a frail and aging housewife who didn’t get dressed today, as she sits beside her husband’s bedside where he suffers with a chronic, untreatable condition, and cannot get up. 

Yet, at the same time, a young mountain climber, accompanied by his Sherpa guides, nears the long-anticipated summit of his once-in-a-lifetime attempt to scale the Himalayas in Nepal.   While in Moscow, Russia, the prima ballerina in the Moscow Ballet completes Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, achieving a perfect performance.   Here again, a young couple from Prescott Valley experience the birth of their first child at Yavapai Regional Medical Center.  They have a healthy and petite baby girl, after a long-awaited pregnancy and difficult delivery.  They’re ecstatic!

Such are the days of our lives.  We have our highs… and we have our lows, and that is the nature of our existence we say.   Things happen to people and the world keeps going around… doesn’t it?  But now, our satellite’s going to beam down on a man who lived in biblical times called Job, the focus of our message today.  What about Job’s life?  Did he just have his “ups and downs?”  

See what you think!  This is the picture of Job: 

Job and his wife had 10 wonderful children.  I know they were wonderful because every child born is wonderful and a gift from God.  We’re told Job was a “righteous” man--that’s a good man--so I know Job felt blessed with each and every one of those children.  Yet along came a giant windstorm, something like Hurricane Isabel, and all 10 of those beloved children died when their house collapsed.   To make his story brief, his troubles didn’t stop there—his body was later covered with painful sores (boils), and he experienced financial ruin, losing everything he had.   Not that things could have gotten any worse, for Job was already at the deepest level of pain.   

Understandably, his wife tells him to “Curse God and die,” to just put an end to his misery, as his 3 “good” friends all give him bad advice, poor insight into his situation, which doesn’t help.  Job’s reply is that he must take both the good and the bad from God.  Yet he wants reasons from God for what he is going through because he knows he has been a good person throughout his life.  Others may have questions about “secret sins,” they may think he must have somehow deserved all he’s received for he’s certainly gone through more than any “ordinary” person ever experienced, but Job knows in his heart that he does not deserve—indeed, he has not earned—what is happening to him.  His suffering, his pain, seem totally unfair.  He acknowledges that “Darkness is all around me, thick, impenetrable.” But he still doesn’t understand why a “just God” would do this to him.   Earlier Job speculated, “If only I knew where to find God, I would go to his throne and talk with him there.  I would lay out my case and present my arguments.  Then I would listen to his reply and understand what he says to me.”  Yet, in Job’s watercolor world, with many shades of color, Job believes his God is there.  Even with the blackness he sees so vividly now, Job has faith that the light of God’s love is near.

So boldly, Job, the God-loving and God-fearing earthling, questions his God about his human condition.   It’s a timeless question, asked by God’s people through the centuries of human existence ever since, asked by so many for trials much less than that which Job has gone through.  He can’t help asking “Why?”  and “Where is the justice in all this?”

And then…  WHOOSH!!  …the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind:

And that’s the answer Job got, directly from the scriptures. (Job 38:1-7, 34-41)  Don’t you hate it when your question’s answered with a question?   Can you imagine Job’s frustration and puzzled look, his acute awareness of his very human limitations?

Now we’re looking here at a time long before Jesus ever enters the picture on earth and we have an attempt to make sense of God in Job’s situation that just doesn’t come through somehow…   Although Job was never determined to be a Jew—at least it was never said that he was—this is an amazing time in Jewish history, because it’s the first time the religious imagination had turned to thoughts of a more abstract nature.  People just didn’t think in terms of things they could not see and touch before now.  The prophets had always declared that Israel suffered because of her sins, and now there were Israelites who were no longer satisfied with this explanation.  Job’s world opened up a whole new area of consideration, one beyond that of simply intellectual speculation. 

An attempt to understand the God-message to Job stretches all our imaginations in our search for understanding.    And this is a relatively new thing for many of us, for it takes us deeper into the mystery of faith.  Things used to be so cut and dry, so very black and white, with easy answers—much like near the center of Eddie’s watercolor quilt displayed here—orderly, yes or no, right and wrong kinds of situations, the dos and the don’ts, the black and white that comes when we are so very young.    We didn’t have to stretch much to figure things out, just apply it.  With God’s answer to Job, that’s all changed. 

We still look hard to figure out answers.  The other day, in this church, we had a video showing of “When Bad Things Happen to Good People,” featuring a Jewish Rabbi, Harold Kushner.  Kushner—after the death of his son Aaron, not surprisingly-- very capably attempts to explain the suffering of “good people,” (like Job), as resulting from a God that is not all-powerful, because God has chosen to give up  that power to us—God’s people.   Kushner’s belief is that an all powerful God would never choose for His people to suffer.   While I would agree on the suffering issue, God’s words to Job lead me in a slightly different direction.  These scriptures give a very clear message of God’s activity in all of creation and indeed all of the world—even the universe—since time began.  That message is inclusive, for Job and all of us.

Because we are living in a world that knows Jesus Christ, and because our God is a God of love, our God is almighty and all-powerful, for there is no limit to the power of God’s love.  God’s love is the greatest, the most active, creative and powerful dynamic in the world, a life-giving force that totally comes from our God, the source of love, and one that our God has chosen to share with us.    It’s a force that is greater than any sword, any words, or any hurtful action.  It’s a force that was established in the creation of this world as our God gave us this tremendous love gift of the world.   To believe this power is limited in any way is to impose the limits of our human perceptions on God’s creative ability. God’s creating love is revealed to us each time a new baby is born, just as God birthed all the animals and elements of the world in love, including those who were mentioned in our scripture today.   

All of the scriptures together have revealed to us that tremendous love and that is the message of awesome power, of almighty strength, in the scripture as God speaks to Job in the whirlwind.  However, it’s a love that we can only begin to imagine and start to understand.  God knew this, so He revealed it in the mysterious way that He did… 

We, who limit ourselves so in our ability to imagine, need to stretch and expand our mental processes, along with those God-given creative powers, with God’s love in our hearts, that we might be open to the ways in which God will continue to reveal to each of us personally and as a church, and as part of the greater community of faith throughout the world.  The process involves listening and being open, as Job was, to allow new ways of sharing that love to enter us…  We can begin right here, now, in this sanctuary called Agape Hall, Agape that means “God’s love.”   Let’s not limit the ability of God’s love to work through us by limiting our imaginations.  Let’s take a minute of silence with our eyes closed, if you would please, to see if we can expand our imaginations to see and grow in understanding of the love our Lord has given us and the world of which we are a part.  Imagine what we can become as we unleash that love gift from our God.   Silently now, imagine for a minute with your eyes shut… (pause)    Now, open your eyes and continue to imagine…  (Liturgical Dance to “I Can Only Imagine”)

Were you led to Jesus? Did you see Jesus?   Jesus, God’s greatest love gift that has ever been given to this world; Jesus, the revealer of the ways in which we can love; Jesus Christ, who loved us so much that He gave His life for us, and who continues to be at the very center of our being as Christians in a needy world.   It’s Christ who is the cornerstone of Job’s message, indeed the foundation of our world.   

Look now at the watercolor quilt made by Eddie Ezell-Musko that hangs in front of you.  See if you can see your story in that quilt, as Eddie may have seen her own story as she created it, and then look for the story of Job that can be seen throughout it.  The total brightness in the center can be seen as our God, the source of all light and love, while the darkness that radiates out represents all the difficult things that are present throughout our own lives and that we see in the world around us.  Understand how Eddie named her quilt, “My World of Hope and Dreams.”  Get to know her and her story.  We’re all part of a massive changing cosmic structure of which we only see a very small part, while the light of God’s love touches every corner of it, creating that change.

As our world expands, and as we grow spiritually, understanding more active ways of love, we, as agents of our God, become the bright spots, the light in the world that spreads the love of God, that can always touch the darkness and illumine it, bringing healing, even joy.   It all happens as we, too, are changed with the light of God’s love that illuminates our lives.  Jesus Christ walks with us each step of the way, and God’s grace comes through us that others may see the light, until one day, all of the darkness will be made light.    Eddie’s watercolor quilt of our lives and of the life of Job, then becomes an illustration of the activity of our God in this world.   With Job, let’s not let what we fail to understand of God’s purposes shake our faith in God’s constant love.  Our God is an awesome God and this is a beautiful, watercolor world!  (close with song Adonai)