[AI translation] We have seen in our study of the story of Job that this man, under the series of calamities that fell upon him, became more or less a reproach to God, bitter, as one who was greatly disappointed: he did not imagine God as he had experienced Him. He went so far as to see God as almost unjust and cruel, as a heartless servant who played with his children, who were helplessly vulnerable to him. Even then Job had not lost his faith, but his faith was now in question. A painful big "why" to God, and the most terrifying thing for him was that God would not answer his question, his why. Job and his friends agonize over the great mystery, and God is silent, as if the whole thing is of no interest to him!Now God finally speaks! Thus the account begins, "Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said...". Obviously there was a storm raging in the place where Job and his friends were arguing, arguing, trying to convince each other, of course, in vain... And now, in Job's heart, in the roar of the wind, the fury of the elements, the thunder of the zigzagging lightning, something of God's word was being waved through. There is nothing strange in this, if a believer receives a message from God even in the grandeur and majesty of natural phenomena. For to a believer, everything speaks of the Lord, everything proclaims the glory of the Lord!
I remember the first time I saw the sea in my life. Growing up on the sandy sea of the Great Plain, my Hungarian heart was so impressed by the infinite expanse of water, which rippled 180 degrees, and so filled with the awe of God's power and majesty, that I literally almost fell to my knees. Or there is the majestic spectacle of autumn all around us: sometimes such stillness can fill the whole of nature, and such a great solemnity can fall upon the world in the dull sunshine, that one involuntarily begins to speak more softly and is struck by the majesty of God, as if one were in a vast temple among the angels! And at other times the sunshine can smile so merrily through the fading golden leaves, as if to proclaim that we should not take the autumnal death of the leaves too much to heart, for even this death is full of promise, and for there is a God, a living God, who will call all things to a new spring again... - Well, this is how the sick Job trembled in the presence of God speaking in the storm. The astonishing thing is that the Lord says nothing to him that he did not know before, and had not himself confessed and proclaimed. But perhaps he did not know it well enough, perhaps he knew it only in his head, perhaps it was a dead knowledge to him, without inner power and without application to his own sufferings. It is often so with us. Maybe it was just a knowledge learned from others, something he inherited from his fathers, but now it is suddenly alive in his heart, suddenly filled with content, suddenly God himself is speaking to him directly and so now it is quite different from what it was. And it is so simple, every child knows: all that he learns with his heart from the word of God speaking in the storm is how great God is and how small man is! It is an incredible lesson, sometimes one has to suffer a lot to really learn it! Sometimes the suffering of a whole life is just to learn through it the greatness of God and the littleness of oneself...
So in the storm, Job hears the word of God. How much gentle yet irresistible humour there is in the words with which God calls Job, a man who rebels against Him, complains against Him, doubts Him, and brings him before Himself. With what devastating humour He asks, "Who is he that darkeneth the eternal order with ignorant speech?" (Job 38:2) For indeed, nothing but some pitiful ignorant speech will result if man dares, dares to look into the works of God, and to try to measure and judge them by his own human standards. Speech that tries to obscure the glory of God, the eternal order of God, is always ignorant speech, meaningless speech. But if man thinks he knows anything, let him try to answer the Lord's questions. "Now gird up your loins like a man, and I will ask you questions, and you will teach me," says the Lord to Job (Job 38:3). And now, one after another, the questions come, and Job shrinks, becoming more and more aware of his own nothingness and of God's omnipotence. "Where were you, little man," asks the Lord, "when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know anything clever."- The very mention of this mighty I and this pitiful you thus side by side gives a sense of man's real, actual position before God. I: i.e. the creator of all things, Lord of all space and time, - and you: i.e. a creature bound in time and knowing only the earthly horizon, corrupted by sin... Can you think of a greater distance, a greater difference than the divine I and the human you? And you want to understand me, you want to judge me, to teach me?! Look around you: here is the mystery of the earth's formation and its continuance to this day, the wonder of the roaring seas, the splendour of the rising sun, the mystery of the sea-bed and the night of death, the way of light, the law of snow and hail, the course of the thundering lightning, the course of the wind and rain, the strange origin of dew, the underground path of spring and stream, the underground way of the spring and stream: all such wonders as you cannot contrive or create! "Do you make them, or can you prevent them?" asks God. And art thou master of the law of the starry heavens, where Orion shines, and the star of the Grim Reaper, and the great Spindle of Wormwood, and where the moon has been on her wonted course for millions of years? Canst thou lead the clouds and set the lightning in its path?
So the questions are asked one after another without Job being able to answer even one. And God relentlessly keeps on asking - I won't list the other questions, because that's enough; could we today give a more satisfactory answer? Hardly, for we are already searching the universe with giant telescopes, electron microscopes and rocket spaceships, and yet the deeper the most modern science penetrates into the mysteries of the big world or the little world of atoms, the more it is amazed at these mysteries, which are gradually deepened before it. Where were you, man, or even modern human science, God asks, when I laid the foundations of the earth? Surely none of us were there, and none of us can impose new laws on the universe, however much technical progress may be made. For there is no doubt that science today is capable of much more than it was in Job's time. The study of weather conditions, and even the influencing of them in a certain sense by the means of technology, has progressed to the point where it can be put to practical use. Yet this manipulation is no more than a groping at the very edges of the powerful forces of nature, but the centre of those forces lies somewhere beyond human reach. We know a thousand times more about the astronomical world today than we did then. Astronomy can now measure in light years the distances that were called 'the ropes of the reaper star' in Job's day, but it cannot untie those ropes today; we now know things, secrets, such as that the Andromeda nebula is made up of 2-3 billion suns and is so far away that it takes 800,000 years for light to reach it, and that there are millions of such systems of milky way stars millions of light years apart... But today we are as unable to move even one star out of the way of billions as we were in Job's time. God is Lord of this vast world today as He was in the past. The progress of human science and technology has only increased the glory, majesty and power of God before us, because we have seen more of His world, and have seen more deeply into the mystery of His creatures. - Behold, just a glimpse into the wonders of the created universe, just a moment's reflective pause before what surrounds us in the natural world: already what the Apostle Paul says becomes so real: "Now by a mirror we see dimly..." - that is, in the mirror we see the image of things, of realities, but only the reverse and only a small article of it. And that too only dimly. So we don't see the connections, we don't see the meaning, the significance of things. Very often, the picture of the world and of history is incomprehensible and confusing to us, because we only see it from the back. Behold, we cannot even accurately discern, grasp and understand the Creator's creations: not even the Creator himself!
There is nothing more ridiculous and pathetic than human pride, and in the many questions of why which torment us so much, is it not the pride that is at work, which nevertheless penetrates the mysteries of God, which nevertheless wants to penetrate into the thoughts of God, which nevertheless wants to understand God? And when we 'contend with the Almighty,' that is, when we rebel against God, when we oppose His will, when we are dissatisfied with His ways, when we doubt His goodness, when we call His works to account, when we are in any way lukewarm towards Him? Is it not arrogance bordering on madness to imagine that I am the centre of the universe, that everything is from me, through me and to me? Even God?!
Job, now standing before God speaking in the storm, realised that something quite absurd had brought him into a relationship of suffering with God. He thought that he could demand something of the Lord, that he could ask something of the Lord, when it was only the Lord who could have a question for him. And when God begins to ask man his own questions, our questions become more and more silent, because - we cannot answer! When God is truly exalted before Job, then at once the turmoil is quieted, the rebellious heart is soothed, and the suffering soul barely audible speaks: 'Behold, I am small, what shall I answer thee. I put my hand to my mouth, I will speak no more. I blame myself and mourn in dust and ashes." When a man speaks like this: the angels are already rejoicing in heaven. Here, too, it is as if the darkness of the ordeal is already beginning to disappear, the night, the struggle, the pain, is already gone. We can almost feel that a new ray of light is now shining in Job's heart. His friends are still standing around him, just as helpless and perplexed as before. He himself is still sitting in the ashes, covered in sores, destitute, childless, abandoned by his wife. He has not even been given the slightest promise that he will soon be cured, that his situation will change, that his fate will change for the better... Yet in his heart there is peace! How can this be? Because the balance between him and the living God has been shifted; because when God is big enough and man is small enough, there is always dawn, there is always light, even if the external situation of someone has not changed.
There is a place in this world where the immeasurable greatness of God and the pitiful littleness of man are most visible. More than on the sea, or on the mountain tops, or in the storm, or in the structure of the atom. This is the place: Golgotha. The place where the cross of Jesus Christ stands. Here is where God is greatest and man is least! And it is here alone that the balance between God and man is ever restored. For when God is big enough and I am small enough, it is also here, on Calvary, that the distance between us is bridged. It is here that the infinitely powerful Lord bends down to me - not to crush me like a worm, but to make sure that He cares for me, that He cares for me, that He loves me! There, at the cross of Christ, I am most inferior before God and yet most precious to God. There I know that, though I am dust and ashes that a wind can blow away, I am still God's, the beloved child of the Father. Then there is no more trouble, nothing more trouble, then all can be well! For that which is in me the child of God is no more caught by sickness or any other affliction than a bullet catches the sun. God is present to me here, in a way that his presence silences me, but also quiets me and makes me happy. It is here that we must always come to again, to endure with a peaceful heart, with a certain hope, even if the solution is still invisible.
There is a healing spring in Balatonfüred. It has been flowing for thousands of years, accessible to all. But if you want to draw from it, you have to go down stairs to the spring, bend down to reach it, because you can only reach it by bending very low, bending at the waist and knees. It is accessible to everyone, but you have to bend very low and bend your knees to reach it. But everyone can get there, you too, now! Let us all go, then, imploringly:
Embrace me with your holy love,
Of thy everlasting covenant,
Cover me with thy protection,
Give me a share of your inheritance:
Look to thy old mercy
And your one and only Son.
O my only one helper,
Lord Jesus, have mercy!
Be my Elder, my Guide,
Protect me from evil;
For you have come for me,
And shed blood for me.
(Canto 210, verses 3-4)
Amen
Date: 2 November 1958.
Lesson
Jób 38