Habakkuk Chapter Three: Trusting in a Sovereign God

The Following was given at North Kildonan Mennonite Church on January 29th, 2017. It is the final of four sermons that the Pastoral staff gave on the book of Habakkuk. You can find the other sermons on the NKMC website.

We’ve reached the end of our series on Habakkuk. Gary said the other week that I was supposed to bring all of this together, we’ll see if I can do some of that.

A couple months ago in a Worship Committee meeting, Gary suggested that now would be a good time to pick a book from the Bible for a sermon series. Chris and I thought it would be a good idea to pick something that we weren’t very familiar with since it would make us learn something new as well. If I haven’t taken a course on the book, then I can’t just repeat what my professor has to say about it. This led us to look at the Minor Prophets since that is what we are most unfamiliar with and eventually to Habakkuk since it is both long enough that we could do multiple weeks on it, but not too long that we would have too much work on our hands. Also, Habakkuk also has a funny name which made Chris and I giggle.

Somehow, Gary and Franz let me off easy for pulling a stunt like this, and have given me the fun chapter.

A brief recap of what we’ve talked about already:

Habakkuk takes place in the southern nation of Judah. Habakkuk can see the writing on the wall that Babylon is soon going to conquer Judah, and wants to know why God is letting this happen, Gary and Franz did an excellent job recounting the dialogue between Habakkuk and God. God explains to Habakkuk that God is using Babylon to punish Judah, and that God is working towards redeeming everyone. After five woes to the unjust, the book ends with Habakkuk’s prayer.

Habakkuk’s prayer brings back images of the Exodus. Plague going before him, delivering God’s people, trampling the sea, and so on. It is a promise that one day God will create a second exodus, and bring his people out of Babylon.

A key focus of the psalm is the Sovereignty of God. God “Splits the earth with rivers” “Sun and moon stood still”. God uses this power to attack the “leader of the land of wickedness” punishing him and destroying his warriors.

Habakkuk’s readers would have understood this to be the emperor of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, and would have hoped for God to plague Babylon the way he plagued the Egyptians. Their hope was that one day God will Defeat Evil, Bring Justice to all and rescue the oppressed.

Other prophetic authors also promised a coming day of the Lord or Day of Judgement, where eventually the Jews could return home in glory.

But this isn’t what happened.

The Babylonian exile eventually ended, but not with the glorious exodus that Habakkuk, Daniel, and others promised. King Cyrus of Persia conquered Babylon, and told everyone that the Babylonians had captured that they could return home, but not everyone did.

 This is because when Babylon had conquered Judah, Jews that had not been forced to move to Babylon had also fled to nearby countries like Moab, Ammon, Edom and Egypt to escape Babylon’s reach. As well, Jeremiah had told the Jews living in Babylon to seek the welfare of the city they were in, and to plant roots in their new homes. this population of Jews that live outside of the promised land are known as the Diaspora.

When the prophet Ezra returned home with many Jews, there were still some who stayed behind in Babylon because they had built new lives for themselves, and others stayed in their new homes in Edom and Egypt.

This second Exodus wasn’t as total as the prophets promised. The Diaspora still existed, the rich still held their power over the poor, evil still existed and injustice continued. So the Jews took a second look at the promises and a new understanding emerged that one day they would be completely fulfilled. They had an apocalyptic hope that there would one day be a day of the Lord, when God would reign on Earth. When there would be no more tears and no more sadness. One day God’s anointed leader would come and usher in this Kingdom of God.

Just as the Persians replaced the Babylonians, they were themselves replaced by the Greeks, the Greeks were driven out by a Jewish revolt led by the Maccabean Brothers, and for a brief time the Jews were interdependent, but eventually infighting resulted in the Roman Empire swooping in and taking over.

The people of Jesus’ day longed for the coming of the Lord, For the Kingdom of God. When Jesus stood in the Synagogue and read from Isaiah that

 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
     to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

his listeners recognized this passage as being about the impending Kingdom.

From there, Jesus starts going around and saying “The Kingdom of God is at Hand” or “The Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand” if you are reading from Matthew.

These actually mean the same thing Matthew, writing for a predominantly Jewish audience, avoided using the word “God” when possible, so he talks around it by using the word Heaven to mean God because God is in Heaven.

Anyways, Jesus spends the next 3 years proclaiming the Kingdom of God is at hand. It’s starting. Get on board! Many of his parables are about not missing the boat.

The kingdom of God is at hand. It is within our grasps, you can feel it, but it’s also not quite there. It’s already here, but not yet fully realized. It’s like a rough draft of a story, here, but not yet the final version of it. Or if I had two more days to work on this sermon

Jesus starts to collect disciples, his generals, who are going to lead his people to victory! Among them are Zealots and revolutionaries! Jesus has to be getting ready for a fight, right?

Jesus eventually marches into Jerusalem. People are ready to rebel! They think this is our moment! It is happening here and now. The Pharisees and Saducees tell him to get his crowd to shut up because they can see that the rebellion is about to begin and they are afraid of losing their positions of priviledge.

 Jesus goes into the Temple flipping the tables of the unjust money changers and sacrifice sellers. This is it! Everybody’s excited! Now that he’s cleansed the temple, surely he’ll next march on the Roman Garrison!

But he doesn’t. Instead he goes to Bethany for the night and returns to the temple the next day to teach. Over the course of the week, Jesus is arrested on charges of Treason and rebellion and crucified. It looks like his mission has failed. The crowds abandoned him, his disciples have gone into hiding. People think that this Jesus movement will is over; now that the head is cut off, surely the body will die with it.

It seems’ like the kingdom of God has failed

But Jesus doesn’t stay dead!

Three days later, he rises from the Grave! Jesus’ victory wasn’t merely over some earthly empire, rather his victory over the finality of death robs all earthly structures of their power.

The most an empire can do is kill you, Jesus’s resurrection shows that death isn’t the end.

Jesus returns, and commissions his followers to continue sharing the good news to all the world, that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. As he ascended into heaven, he promised that he would return for us one day and the Kingdom will come in its fullness.

Yeah, it’s not here completely, but we are called to work towards the Kingdom’s fulfillment.

In the same way that Habakkuk uses the image of Egypt to promise a Babylonian Exodus, John in Revelation uses the image of Babylon within his own context, and calls for the people to come out of her. Now obviously this isn’t a call to leave the literal city of Babylon, it had long ago ceased to be politically relevant, rather Babylon in John’s Revelation represents the empire of the day,

Empire doesn’t just mean Babylonian and roman empires, but has come to mean all forms of oppressive political and economic systems that stand in opposition to the Kingdom of God.

John’s revelation calls for an end to the Adulterous relationship of the church with Babylon. John’s message is active, we are supposed to come out of her, to resist oppression and evil rather than to benefit from said corruption.

         

While the weapons of empire are coercion and violence, hate and fear, the weapons of the Kingdom of heaven are love and mercy.

I think I read St Francis of Assisi’s Prayer last time I preached so I’ll read only a short portion this time:

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.

       

There is a growing tide of hate and fear these days, God calls us to bring hope and love.

While the empire wants us to fear the other, to close borders and build walls, we are called to build bridges and open our arms wide to embrace the other.

While the empire sees nature as resources to be exploited and extracted, citizens of God’s kingdom seek to care for God’s creation.

While women, people of colour, members of the LGBT community, and numerous other forms of minorities fear for their physical wellbeing in the empire, they should feel safe within the church.

As Gandalf once said “Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.”

 When Jesus said “love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you,” he meant it.

So what does this have to do with Habakkuk chapter 3? Habakkuk’s prayer is a message of hope. It’s reminds us that God is in control.

As the empire encroaches around us, intimidates us, makes us feel stupid for loving our enemies, tells us to give up on keeping our waters safe from pollution, when we face real consequences for our faith, we can hang on to the hope that comes in the knowledge that The Lord our God is Sovereign, and that He is in command. As Oscar Wilde wrote “Everything is going to be fine in the end. 
If it's not fine it's not the end.”

Jesus is coming back. God is in charge, and our hope is in him, just as Habakkuk’s was all those years ago. Amen,