Looking at Lent and Easter Through the Eyes of Job: Who is the King of Glory?

Scripture: Job 38:1-7; 40:1-14; 41:11

Sermon by Dr. George B. Wirth

First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta

Passion/Palm Sunday

April 16, 2000

Text:

“Lift up your heads, O gates!

And be lifted up, O ancient doors!

That the King of Glory may come in.

Who is this King of Glory?

The Lord of Hosts,

He is the King of Glory!”

(Psalm 24:9-10)

 

Introduction

In Samuel Becket’s play, Waiting for Godot, two poor, disheveled, lonely men spend their aimless time waiting for Godot to come (note the name God in Godot). They wait for Him because they expect He will explain and bring to an end their sense of isolation and insignificance. Every day, a child visits the men and informs them that Godot will not arrive until tomorrow. But in the play, Godot never comes.

 

As the book of Job unfolds with dramatic anticipation, all of the characters are waiting and watching for God to come. Job himself, in pain and protest, has laid down the gauntlet, challenging God to show and speak out. Job’s wife and his three friends have had their say, expecting God to reveal to Job the error of his sinful ways. And we in the audience, reading this ancient story, listening to the dialogue, we are wondering how and when God will set things right before the final act ends. So the stage is set, and we, all of us, are waiting for God to come.

 

Part 1

In chapter 38, the curtain rises and the Bible says: “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind: ‘Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man, and I will question you...Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding, who determined its measurements? Surely, you know!’” And on to chapter 40: “Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it...Will you put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be justified? ...Deck yourself with majesty and dignity: clothe yourself with glory and splendor...Pour forth your anger...Look at the proud...and bring them low...Tread down the wicked where they stand...Then I will acknowledge...that your own right hand can give you victory.” (Job 38, 40, selected verses)

 

Needless to say, this is not the answer Job expected or had hoped for, and it sounds as if God has completely ignored Job’s suffering. In essence, God tells Job that his human mind cannot comprehend the mysteries of heaven or the majesty of creation. And if Job thinks that he can run the world in a more orderly fashion by rewarding people who are good and punishing those who are wicked, then Job had better think again. Because, says God, governing the universe is a much larger and more complicated operation than Job has imagined.

 

Now, that response might seem harsh and uncaring to us, but in chapter 40, verse 3, Job accepts God’s answer and declares with humility, “Behold, I am of small account...I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but I will proceed no further.”

 

Without doubt, this is the turning point of the story. And while some biblical scholars have written that Job was so discouraged and defeated that he simply caved in, I believe, to the contrary, that he has finally found and made contact with the King of Glory!

 

Nowhere else in the Bible does a human being confront God with such defiance and get an answer booming back out of the silence. And even though God does not explain Job’s suffering, now Job knows that he isn’t suffering alone, for God is there with him in the valley of the shadow. William Safire, in his book about Job entitled The First Dissident, puts it this way:

 

“...To Job...the appearance of God’s voice was more important than the tone of that voice...It was what God did more than what He said or how He said it, that responded to Job’s need...What God did was to show up!”

(From The First Dissident by William Safire, Random House, New York 1992, page 74)

 

So here, after all of the waiting, is some hint, a semblance of an answer. God is holy, Job is human, and his desire, his demand to know “Why?” regarding the mysteries and sufferings of life is not commensurate with his capacity to comprehend it.

 

And yet, with all of that said, God did not abandon Job and leave him adrift in the world to face his pain and sorrow alone. God came to him, God spoke to him and in that moment, Job knew and believed God was with him in his time of trial and trouble.

 

Do you believe that is true in your life today? Do you? Fred Craddock tells the story about a pastor in Seattle, Washington who thought he believed it. “He called on a lady in the hospital who had been ill for weeks. She asked him ‘Would you pray pastor, would you pray for me?’ He said ‘Sure I will,’ so he prayed for her recovery, for health of mind and body. When he finished the prayer, she sat up on the side of the bed. She reached over and got her robe, put it on, stood up and started to walk around. Then suddenly, in a moment of exhilaration, she hugged him and said ‘Thank you! Thank you pastor!’

 

He left the room, went down the elevator, walked out the front door of the hospital into the parking lot and got into his car. But before he turned on the ignition, he bowed his head and said ‘Please God, don’t ever do that to me again!’”

 

Listen: if we really believe in a God who comes to us when we call upon Him, then we had better be ready for something to happen! Because as Job discovered, when God shows up, life will never be the same again.

 

Part 2

And so it is, on this Passion/Palm Sunday, as we remember and re-enact what happened in Jerusalem long ago. The crowds in the streets were waiting for someone to come. And when Jesus rode silently through the gates of the city, the people began to shout with all the breath that was in them, “Hosanna! Hosanna! Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” (Luke 19:38, John 12:13)

 

You see, they had been waiting for a long time for the King of Glory to come, hoping that He would set them free from Roman oppression. But what they did not know then was that this King had come to suffer with them, to reach out to the poor and lift up the weak. He came to embrace the lonely and minister to those who were sick. He came to welcome the outcasts of society and to remind the rich of their responsibility to help people who had little or nothing at all.

 

Well, that was not the kind of King they expected, so, they rejected Him and He went to the cross, still loving them, with compassion in His heart and forgiveness on His lips.

 

Is it possible that kind of king still comes to us today, a King of Glory with the power of the universe in His hands and yet who cares about us and loves us personally, each and every man, woman and child in this world?

 

Dr. Richard Selzer, a surgeon and a Christian, shares his answer to that question with this closing scene:

 

“I stand by the bed where a young woman lies, her face postoperative, her mouth twisted in palsy...A tiny twig of the facial nerve, the one to the muscles of her mouth, has been severed. She will be that way from now on. The surgeon had followed with religious fervor the curve of her flesh; I promise you that. Nevertheless, to remove the tumor in her cheek, I had to cut the little nerve.

 

Her husband is in the room. He stands on the opposite side of the bed, and together they seem to dwell in the evening light, isolated from me, private. Who are they, I ask myself, as he and this wry-mouth I have made gaze at and touch each other so gently? The woman speaks: ‘Will my mouth always be like this?’ she asks. ‘Yes’ I say, ‘it will. It is because the nerve was cut.’

She nods and is silent. But her husband smiles. ‘I like it,’ he says. ‘It is kind of cute.’ All at once, I know who he is. I understand, and I lower my gaze. One is not bold in an encounter like this.

 

He bends to kiss her crooked mouth, and I am so close I can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate to hers, to show that their kiss still works.”

(From Mortal Lessons by Richard Selzer, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1974, pages 45-46)

 

Who Is the King of Glory? He is Jesus, our Savior, who came to suffer with us and to redeem our pain with compassion in His heart and with forgiveness on His lips. He was not the kind of King the world wanted or expected, but He is the King of Glory that all of us need, and He has come into this world to set us free.

 

“Lift up your heads, O gates!

And be lifted up, O ancient doors!

That the King of Glory may come in.

Who is this King of Glory?

The Lord of Hosts,

He is the King of Glory! Hosanna!”

 

In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.