As a Lenten discipline this year, I have decided to embark upon a journey with the Daily Office. The desire to do this comes from my weakness; I have struggled in the past to be faithful to daily prayer and devotion, and when I do manage to take the 10-15 minutes to do it, I tend to briskly read through the lessons in order to move on to another cup of coffee. I am truly sorry and repent of that, and pray that the Lord would use this season to rekindle in me a hunger and love for His word.
The reading on which I have chosen to write today is from the prophet Habakkuk. The lesson is Habakkuk 3:1-19. I will be working with the ESV text, which can be found here.
Habakkuk 3 is the final chapter of this book in the Minor Prophets and it takes the form of a psalm. Up to this point, Habakkuk has had a conversation with the Lord, a conversation which asked the perennial question, "Why is there evil?" Habakkuk's main concern was within the people of God. How could God allow the wicked to prosper and justice to be perverted? God's answer to the prophet is not very comforting, for He assures him that He will punish the wicked by bringing an invading army to defeat the people and subjugate them.
One can imagine the look on Habakkuk's face. How does this solve the problem? How could God punish the wicked using the more wicked, and would not the righteous be swept up in this judgment? Again, God answers the prophet, this time with the oft-quoted words that the righteous will live by faith. The Lord then continues by denouncing the evil of the Chaldeans (Babylonians), those people whom He has promised to bring upon His people. He will punish them in time.
By doing so, God shows that His character of perfect justice has remained the same. He is not winking at some sin in order to punish others. So perhaps in that Habakkuk can take some small comfort. However, through this Habakkuk has gotten a glimpse into the messy and complex problem of enforcing justice in a fallen world. None of us is perfectly just, and no nation made up of sinful and twisted people like ourselves will be able stand up to God's standards. And these are the tools with which God has chosen to work.
Habakkuk's prayer in chapter three is then a response to this sticky situation. God has responded to the wickedness of His people by calling upon them a more wicked people. These invaders will also be punished in time, but the righteous ones, the ones who call upon the Lord and trust in Him, they will live by faith. Through the season of judgment, when no earthly eye can see the good, these individuals shall look beyond what lies before them and trust that God is good and that, in some mysterious way, He is working all things together for the good of those who love Him.
Chapter three then is not just a psalm of Habakkuk, but a prayer for all of God's people in hard times. It is a reminder of God's power, spoken of in the past tense as it seem Habakkuk is remembering a time when God did ride in the midst of His people. The brightness of His presence speaks of might and glory (v 4). According to verse 6, He stands and measures the earth, meaning both that He is its creator and also that He applies His plumb line of righteousness (see Amos 7:7-9) to all of its inhabitants; He is the creator and the judge of all the earth. God is a warrior, armed with the bow, riding upon the chariot, and at His approach creation recognizes its Lord and Savior (vv 8-10). Indeed, the imagery of verse 10 is not just reminiscent of creation, but also of Exodus. The mountain writhing could be a reference to Mount Sinai wrapped in smoke and fire as the Lord took His place atop it. The waters lifting hands high could be an allusion to the water of the Red Sea standing like walls as the people of Israel marched through on dry ground. This omnipotent God, who is creator, judge, and warrior, rides out for the sake of His people (v 13), and fierce and violent justice attends His presence (v 13b-15).
Habakkuk's response to this is fear and trembling (v 16). God's responses to him have shown that there will be a time when injustice reigns, when the wicked rule the righteous, and are in turn punish by the even more wicked. It is as if the hope which Habakkuk had when he first called upon the Lord, perhaps hoping for swift justice, for the divine warrior to come immediately, has been disappointed. The Lord will come, but not on Habakkuk's time table. So he trembles and quivers.
But he cannot stop with trembling; he cannot simply wilt away into a hopeless depression, for God has also spoken words of comfort. The Mighty Warrior will come and exact judgment upon the earth and upon the wicked who have oppressed His people; and the righteous must live by faith, by trusting in the unseen despite the seen, they must hold on to the promised of God's timetable. And so Habakkuk, who becomes a model of response for all of God's people, finishes his psalm on the notes of hope (vv 17-19). Though all the evil which he has seen should come to pass, though the earth itself should fail to produce, though great poverty, hardship, even exile come upon the people, yet he will rejoice in the Lord. God, the Lord, the Divine Warrior, is Habakkuk's strength, and he will hope in Him. He will wait upon the Lord and live by faith.
Why is this the reading for us, one day into our Lenten journey? This is the question which I brought to each of the Daily Office readings today. Certainly the message of the prophet in Habakkuk 3 can apply at all times and in all places, for we are constantly struggling with the issue of evil in the world. But for Lent, perhaps Habakkuk's message is meant to remind us that we must wait for the victory of Easter, we cannot simply turn from one happy season to another. To structure the church year in this way would be unfaithful to the reality of our lives, lived out in a sinful world. Even more so, it would be unfaithful to the life of Christ, the one whom we follow through these forty days. He did not enter into "joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified" (A Collect for Endurance, Texts for Common Prayer, 12). Christ lived in a world of wicked nations conquered by wicked nations, of corrupt rulers and corrupt peoples. He walked through the worst of our world and embraced the cross, where he was pierced, crushed, and mocked. And then he entered into glory.
Lent is a time when our sinfulness is brought to the forefront, along with the sinfulness of the world. Habakkuk calls us to patient endurance, to know that victory and peace will come, but for now we must live with our brokenness. Though our own hearts fail to bring forth fruit, and the politics of a fallen world threaten to crash in on us, yet we are called to rejoice in the Lord, our God and Savior. For He does ride out for the sake of His anointed. He will come, and He will reign, and then all will be made well. But for now, the righteous are called to live by faith and wait upon the Lord.
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