What we are making today is trouble. I don’t mean this in a bad way at all. I simply mean that we are making something new today, a new household, a new family that will not leave the world the same as it was. This is how God designed it.
God created the world, and even before sin and evil entered it, there was going to be trouble. The world needed to be tamed and cultivated. There was work to be done. Eden was a paradise, but God told Adam that His mission was the rule and cultivate the whole world. That was a lot of trouble. And then God allowed a talking dragon into the garden. Talk about trouble.
The story of Job illustrates some of these same themes. Job is presented kind of like a new Adam in the beginning of the story: he lives a very idyllic life. He is very successful, and God sends him trouble. He allows Satan to strike his world. Like Adam, even Job’s wife tempts him to sin, but Job refuses to curse God. He insists on receiving both the good and the evil from the hand of God.
And the terrifying thing is that God clearly loved Job. He is the One who pointed Job out to Satan. Have you considered by servant Job? And if we’re honest, we all hope that God does not love us quite that much. God seems to think this is fun.
But of course all of that is only the beginning of the trouble. Then, in that place of suffering, three men show up, claiming to be comforters, but they are nothing of the sort. They begin accusing Job of sin, of doing something that caused God to strike him, which Job denies, and most of the book of Job is taken up with this argument, which sort of feels like the comment thread under certain Youtube videos.
You’re honestly not sure it’s worth it. And meanwhile, Job begins crying out to God, pleading for God to meet with him. He has been struck, and he is being persecuted unjustly, and He would like to speak to the Lord about it.
One more man shows up, and he says that Job is crazy. You cannot talk to the Lord. You cannot have a meeting with the Lord of the Universe. Elihu says that God is like a great storm, a tornado, a hurricane, and you cannot schedule a meeting with the storm.
And then the next verse says, “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind…” It’s one of my favorite parts of the whole Bible. God is a storm, and yet God speaks to Job from the storm.
And it really is overwhelming for Job. For how does a mere man stand and talk to the living God? We are like whisps of breath compared to Him. We are like specks of dust, and He is the Sun of the Universe. As C.S. Lewis asks, how can we meet Him face to face till we have faces? And yet God spoke to Job, and called him to stand on his feet, to gird up his loins.
The Lord begins asking Job all kinds of questions: were you there when I made everything? Have you been to the bottom of the ocean? Can you bind the stars in their constellations? Can you control clouds? And of course many of the questions are obviously impossible for Job, but some of them are not quite as impossible: Do you know how many months mountain goats take to gestate? What about deer? Can you tame eagles? Ultimately, God comes to a couple of monstrous beasts: Behemoth and Leviathan, asking if Job can tame them, if he would give one as a pet to a little girl.
God is a wild and exciting storm, a whirlwind of glory and beauty and creativity. It’s like He’s running through a catalogue of all of His favorite things in creation. Job admits that all of these things are too wonderful for him, and he covers his mouth in humility.
But the end of the story is remarkable: God rebukes the three wicked friends and says that they did not speak rightly like His servant Job. God exonerates Job and restores his household.
And the message is clear: God plays with trouble. God plays with dragons and tornadoes. God rides on the wings of the wind. He walks on water. And He made us to learn to walk with Him. He made us to learn to delight in the glories of His creation with Him. He made us to play with trouble with Him.
Sin gets in the way of this. Sin slows us way down and distracts us and makes everything worse. Sin is going the other way. Sin is boring and returning to the darkness of death and silence. But God is alive. God is life itself. And His life is bursting with energy, bursting with adventure, bursting with trouble. Not bad trouble at all, good trouble – the trouble of hard work, mystery, exploration – the best kind of trouble – the trouble of wind and rain and dirt – the trouble of life.
So that is what we are celebrating today, the beginning of a lot more of that kind of trouble. And yes, in a fallen world, that includes some of the hard troubles and sad troubles, but we face all of it with the One is completely untroubled. Jesus falls asleep in the back of the boat in the middle of the storm and then wakes up and tells the storm to cool it. He suffers the death that we all deserve for our sin, and He woke up on that first Easter morning alive and started some really wonderful trouble for the men who were supposed to be guarding His tomb. And that gospel message has been troubling the world in the best way ever since.
So Andrew, my charge to you is to be lean into this and be a godly troublemaker. Lead your wife and your family in the great adventure of following Jesus Christ. Jesus is not afraid of death, and He is at war with all sin. So you must imitate that fearless martial spirit. Jesus rules the heavens and the earth, and He invites us to learn to rule with Him. And that is a lot of work and a lot of trouble, and so you are called to work hard with all your might to provide for your family, and do it with joy in your heart. Smile at the wind and the rain. Inhale deeply and smell the glory of Christ. Love your wife like Christ loves His church, which doesn’t mean doing whatever she wants, but means doing what she needs to grow in godliness and grace and wisdom.
Miriam, my charge to you is actually the same: you need to lean into this as well, and you too need to be a godly troublemaker. But you do this a little differently as a woman and as a wife. You are called to love the trouble of making a home and it a place of rest and beaty and abounding life. Do not think of the dishes and laundry as bad trouble; think of them as good trouble, the trouble of making life, making people. And of course, God-willing, you should make a number of new people as well. And that is some of the most glorious trouble of all. In all of it, look up to Andrew. Follow his lead, as he follows Christ, and do not fear death or pain or any terrifying thing because you know the One who rules it all, the One who plays with trouble but only does it for our good.
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.
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