Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4 (Pentecost 17C)
St. John, Galveston 10/5/25
Rev. Alan Taylor

+ In Nomine Jesu +

Grace and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

    The Book of Habakkuk may well be one of the most forgotten books in the Bible. I say that, at least in part, because looking over a couple of thousand sermon’s I’ve preached here at St. John’s, I found that not one of them was based on Habakkuk. I’m also pretty sure I’ve never given anyone a confirmation verse from the book either. Admittedly, my reasons for judging Habakkuk a forgotten book are anecdotal at best, but I still think it’s true.  

    It’s odd and unfortunate though that Habakkuk is an obscure book since it deals with such a relevant and timeless topic, namely the prophet’s frustration with God over injustice and wickedness in the world. In Habakkuk’s case, it was his frustration with God over the injustice and wickedness suffered by the people of Judah, the Kingdom from which the Messiah would come into the world. The book begins with Habakkuk bemoaning what he perceives as God’s lack of attention to His people. “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you ‘Violence!’ and you will not save?”

    Habakkuk wrote those words roughly 2,600 years ago, but they are timeless in terms of the deep frustration with God that they express. Their timelessness is an easy characteristic to test. Have you ever experienced frustration with God over injustice and wickedness in the world? Do you ever wonder why God allows bad things to happen to people, oftentimes even to His own people? Do you ever wonder why God doesn’t right everything that’s wrong in the world, and why He doesn’t always cause justice to prevail?

    From Habakkuk’s perspective, and, no doubt, from ours too, his cry was met with a rather unsatisfactory response from God, at least, initially. As a people, Judah was guilty of her own injustice, both toward her own citizens, but more importantly, toward God. As a result, she would be disciplined by God. And so, He set Habakkuk as a watchman over Judah and He gave him an unpopular message to proclaim to the people. “I am doing a work in your days (God said) that you would not believe if told. For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans (that is, the Babylonians), that bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth, to seize dwellings not their own. They are dreaded and fearsome; their justice and dignity go forth from themselves. They all come for violence, all their faces forward. They gather captives like sand. At kings they scoff, and at rulers they laugh.”

    In short, due to Judah’s waywardness and unfaithfulness, when Habakkuk cried to God about injustice and wickedness in his land, God essentially said, “you haven’t seen anything yet.” Shortly after the Book of Habakkuk was written, God sent a pagan nation to humble His people. He did what was necessary to chasten and discipline them for their own good. The lessen to be learned is that even those things in life that appear to be unjust can be used by God to bring about a result worthy of praise.  

    That’s the first part of the message that Habakkuk proclaims. God is always in control. It’s a message that is repeated and emphasized throughout the Scriptures. Perhaps the clearest proclamation of it is in the Apostle Peter’s first letter to the Church, where he says, “now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

    Peter emphasized the genuineness of our faith in dealing with the various trials in life that God deems necessary. Habakkuk does the same thing, although in slightly different words. Ultimately, the center, or the core of Habakkuk’s message is that God is in control and that our faith and trust are in Him.  “The vision awaits its appointed time (writes the Prophet); it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay. The righteous shall live by his faith.”

    There is a great deal of significance to the last part of that verse, evidenced, in part, by the fact that it is quoted three times in the New Testament. “The righteous shall live by his faith.” Beyond it’s use in the New Testament, the verse is also significant because it was so instrumental in the formation of Luther’s theology, and in the Lutheran Reformation.

    Frustrated as we may be with injustice and wickedness in the world, maybe even frustrated with God, we are certain of two things. The first is that we have been reconciled to God through the death and resurrection of Jesus, so that God counts us righteous, that is to say, He counts us holy, in His sight. “The righteous shall live by his faith.”    

    At the time of the Reformation, it was taught that a person had to BE righteous for God to receive them as righteous. In other words, a person’s  righteousness before God depended on him or her. This wasn’t good news. It wasn’t the Gospel. In fact, it was oppressive and even frightening because no one could ever know if they had done enough to be considered good enough for God.

    By the power of the Holy Spirit, Luther came to understand the righteous of God, and the Christian’s righteousness, in a completely different way. It is a passive righteousness that God gives to those who believe in Him. “I felt (says Luther) as though I had been reborn altogether and had entered Paradise. In the same moment the face of the whole of Scripture became apparent to me. My mind ran through the Scriptures, as far as I was able to recollect them, seeking analogies in other phrases, such as the work of God, by which He makes us strong, the wisdom of God, by which He makes us wise, the strength of God, the salvation of God, the glory of God. Just as intensely as I had now hated the expression ‘the righteousness of God,’ I now lovingly praised this most pleasant word. This passage from Paul became to me the very gate to Paradise.”

    Faith, like your righteousness, is also freely given to you by God. Your faith is a most comforting gift, when it is considered, not subjectively, that is, as it is practiced in your life, but objectively, which is to say, according to it’s object. The object of your faith, of course, is Jesus Christ. It is He who has you in the palm of His hand. It is He who contends on your behalf with the injustice and the wickedness of this world. It is He who has redeemed you from your own injustice and wickedness and given you a place in His everlasting Kingdom.

    As you might expect, one of the greatest hymns in all of Christendom that expresses the objective nature of our faith was penned by Luther himself. In verse 2 of A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, we sing,

“With might of ours can naught be done,
Soon were our loss effected;
But for us fights the Valiant One,
Whom God Himself elected.
As ye, Who is this? Jesus Christ it is,
Of Sabbath Lord, And there’s none other God;
He holds the field forever.”

    Amidst all of the injustices and wickedness in this world of ours, “the righteous shall live by his faith.” And the Righteous One, Jesus Christ, will contend on your behalf. He is the One “who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.” And so, “in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” Indeed,

“He’s by our side upon the plain
With His good gifts and Spirit,
And take they our life, Goods, fame, child and wife,
Though these all be gone,
Our victory has been won;
The Kingdom ours remaineth.”

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

The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.

+ Soli Deo Gloria +