Keep Smiling

First Lesson: Job 38: 1-7, (34-41)
Responsive Reading: Psalm 91: 9-16
Second Lesson: Hebrews 5: 1-10
​Gospel Lesson: Mark 10: 35-45

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Grace and Peace from Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
“Be still, and know that I am God.
    I will be exalted among the nations,
    I will be exalted in the earth!”-Psalm 46:10
When I was in college, I had a roommate named Gabe.  Gabe came from Oregon to Concordia.  Gabe had an interesting approach to time management.  I remember coming back to our apartment when I was confused by Gabe’s presence as I thought he had class at that time.  Gabe said he was on his way already fifteen minutes late, as he was casually scrolling his laptop.  To which Gabe proclaimed “He would leave, upon changing his Fantasy Baseball roster.” 
Here’s what made Gabe such a fascinating student, even if his time management wasn’t the best.  Gabe was really smart.  Gabe’s currently a college professor.  Now, most people who would show up an hour late to a three-hour class would try to sneak into the back of the room unnoticed.  Gabe would proceed to raise a hand and proceed to lecture the class on everything that Gabe had missed.  Here’s the thing Gabe is not unique. 
Students like Gabe thinking they’re possibly smarter than their teacher goes all the way back to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.  We often see the world through our own experiences and think we know better than God how exactly it should all work.
Teresa was born in Macedonia in 1910[1].  She considered her true birthday to be the day of her baptism rather than the day of her birth.  By the age of 12, she was fascinated by missionaries who served in the faraway nation of India.  She would spend her high school years praying at religious shrines and traveling on religious pilgrimages.  Teresa became a nun at age 21 and spent many years teaching at a religious school[2].  At the age of 37, she received a call within the call where she desired to leave her convent and work among India’s destitute and dying[3].  Teresa was a model Christian till to this point in her life. 
Teresa’s new calling though nearly broke her faith.  Within a few years of her new calling, she wrote letters to her religious superiors describing her feelings of “doubt, loneliness, and abandonmen[4]t.”  She described God as “absent, heaven empty, and bitterest of all, her own suffering seemed to count for nothing[5].”  She would spend every day for the next fifty years of her life struggling with God’s existence.  How should we make sense of Teresa’s struggles with her faith, we’ll get back to her story in just a little bit.
Let me tell you the story of a man whose story mirrors Teresa’s in many ways.  His name was Job.  The scriptures describe Job as one of the most devout men around who prayed diligently. Job was also a recipient of God’s tremendous blessing.  He had seven sons and three daughters, all sorts of sheep, cattle, and oxen[6].
Well one day, God and Satan were having a debate.  Satan was looking for someone to test.  Satan was looking for a model of faith.  God suggested Job.  God gives Satan permission to do what he must to try to break Job’s faith[7].
Pretty soon, Job’s world begins to fall apart.  Job loses everything in his home, his possessions, and even his children.  Job kept his faith in spite of all this.  
“And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”-Job 1:21
It was when Job gets stricken with a horrible skin disease that brought him painful boils that he fell into a deep depression and began to question God’s plan for his life[8]. 
The majority of the book of Job consists of a long discussion between Job and his friends trying to make sense of God’s ways[9][10].  His friends tried all sorts of tactics in both defending God and trying to calm Job down in his anger towards God. 
Finally, in Chapter 38, God breaks his silence.  Job probably wasn’t going to be satisfied with God’s answers. 
“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
    Tell me, if you understand.”-Job 38:4
God’s answer to Job is that God and Job’s knowledge base on how the world works are not comparable.  Job didn’t decide upon the size of the universe, nor which direction water would flow.  Job did not create the sky or the life that wanders the earth[11], God’s answer to Job is our knowledge bases are so different; you are in no position to question my methods.  
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.”-Isaiah 55:8.
Job’s response to God’s answer was remarkable.  Job didn’t lose faith.  Job didn’t lose hope.  Job’s eventual conclusion was that he would be still in God’s presence:[12] “
Within Today’s lesson, Job declares: “Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know[13].” As Job previously declared: “I lay my hand on my mouth[14].”
Joni Eareckson was born in Baltimore in 1949[15].  Joni was a typical child.  She enjoyed riding horses, hiking, tennis, and swimming.  A few months before her eighteenth birthday, her life would forever change.  Joni dove into the nearby Chesapeake Bay.  She misjudged the shallowness of the water.  She struck her head, fractured her vertebrae, and would become a quadriplegic unable to move her body from the neck down.
Joni’s accident was such that she needed to spend two years of her life in extensive physical therapy.  She experienced the full range of expected emotions during these two years: anger, depression, suicidal thoughts, and religious doubts[16].  She had to learn to write with her teeth. 
Joni like Job nearly had her faith destroyed.  One night though she was visiting with a friend of hers who pointed out to her the following: “Joni, Jesus knows how you feel. He was paralyzed. He couldn’t move or change position on the cross. He was paralyzed by the nails[17].”
The realization was profoundly comforting. Joni came to realize that God’s purposes could be at work within her life, in ways that she can’t even imagine. 
Joni now known as Joni Eareckson Tada has since become one of the most well-known and widely admired Christian authors in the country.  Joni still prays for her own healing.  Joni realizes that her healing will take place on God’s timeline rather than her own, yet God has been with her every day since her accident[18]. 
We will have people in our lives like Teresa, Job, or Joni.  We might even be someone who wonders “Why does God allow such suffering around me?”  I don’t want to begin to try to answer this question.  I can’t always make sense of all of God’s ways in my own life.  I know first-hand how frustrating this can be.  What I will say is that I believe in hope beyond what I can see Today[19].  Whenever we despair, we need to look in the direction of the Cross of Christ to remember this. 
Peter earlier in the Gospels was struggling with the question of whether to remain one Jesus’ followers after all sorts of other disciples abandoned him in droves[20].  Peter realized something that was recognized by Job before him[21]: “Where else should we go? You have the words of eternal life[22].”
Earlier, I told you the story of Teresa who spent the last half-century of her life in the deep struggle of her faith because of the poverty and pain she witnessed within India.  Teresa is better known as Mother Teresa of Calcutta. 
Mother Teresa was like Job; she wasn’t some pie in the sky, perfect Christian who never struggled or doubted[23].  Mother Teresa was in many ways, no different than many of us.  She lived with the poorest of the poor, ate a meager diet, and wiped the types of sores on people’s bodies not dissimilar to the sores that caused Job to curse God’s name[24].  She spent most of her life surrounded by death and suffering without any break[25].  She didn’t do this because she was crazy; rather she did this because she managed to see God’s presence where others could merely see Satan’s curses.
Mother Teresa came to believe that even as she felt abandoned by God, God did not abandon her.  On the cross, when God seemed to be most absent, he was most-present.  Mother Teresa came to believe that it was her suffering that would indeed point the way to her eventual salvation.  She looked every way around her and saw nothing but trials for her faith.  Whenever Mother Teresa would encounter visitors and community members, she encouraged them to “keep smiling[26].”
Like Job, she believed that no matter how much she struggled with her faith, God-like in the story of Job or Joni Eareckson would eventually restore great “joy” to her life.  “Be still, and know that I am God[27].”  Cling to the Cross of Christ no matters the current storms of your life. We remember as we look toward the cross on this day that God’s sense of timing for how the universe all works together is better than our own. The teacher is indeed most often wiser than the student.    Amen


[1] “Mother Teresa.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation. 7.Sept.2018. Web. Sept.18.2018. 

[2] Mother Teresa.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation
[3] Hoezee, Scott. “Job 23.” Center for Excellence in Preaching. Calvin Seminary. Grand Rapids, MI. 5.Oct.2015. Web. Sept.18.2018 taken from May 2003 edition of First Things “The Dark Night of Mother Teresa.” Written by Carol Zaleski.
[4] Hoezee, Scott. “Job 23.” Center for Excellence in Preaching.
[5] Hoezee, Scott. “Job 23.” Center for Excellence in Preaching.
[6] Job 1:1-3
[7] Job 1:6-12
[8] Job 2:7-3:1.
[9] Job 3-37
[10] Stier, Leon. “Be Still (B).” Email Mediatations. 6.Sept.2017. Web. Sept.18.2018. 
[11] Molin, Steve. “Intelligent Design, Indeed.” Sermon Writer. 2006. Web. Sept.18.2018. 
[12] Stier, Leon. “Be Still (B).” Email Meditations.
[13] Job 42:3. 
[14] Job 40:4.
[15] “Joni Eareckson Tada.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation. 16.Sept.2018. Web. Sept.18.2018. 
[16] “Joni Eareckson Tada.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation
[17] “Joni Erikson Tada.” Stories for Preaching taken from Joni and friends’ website, Joni’s books. Web. Sept.18.2018
[18] Joni Erikson Tada.” Stories for Preaching.
[19] Stier, Leon. “Be Still ©. Email Meditations. 7.Sept.2017. Web. Sept.18.2018. 
[20] John 6:66.
[21] Stier, Leon. “Be Still ©. Email Meditations.
[22] John 6:68.
[23] Hoezee, Scott. “Job 23.” Center for Excellence in Preaching.
[24] Hoezee, Scott. “Job 23.” Center for Excellence in Preaching.
[25] Hoezee, Scott. “Job 23.” Center for Excellence in Preaching.
[26] Hoezee, Scott. “Job 23.” Center for Excellence in Preaching.
[27] Psalm 46:10.