I will praise.  Praise is a choice we make.  We can praise or not.  “I choose to praise” is where we end up with the prophet Habakkuk this morning.   What a good place to be!  I Will Stand, I Will Write, I Will Praise.  How do we live as people of God, people of faith, people in Christ with the Holy Spirit of Christ in us, in the middle of difficult circumstances?  We started with Habakkuk’s lament – “How long?  Why?”  We talked about listening for God’s voice, standing, watching, waiting.  We talked about God giving us a task to do as we live in hope, in confident expectation of good.  Let these words continue to resonate for us – “Write the vision, make it plain on tablets so that a runner may read it.  For there is still a vision for the appointed time, it does not lie.  If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay.”  We shared with one another the vision that God is putting on our hearts to make known.  Here’s some of what we said.

We heard about a call to faith and continuing faithfulness.  The righteous shall live by their faith or faithfulness.  Ongoing holding fast to Jesus, who has taken hold of us.  This morning we come to the final chapter.  We come to prayer and song and a statement of faith on the part of the prophet that we are invited to make our own.  We come to praise.

The situation has not changed so much.  We’ve spoken of the historical situation that this book addresses.  Judah was about to be invaded by the Babylonian Empire.  We know the historical situation that we face.   Not a lot has changed, it seems.  One writer puts it like this: “Destruction and violence still mar his community, strife, and contention still arise.  Nations still rage and devour those weaker than they.  The arrogant still rule, the poor still suffer, the enslaved still labour for emptiness.  And false gods are still worshipped on the earth.”

I don’t have to draw you a picture.  We have our eyes open.  Faith is not a call to seclusion or reclusion (not all the time anyway).  We also know the personal situations that we and those we love face (and isn’t it good to be able to share those situations and help carry one another’s burdens in the family of God?).

Where do we begin?  We begin with a prayer.  A prayer that’s actually a song.  We need a song, I believe.  We need to be doing things that keep the truths contained within the prophet’s message in front of us all the time.  You’ll note that much of this chapter is set up like a psalm.  Which are songs.  Which are prayers.  You can tell it’s a song from the way it’s set up – “…according to Shigionoth”, which we read in the Psalms.  No one is 100% sure what it means, but it denotes a song.  Same thing with “Selah”.  It’s like a musical break.  A stopping to consider truth about the One whom we praise.

We talked last week about the story of God being, in part, a story of a conversation between God and people.  We hear God’s voice in His Word.  The call for us is to respond.  Praise of God together is one such response.  Singing together, no matter the quality of our voice.  It doesn’t matter.  Praising God alone in song or with the words “Praise God from whom all blessings flow/Praise him all creatures here below/Praise Him above ye heavenly host/Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost/Amen!”  The prophet issues an invitation to prayer and praise.  Not only the invitation but the means.  To stand in awe of God.  Recognize God’s “otherness”.  Recognize the failure of our own self-sufficiency.  The myth of our own self-sufficiency.  When we come together to praise God, we are visibly and tangibly expressing our need, our thanks, our desire to know God more, our love.  Our prayers.

Praise and prayer.  Look at what the prophet prays.  “I have heard of your renown.”  I have heard about what you’ve done.  I’ve heard that you’re a God who delivers.  Then comes the plea.  “I stand in awe, O Lord, of your work.  In our own time revive it; in our own time make it known…”   Another translation has it “In the midst of our years”.   In the midst of our years, make your grace, your mercy, your love, your justice known.

This is our prayer, too, because like the prophets of the OT, we live in a time of waiting.  We live in the “already/not yet” of the Kingdom of God.  The Kingdom that was announced by and brought about in the person of Jesus, in his life and death and resurrection.  We await the fulfillment of this Kingdom when Jesus will come again.  This means that our primary concern is not with ourselves, or even our own service – note that Habakkuk’s plea is not that God makes him an ever more effective prophet – but that God’s purposes are fulfilled.  One writer puts it like this:

“There is our focus – the Kingdom of God…The question… is, Has the time of the Kingdom drawn nearer?  Has God’s purpose been advanced?  Is his banner still on high? The church’s goal is every knee bent and every tongue confessing Christ’s lordship.  The church’s concern is the glory of the Lord known over all the earth.  The Church’s cause is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, in all and through all.  And so the church’s prayer is and must ever be, “O Lord, in the midst of the years, renew thy work.  Bring in thy Kingdom on this earth, even as it is in heaven.”

Amen!

We heard last week that there was still a vision for the appointed time.  God’s kingdom coming in all its fullness.  The wolf shall live with the lamb.  They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, God said in Isaiah 11.  A new heaven and a new earth from John’s vision in Revelation 21.  The voice from the throne saying, “See, I am making all things new.” 

There is still a vision for the appointed time.  We live in confident expectation of deliverance for all of creation because our God is a delivering God.  God’s deeds of deliverance in the past are remembered.  Habakkuk recalls the deliverance of the people of Israel from the Egyptian empire.  “Before him went pestilence, and plague followed close behind.”  A reminder that God will not allow oppression to go unchecked forever.  “The eternal mountains were shattered along his ancient pathways, the everlasting hills sank low.”  No matter how strong and impervious the Empire might seem – and it may seem as impervious and eternal as mountains -it is no more impervious than those mountains to the will of God to bring justice and peace and in the midst of it all mercy.  “In wrath remember mercy,” was the prophet’s prayer, and we should always pray for mercy even for those who oppress.  (And we remember Jesus’ prayer, “Forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.”)  “Was your wrath against the rivers, O Lord? Or your anger against the rivers, or your rage against the sea, when you drove your horses, your chariots to victory?” goes the song. 

The answer, of course, is “No!”  God’s wrath was against sin and death, which disorder/destroy relationship,s and so God came to do something about it.  The brightness was like the sun, we read.  How could we not remember “In him was life and the life was the light of all people.”  How could we read “You came for the to save your people, to save your anointed.  You crushed the head of the wicked house, laying it bare from foundation to roof,” and not remember the promise made so long ago to the liar, the accuser, “He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”  The victory has been won.  The victory is being won.  The victory will be won.

We rejoice in such truths in our praise.  We name such truths in our praise.  We don’t do so to remind God, but to remind ourselves.  Praise and prayer doesn’t necessarily change circumstances, but they change us through the power of God’s Spirit within us.  One commentator wrote this: “One thing we surely have in common with the prophet Habakkuk is an awareness that lots of things have gone and are going wrong in the world at large, in our communities, and in our own lives.”  We have been reminded that there is still a vision for the appointed time.  The one who promises “I will be with you always, even to the end of the age” is still in the boat with us.  We have been reminded that the righteous will live by their faith/faithfulness/ongoing trust in the God who has shown Himself to be wholly and utterly trustworthy.

 We end with this great statement of faith.  A statement which affirms that no matter what our circumstances, we will praise.  We will rejoice.  We will know peace in our Lord. 

Though the fig tree does not blossom,

and no fruit is on the vines;

though the produce of the olive fails,

and the fields yield no food;

though the flock is cut off from the fold,

and there is no herd in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the LORD;

I will exult in the God of my salvation.

God, the LORD, is my strength;

he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,

and makes me tread upon the heights.”

We talked last week about being messengers; about being living letters of Christ.  Here we’re like deer.  The same image is sung in Psalm 18:33 – “He made my feet like the feet of a deer, and set me secure upon the heights.”  Here’s the thing about the deer.  These are not North American deer.  We may think, “What’s with all this sure-footed on heights talk?  The deer here are more like the Nubian Ibex.  They like heights.  They head up on the rocks.  No matter how rocky or precarious the situation, He makes me sure-footed like a deer.

The book ends with this musical direction – “To the leader: with stringed instruments.”  I like that.  I like stringed instruments.  I like the instruction.  Play it this way.  Sing it out.  Keep this message going.  Make it known.  Hold fast to the faith.  Hold fast to that for which Christ has taken hold of you.  May we continue to live as people of faith, friends, knowing in the midst of all the uncertainty that makes up our world and makes up our lives, how the story ends.  May God make this ever more clear to us and through us.

Amen