Waiting and Believing

Ishtar Gate, constructed circa B.C.E. 575 in Babylon by order of Nebuchadnezzar II, on display in Pergamon Museum, Berlin. Panoramic photo jch.

Sermon Series “Through the Bible,” № 47, Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4

“. . . the righteous live by their faith.” –Habakkuk 2:4

Who was Habakkuk? Among the twelve minor prophets, his ministry seems centered on the southern kingdom of Judah, with Jerusalem as its religious and political center. In the span of centuries during which the minor prophets worked, he serves in the latter days, approximately 600 B.C.E.

In contrast to the prophets we visited earlier this month, the threatening nation no longer is Assyria, but rather the neo-Babylonian Empire. In a brief span of years, it defeated the Assyrians and the Egyptians. It began to exert its power on Judah in a way that would result in the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple just 15 years after Habakkuk.

The king of this empire was Nebuchadnezzar II, who ruled from the capital city of Babylon, on the banks of the Euphrates River, in what is now Iraq. The ruins of Babylon are well known. In a story that might remind you of Indiana Jones, just before World War I, the Germans led an 18-year excavation, then reconstructed the city’s northern gate and promenade, now housed in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. It’s called one of the most complex architectural reconstructions in the history of archaeology.

Therese and I have visited twice during the past six years. The gate and processional are constructed from beautifully colorful glazed brick. They are covered with alternating rows of dragons, bulls, and especially lions, symbolizing the goddess Ishtar, after whom this gate was named.

Looking at the Ishtar Gate reminds me of Jerusalem’s gates, mentioned in our Tuesday night Lenten study.  Using source material from Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, John Higgins highlighted Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem, through an eastern gate, riding on a colt, surrounded by common people. He told us this entry was in sharp contrast to Governor Pilate’s entry through a western gate, riding a white stallion, protected by Roman soldiers.

In his lessons, John has introduced us to the term “domination system,” of which Pilate and his entourage are lead characters.  Jesus and the folks in his palm processional represent God’s new order characterized by justice and freedom. The way in which the gospel writer frames the story of Jesus implicitly poses a question: “Which parade do you want to join?”

The Ishtar Gate and its processional way are artifacts from another imperial parade. They were used for an elaborate, festive entry to mark the beginning of the agricultural year, just about this time, at the spring equinox. The holiday parade celebrated the supremacy of the Babylonian gods. But, just as much, the parade through the Ishtar Gate affirmed the supremacy of King Nebuchadnezzar, fierce and feared as a lion, and legitimated his domination over a wide swath of the Ancient Near East. 

Near these walls displayed today walked Bible characters whose names are familiar to us. In Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to bow down to the king’s golden idol, and held fast to their faith through an ordeal in the fiery furnace. In Babylon, the prophet Daniel interpreted Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams, and didn’t hold back sharing the meaning of the statue with clay feet. At great personal risk, he told the king that his empire would fall, that God eventually would crush the kingdoms that followed, then set up a new kingdom that never would be destroyed.

Habakkuk worked just a few decades before these events.  He couldn’t foresee exactly what would happen to Daniel and Daniel’s friends, but he knew bad times were coming. At the beginning of the text I read for you, he expressed concern about the moral decay of his nation.  He complained that God didn’t seem to be listening.

In chapter two, we learn that Habakkuk had climbed the wall of Jerusalem to wait for a response. Through Habakkuk, God issues an oracle that is unique, yet completely consistent with what we heard from Habakkuk’s contemporaries in the Book of Daniel. To Habakkuk, God has seemed powerless or absent. But, says God, a time has been set for judgment of Nebuchadnezzar and all the domination systems that follow.  Until that time, “the righteous live by faith.”

As we near the conclusion of our journey through the Hebrew Testament, this text seemed especially worth highlighting.  Habakkuk’s place looks small within the context of 39 Hebrew Testament books. But his oracles, especially this one, have had more impact than Habakkuk ever could have imagined.

Six hundred years later, “the righteous live by faith” influenced the author of the Letter to the Hebrews in his teaching about the true meaning of faith[1].

The Apostle Paul fought against a way of thinking that threatened to turn Christian faith into a new form of slavery.  Paul looked back to Habakkuk’s words to distinguish true from false teaching, telling the Galatians “The one who is righteous will live by faith” (Galatians 3:11).  Years later, after missionary journeys, he wrote the Letter to the Romans, which many scholars consider his greatest work. In it, Paul summarizes the gospel, telling the Christians at Rome “The one who is righteous will live by faith” (Romans 1:17).

Through Paul, this thought came to have a prominent place in the work of Martin Luther.[2]He tells how, in a crisis of conscience, God used Habakkuk and Paul to speak to him. He writes, “I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners, and . . . I was angry with God ….”[3]

“At last, by the mercy of God . . . I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God … as it is written, ‘the righteous shall live by faith.’ Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates.”[4]

Luther believed this moment represented a spiritual conversion  No longer did he feel compelled to try to earn God’s favor.  Instead he could accept God’s free gift. He was strengthened to wait for and believe in God’s final victory. 

Waiting isn’t easy for many people;  I know it isn’t for me, even in the simplest of things.  I look around, and see other people waiting for things they seriously need: affordable housing, adequate health care. In other parts of the world, people are waiting for guns to stop firing, and for bombs to stop dropping. I’m encouraged by the example of so many others who know from experience what it is like to wait and to hope!

God’s good news through the prophet Habakkuk, which became the gospel for us, might be summed up this way: the world as it is, is not the world as it shall be.  The prophets and the apostles agree: In the time between now and then, the righteous will live by faith.

NOTES

[1] Hebrews 10:36-39.

[2] Elizabeth Achtemeier, Nahum – Malachi, volume in “Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching,” Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1986, p. 33.

[3] Martin Luther, from “Luther’s Works,” as quoted by Carter Lindberg in Martin Luther: Justified by Grace, Nashville: The Graded Press, 1988, p. 17.

[4] Luther, p. 18.

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