Well, Hallelujah Anyway!
Well, Hallelujah Anyway
Having an “In Spite of” Faith
Today we are talking about the prophet Habakkuk and his defiant joy. He was willing, in the midst of suffering, confusions, and chaos, to give a hallelujah anyway.
Head/Mind – Helpful Information
It’s the most wonderful time of the year
With the kids jingle belling and everyone telling you
“Be of good cheer.”
It’s the most wonderful time of the year
It’s the hap-happiest time of the year
With those holiday greetings and gay, happy meetings
When friends come to call
It’s the hap-happiest season of all.
Those words were written in 1963 by Edward Paola and George Wyle, and Andy Williams sang them for his first Christmas album. In the issue of Billboard Magazine, dated November 28, 2009, the list of the “Top 10 Holiday Songs” places Williams’s recording of It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year as the No. 5 all-time holiday song.
#christmas #advent
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Pola
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Wyle
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andy_Williams_Christmas_Album
And I want to tell you that there have been some years when I have loved singing that song and others like it. But, there have also been years when singing a song like that would have made me feel so fake. Some years, I am not up to having a hap’, happiest time of the year. And my guess is that some of you have been there. You have probably had some years, and this may be one of them, when you did not feel like singing cheery songs and acting as if you were happy when, in fact, you were not.
But what do we do, especially when many folks around us are happy? The holidays seem to leave us with two unsatisfying choices: either we act like it’s the most wonderful time of the year when nothing in our life seems wonderful, or we do our best to keep our heads down and avoid being around others so as not to damper their Christmas spirit. But are those our only choices?
The scriptures offer us a much better choice. The Bible teaches us how to hold on to the light of faith amid darkness. If you understand the message of the scriptures, you will see that much of it is about coping with the harshness of life and trying to reconcile that with the idea of a good and loving God.
Heart – The Personal Connection
The message of Christmas is a message of real hope. In Jesus, God stepped out of heaven, down into a dark and broken world. God took the form of a Suffering Servant when he came for us. Jesus knew what it was to face opposition and abandonment. He knew what it was to be disappointed, frustrated, lonely, and even angry. He even wrestled with his Father’s will in the Garden of Gethsemane. That’s why his triumph over darkness, evil, sin, and death means so much. Being the Divine Son of God did not exempt him from the authentic and very human experience of sorrow.
Hebrews 4:15 says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”
Christmas is the celebration of the fact that God is not distant. He has come and faced the darkness of this world and overcame it. Jesus is the light of the world, and we all know that that light seems the most brilliant in the deepest darkness. He offers rest to the weary and hope to the downcast. His power is made perfect in our weakness, and he does not despise the humble and low.
Amid our greatest vulnerability, emptiness, sufferings, and struggles to cope, divine light and hope emerge.
Saint John of the Cross called the experience “the dark night of the soul.” All those whom the church has deemed saints have experienced it. It is a feeling of the eclipse of God… and absence of God when you need him most… a void. Yet, once you move through the void, there is an indescribable fullness from God. As Phillip Yancey says– “Grace always flows to the lowest, darkest point.” In our deepest experiences of emptiness and struggle, God eventually comes– and fills the void with his transforming love and graciousness– like a weight being lifted from our shoulders and candlelight pushing back the darkness.
So, we discover a deeper, wiser, and more mature faith and hope. I call it an “In spite of” faith. Steven Blair calls it having a “HALLELUJAH ANYWAY” mantra… pointing to an extraordinary kind of faith and hope.
It’s the faith and hope of the prophet Habakkuk. Habakkuk was a person of faith struggling to cope with disappointment and maintain a resilient hope. He voices his complaints to God but then, ends his book with a HALLELUJAH ANYWAY affirmation of faith:
For Habakkuk and others living in the last part of the seventh century B.C., it was a time of great uncertainty. A lot of international turmoil was brewing. In the Middle East, powers were falling and rising all around them. For example, under the long reign of King Manasseh, Judah, Habakkuk’s home, was a vassal state to the Assyrian Empire. This vassal relationship not only weakened Judah, but brought a corrupting influence into the society, including the placement of pagan idols in the Temple of God. #habakkuk
But alas, renewal seemed to be on the way. During the last third of the century, a just and godly king named Josiah came to power. Josiah brought about significant social, political, and spiritual reforms to the country.
These reforms could have been the beginning of a golden age, but tragedy was soon to strike twice. First, Josiah was struck down in battle during a brief conflict with Egypt. Josiah’s younger son, Jehoahaz, who seemed promising, was crowned king, but he was deposed three months later by Egypt and replaced by his corrupt brother, Jehoiakim. Under Jehoiakim, all the progress and reform brought about by his father was utterly undone, and Judah began to sink back into the depths of moral depravity, political corruption, and. spiritual decline.
As Habakkuk looked around, he could not believe how things were unfolding. He called out to God, asking him to do something. “Oh God, when will you set things right?” But the answer was not at all what he had expected.
Verses 1:5-11: Amid the political turmoil of the region, God was raising to power a people who had been a great power in the distant past, the Babylonians. Now, almost nobody before these turns of events would have ever dreamed that Babylon would again become a serious threat to power balance in that region of the world. It would be like imagining the Philippines or Spain becoming a superpower sometime in the next ten years. Nobody was looking for this.
God said he would use the Babylonians and their vicious plans to bring judgment upon the wickedness of God’s people. This development was not the answer Habakkuk was expecting. Verses 1:1-17 could be paraphrased as Habakkuk saying, “Say what?” And for the next one-third of the book, the prophet will argue with God, plead with God, bargain with God, and yell at God.
He simply does not understand why his world is coming apart. God does not provide a thorough explanation because, he tells Habakkuk, the prophet would not understand the explanation if God gave it to him. And so, it all comes down to one question: will Habakkuk trust God in the darkness? Will his faith go further than his sight? In chapter three, Habakkuk says a resounding, “Yes.” In fact, here is how he says it:
Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,
in spite of it all… I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my savior.
Hands – The Practical Application
In 2019, Bethel Music released the Song Raise a Hallelujah. It begins with these words.
I raise a Hallelujah, in the presence of my enemies.
I raise a Hallelujah, louder than the unbelief.
I raise a Hallelujah, my weapon is a melody.
It’s what I would call a defiant joy.
Habakkuk is saying that although none of my expectations have come true, I will still muster a word of gratitude and praise to God and give a HALLELUJAH ANYWAY. Steven Blair calls that saying “Yes” to God, despite disappointing circumstances of life and the experiences that cause us anxiety and depression.
Finding this IN SPITE of faith is not about putting on a happy face at Christmas. It’s not like forcing yourself to be ChiK-Fil-A cheery! It’s about being authentic. It’s about finding a way to cope with the harshness of life. It’s about making your way to the altar of God– and leaving your burden here– while you are bathed in candlelight and enveloped in eternal hope as a gift of grace. God can handle our real-ness and our harsh realities. That’s what makes God… God. Truly God. That’s who Jesus is– in his wounded flesh…really God in the midst of our real, harsh realities. He comes to us. He is Emmanuel…God with us. We are not alone. As he comes, there is the grace of divine light and hope.
If you are suffering this year, I hope you find your HALLELUJAH ANYWAY faith here this morning or at some point this Christmas season. Psalm 33 says,
“We wait in hope for the LORD; he is our help and our shield. In him, our hearts rejoice.” May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD, even as we put our hope in you, finding our in spite of faith!