Scripture text: Job 19:23-27
Halloween is now over a week past, but I'm still enjoying a bit of the afterglow from the holiday. It's my favorite time of year and probably my favorite holiday. TV and film are particularly fun around this time, full of stories and shows about ghosts, goblins, vampires, mummies, and the like. I'm not a big horror movie fan, but I do like the classics: Bela Lugosi, Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, and their films from decades past. The scares of yesteryear, as it were.
Thursday night, after Emily had gone to bed, I sat down to watch one such classic horror movie: The 1972 Christopher Lee film The Wicker Man. I'd never seen the original film, although I'd heard it was vastly superior to the recent remake of a few years ago. As much as I'd heard about this film, it was not quite what I was expecting.
The story is basically this. A very devout Christian police officer is summoned to remote Scottish island to investigate the disappearance of a young girl. No one on the island claims to know the girl, yet the officer keeps finding clues that prove she's real. In the meantime, our good church-going policeman is utterly baffled and disgusted by the religious practice of the islanders, who are all pagans. Eventually, (spoiler alert) he realizes he's been duped, that he was lured to the island in order to be a human sacrifice in the islanders' fertility rites. The officer is captured and then burned alive in the titular Wicker Man.
One of the things that stood out to me as I was watching this film (and the reason I've decided to make this my sermon illustration this morning) is the unwavering faith of Sgt Howie, the police officer. The islanders are constantly trying to tempt him with their pagan ways, their hedonistic sexuality in particular, and he always resists. Even when he realizes he's about to be murdered by these people, he holds fast to his faith, trusting that God will still be there for him no matter what.
It's funny, but some of the best portrayals of Christians and Christianity in popular culture can be found in horror films. Time and again, we find people of faith confronted with horrific villains and demonic monsters and time and again those same characters stand steadfast against the darkness. No matter what happens to them, they trust in God's saving grace.
I kept feeling that I had seen this sort of story somewhere else. Oh, yeah, it's in our lessons this morning, particularly in the Old Testament book of Job. Here again is such a person. Devout, steadfast, and he experiences horrific tragedy. His whole life is obliterated, his children killed, his fortunes lost. And yet despite all that and despite the counsel of so-called friends who tell him to “Curse God and die,” he remains steadfast in his trust that God will redeem him.
In fact, it is his statement of that very trust that stands as our first lesson this morning. I know that my redeemer lives! I know, even if the flesh rots from my bones, I will see God's deliverance.
He's not the only one in the Scriptures who makes such a bold claim. Our second lesson is a letter of St. Paul, who faced shipwreck, imprisonment, assault, attempted murder, and was eventually executed for his faith. Yet, he held steadfast in the face of those near-impossible odds.
Peter, James, Stephen, and many others faced similar fates. John, according to tradition the last and only apostle of the Twelve to not be martyred, faced his own trials: exile, loneliness, and perhaps a good dose of survivor guilt. Time and again, we see these great paragons of faith confronted with evil that should by all accounts drive them to renounce Christ, to run away, to live a normal life of relative peace and safety. But they never do. They rush headlong into danger because they know that God will be there for them.
They weren't wrong.
Job, at the end of his book, is granted an audience before God himself. And God proves faithful by restoring what had been lost. Peter, Paul, and the martyrs were not so fortunate as that, but they had witnessed with their own eyes something equally remarkable: They had seen Jesus. They saw his cross. They saw his tomb. And they saw him, scarred by the nails, yet alive again. They knew, all of them knew, that if Jesus could pull that stunt off, what couldn't he do? When they came to understand what that miracle meant, the question changed. Not just “what couldn't he do,” but now “what wouldn't he do?”
Those two questions are important for us today and it is the reason we tell these stories of unwavering steadfast faith. Let's be honest. We're not going to be burned alive in some pagan ritual like Sgt. Howie in the movie. We're not going to be eaten by lions in the arena like some of the martyrs. But we are going to face down trials. We are going to experience heartbreak, financial struggle, disease, injury, and death. These things are going to hurt and they are going to make us doubt and question. We are going to wonder if perhaps there isn't an easier way, to just give up and walk away.
When we are confronted by these villains, what then are we to do? The answer is here, in the faith that brings us each week to this place to worship, to learn, to pray, and to receive Christ in the sacrament. Those questions come to the forefront for us here.
What can't God do for us? He who made the universe so vast we humans can barely comprehend it. He who restored the fortunes of Job and who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus. What can't he do?
And what won't he do? The same God who showers you each day with all you need to live: air, food, shelter, loving friends and family. The same God who came to this world incarnate of a virgin to teach us and to show us how much he loves us. That love drove him to a horrific death on a cross to take away your sins and to grant you life eternal.
We talk a lot about our faith in God. But the truth is the martyrs were faithful, because they knew God was faithful. That he can and will do what he says he will. He has told us in his holy Word that he is with us, that he will not forsake us, that he will save us. We too can be faithful because God is faithful. All around each of us throughout all the days of our lives are signs of that. He is in his Word. He is in the Sacraments of table and font. He is in the kindness of friends and strangers. He is in the beauty of nature. And he is within you and I and all he has claimed as his children.
If he can do all that, what can't he do? If he was willing to bear the cross for us, what won't he do? In the face of all the trials of our lives, the answers to those two questions can keep us steadfast. Because he can and will do anything to keep us his. Amen.
(Pastor's Note: Some of you may perhaps have a bit of curiosity about the film I speak about in this sermon. If you haven't seen it and are curious, do be forewarned that it is not a film for the prudish. There is a great deal of nudity in the early scenes.)
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