Never Stop Singing

Habakkuk 1:1–4; 2:1–4; 3:17–19

Psalm 13; Romans 8:18–25; Luke 18:1–8)

This three chapter book is amazing in many ways. Habakkuk is a different kind of prophet. We don’t know much about him. All we get is a conversation: raw, loud, honest. He starts with protest. He is not urging his people to do better to follow in God’s ways. His story is one of deep complaints, anguish, and anger at God. He has a back and forth conversation with God. There is violence, injustice, and lawlessness among his people and he can’t understand why God isn’t doing anything about it. Habakkuk asks questions that are as old as human history and as current as today’s headlines:

“O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen?” (1:2) Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save? … The law becomes [idle] and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous—therefore judgment comes forth perverted (Habakkuk 1:2,4).

God responds to him that He is raising up Babylon, a violent empire, as judgment. Habakkuk becomes confused. How can a righteous God use a corrupt nation to punish a less corrupt one? He, like countless people through the centuries, asks why bad things happen to God’s people and (perhaps just as troubling) why bad people often prosper. Where is the justice in that? Where, in fact, is God in that?

The prophet demands an answer: “I will stand at my watchpost, and station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see what he will say to me, and what he will answer concerning my complaint” (Habakkuk 2:1).

Anna Carter Florence, in H is for Habakkuk, from her book A is for Alabaster, tells us Habakkuk gives us permission to bring our deepest lament into the sanctuary—not cleaned up, not polite, not finished. This is a gift to us, the church. What a needed counter response to the spiritual clichés we sometimes use and hate to hear—like “God has a plan,” or “everything happens for a reason.” We would say, tell that to the victims of the floods in Texas. Lament is not a failure of faith—it is a function of it. That we cry out because we believe God listens. That we wait because we believe God will act.

Habakkuk’s angry accusations are preserved in our Scriptures, demonstrating that God doesn’t only listen to our laments but makes room for our anger. Speaking our anger at God is part of what it means to be righteous. And here’s the astonishing part: God speaks to Habakkuk. Not loudly. Not with thunder. But with a vision. He tells him: “Write the vision; make it plain… for there is still a vision for the appointed time… If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come.” (Hab. 2:2–3) And then God gives the line that echoes through time all the way to Paul. “The righteous shall live by faith.” (Hab. 2:4)

It’s more than a mantra to repeat. It’s a way to survive. Rachel Wrenn, preaching this text during pandemic years, called Habakkuk “the prophet of the long-haul.” She says he speaks to “those who’ve run out of answers, but not out of hope.” And maybe that’s you. Maybe that’s all of us. Faith, in this context, isn’t certainty. It’s courage. It’s the ability to live in-between: between lament and fulfillment, between injustice and justice, between “how long” and “it is done.”

Florence states this kind of faith doesn’t flinch. It doesn’t run. It doesn’t give up on God, even when God seems slow. We heard this from our psalmist today, like Psalm 13, where the psalmist also says, “How long?” and then dares to say, “But I will trust in your steadfast love.”

Habakkuk recalls the terrifying majesty of God in Exodus- the ten plagues that he did to free the Hebrews. By going back to how God acted to save Israel in the past and remembering who God has been, Habakkuk begins to trust who God will be. Even if God seems silent in the present, the past speaks loudly of His faithfulness. Perhaps that is something we could do when our faith is wavering. Recall what God has already done for us.

The final chapter of Habakkuk is something astonishing—a song. We witness Habakkuk’s spiritual transformation. After all the grief, after the complaint, comes this line: “Though the fig tree does not blossom, and there be no fruit on the vines…yet I will rejoice in the Lord.” (Hab. 3:17–18)

Habakkuk is not denying reality. But while he is waiting, he has moved to a place beyond his circumstance, He chooses joy not because of what God does, but because of who God is: Let me say that again. He chooses joy not because of what God does, but because of who God is: “God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer and makes me tread upon the heights.” (3:19) Florence writes that Habakkuk sings what he does not see. And that, you all might guess, is faith. “He sings before the harvest. He sings before the healing. He sings before the justice happens.” He sings in his misery.

Personally, I think this is the hardest thing. How do we sing when we feel like screaming? How do we sing when we feel like weeping? Red church – this is what we do! We stand together, we support each other, and then we sing. It goes back to the Sunday school song I learned long ago. I have the love of Jesus down in my heart. I have the joy of Jesus down in my heart. I think we can sing in hope. That is why joy is not to be a response to circumstances—It’s a choice we make because of our God who is for us and in us. So what do we take from this seemingly outrageous prophet who starts out angry at all get out and then sings praises to that very same God?

1. Bring your full self before God.
   Habakkuk doesn’t filter his grief. He speaks his heart. Florence in her L is for Lament chapter, reminds us: authenticity belongs in worship. God is not offended by our pain.

2. Don’t stop listening for God. Don’t stop looking. Even if the answers are slow, there is still a vision.

3. Choose joy even when the fig tree is bare.
   Habakkuk’s faith is not transactional—it’s relational.

4. And finally, faith is the life of the righteous—not as a reward, but as a way through.
   The scriptures points to this: faith lives in the waiting. In the watching. In the singing when the harvest has not yet come.

.

So: cry out. Stand watch. And when you have no reason to sing—sing anyway.

That’s what Habakkuk would do. That’s what we do, here at Red Church—together. Amen.