Whirlwind

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind: 

-Job 38:1 

That colon is like a river dam, holding back God’s answer to Job that despite the horrors that have happened to him, despite his willingness to give up everything to show he is blameless, he is nevertheless a creature among creation which God made, holds, and ultimately protects.  It is not a comfort as an embrace among humans, but a cosmic embrace of all that makes life thrive.

Lent is our making, it is our way of preparing for Holy Week and Easter.  But it carries something of God’s answer to Job in the way the season asks us to step out of the whirlwind of our lives and hear for the first time again the story of God’s creation, God’s wandering and faithful people, God’s bringing into the world a child who would bear the whole of Job’s life, of all the brokenness, of all creation’s horrors.

At age 3, our son was afraid of the wind.  Afraid it would blow away all that was important. Picnic plates, toys, plants, maybe even afraid it would blow him, or those he loved, away.  That fear of the whirlwind is something most of us can avoid by going indoors.  But during Lent we face it head-on, hair flying behind us, knowing that life is tenuous, but that God has made all of it, holds all of us and mysteriously carries us eternally. 

As we face the whirlwind this Holy season of Lent, grant us strength to see the wholeness of your creation amidst all the chaos before us. Amen.

Amy Grunewald-Mattison, Former Staff