"Ha! Ha!" among the trumpets

[from a sermon by Martin H. Franzmann, preached at Zion Lutheran Church, St. Louis, June 4, 1956. A more complete text can be found in the book Come to the Feast, the collected hymns of Martin Franzmann, edited by Robin A. Leaver: MorningStar Music Publishers, 1994. It is an excellent little book, not least for the four sermons appended to the main text, from which the following quotation is drawn:]

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"Nowhere in that jubilant and exuberant book, the Old Testament, is there such an expression of joyful wonder at the creation of God as in the latter chapters of the Book of Job . . . . And in all these chapters, in all these pictures of beings fearfully and wonderfully made, there is nothing quite like the picture of the horse in his strength [Job 39:19-15], the horse whose neck is clothed with thunder, the glory of whose nostrils is terrible, who paweth in the valley and rejoiceth in his strength, who mocketh at fear, who swalloweth the ground with fear and rage -- 'He saith among the trumpets, 'Ha! Ha!''

"God has made him a horse, a steed of war. He delights in being a horse; he is glad to work like a horse and to fight like a steed of war. He hears the trumpets of war, and he cannot stand still at the sound of the trumpet; that trumpet is God's call to him to be what God has made him. And he greets that call with an equine Alleluia! He snuffs the air, and stamps the ground, and 'saith among the trumpets, 'Ha! Ha!'"

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For several weeks at Matins, we have been reading the Book of Job. I have written of it elsewhere: Some thoughts on the Book of Job. Like Dr. Franzmann, I delight in the latter chapters of the Book, wherein the LORD answers Job "out of the whirlwind" (Job 38:1).

The whirlwind, or tornado as we would call it, is a Force of Nature of the most immense power. That is, possibly, why the author depicted the LORD as speaking from it, calling his listeners (which include us, all these thousands of years later) to account. "Gird up now thy loins like a man: for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding." (Job 38:3-4)

When we are tempted to make God into a cosmic teddy bear, all love, cuddly warmth, and forgiveness, which we can set on a shelf to gather dust, bringing Him out when we are feeling lonely or sad, we should remember the LORD speaking out of the whirlwind. "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit" (St. John 3:8).

No hand can thwart the Spirit's intention. That divine intention has, from the foundation of the world, had at its center a Cross, and we are part of it, we who are of the Body of Christ. In our participation in His death upon the Cross, we find the gate of life. "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Gal. 2:20).

Franzmann again:
"Perhaps you have decided to work like a horse in your ministry. Do so by all means. But do not work like a drudging nag under the lash, or a weary bag of bones under the yoke. We are not under the yoke in our ministry. The necessity which is laid upon us is not that of the yoke and the lash but that of the irresistible call of God's own trumpet."

The Collect for Holy Cross Day, September 14:
Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ was lifted high upon the cross that he might draw the whole world unto himself: Mercifully grant that we, who glory in the mystery of our redemption, may have grace to take up our cross and follow him; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.