Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost: Old Testament, Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4               

Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4

There’s a saying most of us find familiar: “Opposites attract.” From the poles on a magnet to two kids experiencing their “first love” in high school, it is amazing the law that is “revealed” by that statement. So opposites not only attract. They reveal.

Dear old Habakkuk at the tail end of the seventh century B.C. is observing the crushing blows of the Babylonians as they are the vehicle through which the LORD brings judgment on Jerusalem. He cries out to His Lord, “O LORD, how long shall I cry, and You will not hear” (Hab. 1:2)? He continues calling out with wonderment that the violence being done to his city, to God’s city, isn’t bringing about God’s swift rescue. But judgment is the point here. God is teaching.

By the beginning of chapter 2 God is opening the door to His prophet. The plan of heaven is being made more clear. What God is doing has importance in the immediate, but there is a great and future element as well. God isn’t just concerned with rebuilding the walls of a city, but with rebuilding the hearts of sinful men and women into solid structures that cannot be bested. But for the time being, the walls are coming down and the fear of prophet and people is real.

Pride. Ugly, insidious, and ever-present. Pride is the cause. It is damning and revealing. Chapter 2 and verse 4 reads, “Behold the proud, his soul is not upright in him; but the just shall live by his faith.” The final phrase is a foundation of the religion of Christ. The Old Testament establishes it. St. Paul gives it its full meaning. The Christian heart should revel in it. Pride, displayed in the garden as an outgrowth of a previous pride debacle (cf. Is. 14:12-15), proves itself the ongoing issue of doom. But it causes the light of faith to be seen brightly in contrast. Pride deals in darkness. Faith deals in the glorious righteousness of faith. They couldn’t be more different. May God give us eyes to see.