Lent #14: Dread.

I’ve uttered what I did not understands.

(Job 42:3)

Woke up unusually happy this morning. It had something to do with a pleasant dream—a dream of my youth with all my life before me. Apparently, I awoke with the dream still in me. My whole body felt young. The dream lingered until I turned on the television.

The experts were on once again—the real scientist who will, we are assured, get us through this virus. It seemed to me they were just “wagging their tongues,” as Jeremiah said of the false prophets (Jer 23:31), assuring us that science will handle this. All the while, a little box on the lower right corner of the screen shows the Dow diving another 2,000 points and more. Dreadful!

“Dread” is an honest word. There are things to be dreaded—like an unknown virus that comes out of nowhere. Melville’s’ Moby Dick calls it “loomings”. There something looming out there, something ominous, like the Great White for which we have no answers. Like Leviathan of the deep: “Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook?” God asked Job, and “Who can confront Leviathan and be safe?” (Jb 41) That’s a good dread.

Like Job, our faith stands not in the absence of dread, but in the face of dread. Because of Easter morning, we believe that the worst thing is not the last thing. Maybe those experts, and all us mortals who venture big claims, would do well to acknowledge with Job that “I’ve uttered what I did not understands, things too ominous for me to know (Jb 42—it’s all in Job).