After spending some time these past weeks reading from Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, we now move on to another ‘wisdom’ book and one of the most profound, the Book of Job. The book features Job as the central character dealing with the problems of the sufferings of the innocent. It is regarded as a literary masterpiece, although the author is unknown.
Job becomes the unwitting pawn in a struggle between Satan and God. On a sunny afternoon (OK, I added that), God asks Satan if he has noticed his servant, Job, who is a good and upright man. “Servant” indicates someone with a special relationship to God and is used to describe people like Moses and David and, later in Isaiah, for the “suffering Servant” who is a pre-figurement of Jesus. “No one on earth is like Job,” God says, “blameless and upright, fearing God and avoiding evil.”
“That’s all very well,” replies Satan, “for a person who has been endowed with huge wealth and prosperity. It’s easy to be good in his situation. But just let his possessions be taken away from him and you will see he will soon begin to curse you, God.” Satan boldly accuses the man that God commends – he says Job’s righteousness, in which God delights, is self-serving. This is the core of Satan’s attack on God and his faithful servant.
Poor Job is being set up to be tormented by the Devil. God takes up the challenge. “Sure,” He says, “Job is all yours. You can do what you like but do not harm his person.” Satan is given an almost free hand to do what he wants but his power is significantly limited by the greater power of God. The question now is: Will Job curse God to his face? If Job does not, the accuser will be proven false and God’s delight in Job will be vindicated.
We are now brought to the house of Job’s eldest son where all Job’s family are dining together. One by one messages of disasters begin to come in. First, an invasion of Sabaeans have carried off Job’s herds of cattle and murdered his farm workers. All his herds of sheep and their shepherds are then struck by lightning. A group of Chaldeans take off with all Job’s camels and murder their drivers. Finally, a hurricane causes the house of his eldest son to collapse on his whole family, killing them all. In effect, Job’s family and future generations are wiped out.
After this string of disasters, Job is left with nothing. How will he respond? Will he curse God or at least complain and ask why these things are happening to him?
Job suddenly loses all his wealth, including his property, and his family. He himself suffers from a serious skin disease and he is reduced to sitting miserably on an ash heap. Yet, Job never complains against God. When some friends, ‘Job’s comforters’, come to sympathize, they say his problems must be his own doing, for such afflictions were usually seen as punishment for sinful behavior. He protests his innocence, Nevertheless, Job does not complain against God. He does curse the day of his birth and longs for death to bring an end to his sufferings. But against God he does not complain.
In fact, he goes into a penitential mode, tearing his clothes and shaving his head. Perhaps these things ARE a sign of his sinfulness for which he needs to repent. There is no sound of complaint but rather of total acceptance of what has happened to him: He was born naked from the womb of his mother and naked he will return to the womb of the earth. Everything he had was a gift from the Lord and now they have all been taken back. “Blessed be the name of the Lord!” Job’s faith leads him to see the sovereign God’s hand at work, and that gives him repose even in the face of calamity. He maintains an attitude of acceptance and trust in God which is strengthened by his suffering.
The overall lesson is that even good people may suffer greatly in this life, and this can be a test of their faithfulness. It is not possible for the human mind to grasp fully the thoughts of God and to understand why things happen the way they do. So the book deals with a problem that is still a source of great puzzlement and contention today: How can a good and loving God allow a good and innocent person to suffer?
We can see that the problems we have with the sufferings of the young and the innocent are nothing new. These questions become perhaps even more painful and seemingly meaningless when many try to solve the problems by removing God from the picture altogether. But that does not solve the problem and does not take away the pain. If there is no God, if we convince ourselves that all is simply the result of chance, then why does the sense of wrongness still assert itself? In a world of pure chance there can be no absolute truth or falsehood, no objective right or wrong. Things just happen in a totally mechanical way.
Taking away God does not solve the problem because, ultimately, he is not the source of the problem! – as Job recognizes. Somehow, the answer is only to be found in a God who is full of love and compassion, in a God who allows his own innocent Son to suffer terribly and die in agony. Somehow the answer has to be found there in the Suffering Jesus. Many have discovered that the way out is not the removal of their pain but in being able, together with Jesus, to go through it. Pain can destroy but it also can heal.
May God Bless You and Grant You His Peace!