Most of us have heard of Rabbi Harold Kushner’s book, Why Bad Things Happen
to Good People. In that book he told about his son Aaron, who was born with
a disease called “Progeria.” A child afflicted with Progeria is wrinkled like an old man, does not grow any hair,
and usually dies in their early teens. In the face of his child’s birth
defect, the young rabbi felt that life had been very unfair to his child. The
rabbi had tried to be a good person, and he considered himself more faithful than some others in his congregation.
At the same time, Rabbi Kushner
felt that God is a "Just God"— justly rewarding those who are faithful to God, and punishing those who are sinners. Therefore, for his child to be afflicted, then the rabbi somehow must have sinned
terribly in order for God treat in son in such a cruel manner. His friends were
of no help, seeming more to want to defend God’s honor, than reaching out to his wife and he who were suffering. Years later, out of his own personal struggles, Rabbi Kushner wrote the book, Why Bad Things Happen To Good People.
The questions that Rabbi
Kushner raised likewise were Job’s questions. The Book of Job therefore
is a fictitious short story about a time, long ago, when a man through his sufferings discovered a God that he had never known.
The book opens with a description
of Job: “There was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That man was
blameless and upright, one that feared God and turned away from evil.” This righteous man had 7 sons and 3 daughters.
He had been very prosperous in his business and as a result he owned many sheep, goats, and camels. He further was compulsively
pious. He spent significant money and time in making sacrifices to God, just in case one of his children had somehow sinned
against God.
Job believed in a “Just
God”—a God that would give him what he deserved. He believed that
this “Just God” had blessed him because Job had been a righteous man. And
yet, Job felt if he or his family were to sin before this “Just God,” that God would quickly retaliate against
them.
In time, the Heavenly Council
came together and presented themselves before the Lord. The Satan or the accuser
(“ha Satan” in Hebrew), held an office in the Lord’s royal service. Therefore,
the Satan was a part of the Heavenly Council. During the meeting the Lord proudly pointed out to the Satan that Job was a
perfectly righteous man. To that assertion, the Satan charged that if God had
not blessed Job, then Job would quickly turn from his righteousness.
God took up the Satan’s
challenge; God told him that he would permit him to bring catastrophes into Job’s life. But with the limitation that
he only could not harm Job. There then follows four catastrophes in which Job loses everything—his livestock, his servants,
and finally all of his children are killed by a tornado. In response to these horrors that had befallen him, Job maintained
his previous belief in a “Just God” and in maintaining his innocence before this “Just God”.
In time, the Heavenly Council
met again. During that meeting the Lord pointed out to the Satan that despite
Job losing everything, he had remained righteous before the Lord. The Satan in
turn issued God another challenge. He asserted that if Job felt that his own
life was in danger, he quickly would turn from his righteousness. So the Lord
takes up the Satan’s challenge and allows the Satan to afflict Job. The only restriction is that the Satan cannot kill
Job. So he seeks to make Job’s life seem worse that death itself. He inflicts upon him painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.
But despite it all, Job does not turn away from his righteousness. And all the
time he maintains his innocence.
Job’s wife had witnessed
her righteous husband’s suffering; it was almost too much to endure! She
therefore told Job that obviously God had turned against Job, and that he therefore should curse God and die. But Job rejected her advice. He maintained his innocent, but
he began to rethink his assumptions about a “Just God.”
Job’s three friends
enter the picture. They have heard of his suffering and had gone to help him
in the midst of his afflictions. Upon seeing Job from a great distance, they
were overcome with his great agony. They wept, and in great fear of God they
tore their robes and threw dirt in the air in repentance for any of their own sinfulness. And
then they sat silently with Job for seven days and seven nights. During that
time, Job cursed the day he was born, saying that even the calendar day that he was born should be erased from the calendar.
In response, his three friends desperately tried to convince him that he must
have sinned before God to deserve his suffering. But Job maintained his innocence
and rejected their arguments as no more than “proverbs of ashes” and “defenses of clay.”
All of a sudden a fourth
friend arrives. His name, Elihu, means “El blesses” (God blesses),
indicating that he was a very godly person. Yet in the end, he uttered the same
prevalent theology of the day—the belief that somehow Job must have sinned terribly in order to be suffering so terribly.
After Elihu’s visit,
Job’s patience had come to an end. He was angry with God! And, in his anger,
Job demanded that God come down from heaven to earth, and that God answer for his injustices against Job.
The Lord heard Job cry, and
he came down from heaven to meet with Job. Job was angry with the Lord. And the Lord also was angry with Job. The
Lord was angry with Job, because Job had been presumptuous. He had been presumptuous
in thinking that he could understand God’s purpose in creation. Therefore,
when they met, instead of the Lord having to answer Job’s questions, Job had to answer the Lord’s questions! “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Who determined its
measurements...surely you know! Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, so
that a flood of water covers you? Can you send forth lightening? In the face of God’s questions Job was silent. He simply
did not have the knowledge to answer such profound questions.
God was angry with Job. And
yet even in God’s anger, God did not see Job as his enemy. Instead, God saw Job as a unique creature among his glorious
creation. God questioned Job, not to strike out against him, but rather to show Job that God is God—and that Job is
not God! God’s questions had demonstrated the great distance between the
Creator and the creature. And the creature because of its human limitations could
not understand the Creator.
And at the same time, in
Job’s outbursts before God, Job demonstrated that he was 100% human. His
cry has been the cry of all humanity that is in pain. His cry was the cry of
the writers of the Psalms. His cry was even reflected in Jesus’ own cry
from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!” His cry is the cry of all those who are suffering
today.
In this short story, there
is a rare intimacy between God and Job. Though Job is a creature of God’s
creation, the Creator God had chosen to bend down to talk with this creature. The
Hebrew language acknowledges this intimacy. After the first two chapters
of the story, whenever God had been discussed, God’s personal name had not been used. Other names had been used for
God—impersonal names such as El, Elohim, Shaddi, and Eloah. But when God came down from heaven to speak to Job, God’s
personal name “YAHWEH” was used. YAHWEH cared about Job’s pain and was compassionate with him.
While living in Huntington, WV, our youngest daughter was visiting friends, and while
there she was bitten by a raccoon that they had been feeding. I was called to
meet her at the Cabell-Huntington Hospital Emergency Room. When I arrived, Katherine assured me that she was OK and that she
wanted to go home. But in talking with the attending physician, I learned that
there was a possibility that the raccoon could have been rabid.
As Katherine’s father,
there was not any more information that I needed! I told the physician and Katherine
that she needed the rabies shots. It was 42 shots that day, with 10 around the
wound--also 10 others over the next 5 weeks. Katherine argued that she really didn’t need the shots, and that I should
not make her have the shots. She cried because of her pain. And inside, I too cried that she was in such pain. Finally,
it was over and she could go home. Because of the shots, she had been in pain.
Yet, she still trusted that I had made the decision because of my love for her.
We are God’s creatures.
At the same time we live in a world that is very complex. And sometimes, nature in its independence causes us great pain. Other peoples’ actions sometimes also
cause us great pain. Yet like Job, God deeply loves us as a part of his glorious creation.
But this is not the end of
the story of Job. So come next week and hear “the rest of the story.”
