Job & Jesus

One the one hand, we want to let Job's story stand on its own. On the other, noting Jesus' later role is indeed clarifying.

Today we’re reading Job’s response to Bildad. Remember from yesterday that Bildad’s conclusion was simple: God is just. You are a sinner and are suffering for it.

Job’s response is not one dimensional. It progresses. He begins, it seems, by acknowledging what Bildad said. But as Job goes on to tease it out in his actual circumstances, he moves from assent to grievance, and then to lament (toward God, not Bildad). For the second time, a friend has made a conclusive philosophical determination. Job begins to respond, gets frustrated, and ends up speaking to God.

Isn’t that something?

This is a passage in which many Christians have inserted Jesus Christ. Job begs for a mediator: Oh, that there were a mediator between us; he would lay his hand on both of us, remove his rod from me, so his fury wouldn’t frighten me. In one sense, this is understandable. Jesus does indeed establish a mediating relationship and path between God and humanity.

But honestly, the attempt to insert that role of Christ into Job here is shortsighted, and frankly, not too far off from what Bildad was saying in the first place. Jesus is the fulfillment of what humanity needs in its suffering. But the mediation he provides is about sinfulness. The situation of Job - both the individual and the book - concerns suffering. Sinfulness isn’t completely disconnected from suffering, of course, but the wrestling of Job has to do with why suffering exists in situations of innocence.

So the fulfillment Jesus provides is that he steps into this suffering of the world and participates within it, all the while experiencing it as human, but also demonstrating faithfulness to God through it all.

In Luke, we’re beginning to read Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. We usually focus on the temptations themselves and Jesus’ overcoming of them. But I just want to read the first two verses today and note that Jesus was both full of the Spirit and led by that same Spirit into a kind of suffering in the wilderness.

Feels Job-like.

Job longs for someone to stand between himself and God in the midst of suffering. Jesus does not merely stand between; he steps into the wilderness himself. Not to explain suffering away, but to endure it faithfully. Perhaps that is the deeper mediation.

Job wants the rod removed. Jesus takes it up, not to remove it, but to bear it together.

Luke 4:1-2

Jesus returned from the Jordan River full of the Holy Spirit, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. There he was tempted for forty days by the devil. He ate nothing during those days and afterward Jesus was starving.

Job 9-10

Job responded:

I know for certain that this is so;
and how can anyone be innocent before God?
If one wants to contend with him,
he won’t answer one in a thousand.
He is wise and powerful;
who can resist him and prosper?
Who removes mountains, and they are unaware;
who overthrows them in anger?
Who shakes the earth from its place,
and its pillars shudder?
Who commands the sun, and it does not rise,
even seals up the stars;
stretched out the heavens alone
and trod on the waves of the Sea;
made the Bear and Orion, Pleiades
and the southern constellations;
does great and unsearchable things,
wonders beyond number?

If God goes by me, I can’t see him;
he glides past, and I can’t perceive him.
If he seizes, who can bring back?
Who can say to him, “What are you doing?”
God won’t retract his anger;
the helpers of Rahab bow beneath him.
Yet I myself will answer him;
I’ll choose my words in a contest with him.
Even if I’m innocent, I can’t answer;
I must plead for justice.
If I were to call and he answered me,
I couldn’t believe that he heard my voice.
Who bruises me with a tempest
and multiplies my wounds for no reason?
He doesn’t let me catch my breath,
for he fills me with bitterness.
If the issue is strength—behold power!
If justice—who calls God to meet me?

If I’m innocent, my mouth condemns me;
I have integrity; but God declares me perverse.
I’m blameless, yet don’t know myself;
I reject my life.
It’s all the same;
therefore, I say God destroys the blameless and the sinners.
If calamity suddenly kills,
he mocks at the slaying of innocents.
The earth is handed over to the wicked;
he covers the faces of its judges.
If not God, then who does?

My days are swifter than a runner;
they flee and don’t experience good.
They sweep by like ships made of reeds,
as an eagle swoops on prey.
If I say, “I’ll forget my lament,
put on a different face so I can smile,”
I’m still afraid of all my suffering;
I know that you won’t declare me innocent.
I myself am thought guilty;
why have I tried so hard in vain?
If I wash myself with snow,
purify my hands with soap,
then you’ll hurl me into a slimy pit
so that my clothes detest me.
God is not a man like me—someone I could answer—
so that we could come together in court.
Oh, that there were a mediator between us;
he would lay his hand on both of us,
remove his rod from me,
so his fury wouldn’t frighten me.
Then I would speak—unafraid—
for I’m not that way.

I loathe my life; I will let loose my complaint;
I will speak out of my own bitterness.
I will say to God, Don’t declare me guilty;
tell me what you are accusing me of doing.
Does it seem good to you that you oppress me,
that you reject the work of your hands
and cause the purpose of sinners to shine?
Do you have physical eyes;
do you see like a human?
Are your days like those of a human,
your years like years of a human,
that you search for my wrongdoing
and seek my sin?
You know that I’m not guilty,
yet no one delivers me from your power.

Your hands fashioned and made me;
yet you want to destroy me utterly.
Remember that you made me from clay,
and you will return me to dust.
Didn’t you pour me out like milk,
curdle me like cheese?
You clothed me with skin and flesh,
wove me from bones and sinews.
Life and kindness you gave me,
and you oversaw and preserved my breath.

These things you hid in your heart;
I know this is the case with you.
If I sin and you observe me,
you won’t consider me innocent of wrongdoing.
If I were guilty, doom to me;
I’m innocent, but can’t lift my head,
full of shame and facing my misery.
I could boast like a lion, and you would hunt me;
you would do awesome things to me again.
You continue to send your witnesses against me
and increase your anger toward me,
a swift army against me.

Why did you let me emerge from the womb?
I wish I had died without any eye seeing me.
Then I would be just as if I hadn’t existed,
taken from the belly to the grave.
Aren’t my few days coming to an end?
Look away from me so I can brighten up a little
before I go and don’t return
to a land of deepest darkness,
a land whose light is like gloom,
utter darkness and confusion,
such that light shines like gloom.

Prayer

God,

Thank you for Saturdays. Sabbath. Rest. A change of pace. I also love Sundays. Day of worship and community. Why do we Christians try and smash them together? Am I right to want to separate sabbath and worship a bit?

Regardless, I’m looking forward to today. The sun’s out. It’s going to warm up to 48°. I’ve got a couple of projects to finish around the house. And the kids are playing around.

Help me with this notion that I often get that I’m supposed to be doing something “bigger.” I’m imagining that Jesus had days like today and didn’t dwell on the cross the whole of 33 years of his life. Help me live into it.

By your Spirit & in Christ,
Amen.