Job is one of the most famous figures of the Old Testament -not bad for someone who never existed - except in the imagination of the unknown author of the Book of Job. Job was written sometime between the 7th and 2nd centuries B.C. It is a literary masterpiece - a kind of ancient, morality play.
Job is described as an oriental chieftain, pious and upright, richly endowed in his own person and possessions. He begins to suffer terribly: he loses his property, his children. A loathsome disease afflicts his body and sorrow oppresses his spirit. Yet, Job does not complain against god.
He is visited by three friends - then a fourth - who make speeches. The book is an interplay of speeches among the six participants in the book: Job, the four friends, God and the narrator. Each friend makes the same point that all Job’s troubles come from job’s personal wrongdoing and demand repentance towards god.
It’s been called the most consistently theological work in the Old Testament - nothing but an extended discussion of one theological issue, which we all face, the question of suffering.
The book teaches that suffering is sometimes a punishment for sin, sometimes a warning against future sin. The book also addresses the question of why suffering is sometimes visited upon good people. This last aspect predates rabbi Harold Kushner’s famous Why Bad Things Happen to Good People.
Job reflects on their answers to his problem. He rejects their solutions and asks for a personal interview with god to find out why he is suffering. God responds, not by justifying his actions, but by reminding Job who he, God, is. The one lesson that we can learn from the story of Job is how big our God is; Job learned not to question God who is so magnificent. Job is content; God restores all Job’s losses.
What an incomplete story for us Christians! If Job had lived after the life and death of Jesus - as we do - there would be a tremendous difference in his story. Where the story of Job fails - as well as Rabbi Kushner’s book - is Jesus’ revelation: “God is love.” Job’s story and Rabbi Kushner’s book lack that basic, essential revelation of Jesus. We know from Jesus that we are loved with an everlasting love. God, in his unconditional love, does not cause evil in our lives.
Ours is not a mercurial, not a whimsical God who would toy with us. There is no basis for faith, hope and love in a mercurial, whimsical God. Ours is a God who loves us and draws us to himself. Our God said, “Come to me all you who are weary and heavily burdened; I will refresh you.”
Each of us has difficulties, hardships. Our God is a personal God who accompanies us on our journey through our difficulties. What a difference!
The very meaning of life that Jesus reveals is lacking in Job’s story. In today’s Gospel, Jesus calls us to faith/trust in him when we experience our storms in life. He has already revealed his love for us. We recall that suspended between faith/trust and the love he has for us, is hope, our “openness to surprise”. Hope enables us to cope in difficult times with the acquired attitude that there is nothing that we cannot face with our trust-worthy and loving God supporting us.
Jesus gives us a destination, a purpose: union with him and the means to achieve union both here and hereafter.
