Thursday, December 14, 2023
- Reflection by May Persaud
“Then Job arose, tore his robe, shaved his head, and fell on the ground and worshiped. He said, ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord’. But in all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrongdoing.”
Job’s words depict how life is ultimately beyond our control. We are born. We die. The Lord gives. The Lord takes away. There is a hard, unrelenting realism about these words. Yet, even in this realism, Job ends by blessing the Lord’s name. This is how life is. For Job, God’s justice must be beyond human understanding, and, at the end of the day, we are left to bless the Lord. The irony, of course, is that the Lord in heaven has allowed Job on earth to be tested for being a servant of God. So, righteous Job suffers great loss at the directive of the Righteous One—for being righteous. From a human perspective, Job has the grounds to take God to court. But “[i]n all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrongdoing.” Job’s enduring question is: How can a just God allow the just to suffer?
At this Advent season, I have been pondering Charles Wesley’s hymn, “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling.” How intriguing to hear the words of this hymn complement the text of Job:
Love divine, all loves excelling,
Joy of heav’n to earth come down!
Fix in us thy humble dwelling,
All thy faithful mercies crown.
Jesus, thou art all compassion,
Pure, unbounded love thou art;
Visit us with thy salvation,
Enter ev’ry trembling heart.
Listen to the descriptions of Jesus: God’s love divine, love above all other loves, joy of heaven come to earth to humbly dwell, all compassion from God, salvation for every trembling heart.
Another heaven/earth story like that of Job. Here we sing of God in Jesus Christ bringing deliverance, life, and faithful mercy. Mercy: a word we seldom ponder! Here we sing of God in Christ reaching out from heaven to take up residence on earth, walking the way of the Cross, bringing restoration to creation separated by its own sin from God. And this elicits our final response—like Job—to bless and praise God. Listen now to the final verse of this magnificent hymn:
Finish then thy new creation,
Pure and spotless let us be;
Let us see thy great salvation
Perfectly restored in thee!
Changed from glory into glory,
Till in heav’n we take our place,
Till we cast our crowns before thee,
Lost in wonder, love and praise!
Our questions about God and ourselves are real, sobering, good. Amidst all the violence, pain, suffering we see and live in the world today, we cry out. Where is justice? Why do the innocent suffer? Yet, these questions, the mystery of our suffering, are enfolded in God’s extravagant love in Christ for you, for me, for the whole world, for this entire sinful world. Enfolded and made flesh in the manger at Bethlehem. And where do we ultimately see that extravagant love of Christ? The Cross. Where Christ himself suffered for the entire broken world. How can God in Christ through the Holy Spirit take on creation’s sin and suffering? How can this be? We fall down on our knees with our questions, lost in wonder, love, and praise.
Let us pray:
Stir up the wills of all who look to you, Lord God, and strengthen our faith in your wondrous coming, that, transformed by grace, we may walk in your way; through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen
