I wonder whether Job would have preferred death, for as his story unfolds, we learn of devastating affliction. Before the heavenly conference depicted in today’s reading, he had already been deprived of his livestock, servants and children. Soon he will lose his health, too.
He gets bad spiritual advice from friends; they say he needs to repent, because surely all this suffering is the consequence of his sin. Job refuses, insisting that he has done nothing to deserve such misery.
Likewise, he rejects his wife’s embittered counsel to curse God. Of course, Job did not know of the heavenly consultation that had taken place (only the biblical author and we readers know of it), but if he had, I wonder whether he would have heeded his wife’s advice. Who wants to bow to a God who can’t resist making a bet over a prized achievement, and then hands that one over to Satan for testing!
In spite of it all, Job proclaims, “I know that my Redeemer lives.” (Job 19:25) He does not speculate on heavenly power plays or on God’s utter otherness. He does not submit to spiritual formulas. He clings to the One that he knows, his Redeemer.
Job lives by faith. Because of Jesus, so do we.
Redeem us, O God, according to your tender love and mercy in Jesus Christ. Amen. —