Job

No – not about work, not a job. It’s Job, the book following Esther in the Bible, but most likely written before Exodus. It’s our Sunday School lesson this morning.

Before she was 50, my mother was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, commonly called Lou Gehrig’s disease. It is a progressive, non-curable, degenerative disease of the nerve system. Should the patient not die of complications, what is expected is choking to death as even the muscles to swallow cease to respond. Mom knew what to expect – her older brother died of the same disease. For more than twenty years, her body continued to fail, until a complication ended her life.

Rabbi Harold Kushner’s 1981 book “When Bad Things Happen to Good People” asks a question that has been around for millennia. The book of Job deals with this question, which we all face at one time or another.

After we learn where he lived, we learn that Job was a righteous man: There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil. (Job 1:1 KJV)

Yet, he lost everything except his life, along with wife and friends who blamed him for all that had happened. Surely, they said, God is good and what has happened to you is your own fault. Out of the 42 chapters, most are words to make Job feel worse. He’s told, by his own wife: Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die. (Job 2:9 KJV)

But the rest of the story confirms that the bad things were not Job’s fault. Yet the question lingered into Jesus’ time. When telling us to love everyone, He explained:

That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. (Matthew 5:45 KJV)

The question lingered, and came up again to Jesus. It was asked about a specific incident:

There were present at that season some that told him of the Galilaeans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. (Luke 13:1-5 KJV)

Good things also happen to bad people, confirming that our earth is not perfect. Paul reminds us For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; (Romans 3:23 KJV)

And, just a few verses later confirms there’s much more than this truth But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8 KJV)

Knowing that God is just, we can answer that lingering question as Job did:

But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips. (Job 2:10 KJV)

Perhaps we can come to the understanding that Job did, too:

Then Job answered the LORD, and said, I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee. (Job 42:1-2 KJV)