Today's Reading: Job, Chapter Forty, verses one through fourteen
As we see the humbling of Job, we may find that Job represents humankind in our efforts to put ourselves in the place of God. This has long been a theme in the Bible and we see it many times over in Genesis with:
- Adam and Eve putting their own will above God's
- Cain playing God with the life of his brother
- The Tower of Babel where the technology of humanity has exceeded their wisdom and allowed them to seek to upstage God.
This also becomes a lesson in grace versus works as we determine that our "own right hand" will not be able to give us the victory. Certainly, death always looms large for mortals.
On Good Friday, this may read a little differently if we imagine Jesus in Job's place as he quotes Psalm 22 from the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
The Psalm goes on to ask further, " Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night but find no rest."
Yet, this quote from the cross would also cause a reader who knows the Psalm to remember verse 27 which states, "All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before him."
Jesus hasn't arrived yet. He must suffer first, just as Job suffered. They both have expressed the human dilemma of the seeming absence of God.
God seems to put Job (and humanity) in his place in chapter forty as we see him cowed. But within Christian understanding of the Trinity, God (in Jesus) is the one to experience the absence of God.
On Good Friday, God enters that place on the cross.
Prayer for today:
God, thank you for wrestling with us during all the times we have put ourselves in your place. And thank you for remaining with us in our time of need - even those times we could not perceive you. As we remember your suffering on the cross today, may we not abandon you. Amen.
Photo by Alicia Quan on Unsplash
New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
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