Daily Devotion for Lent 2025, Day 39

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.

Daily Devotion for Lent 2025, Day 3

Today's Reading: Job, Chapter Three

Job’s suffering is such that he would wish that he was never born.

When Tennyson expressed, “Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all” it seems that Job does not agree.  At least in this moment.

We begin to get an idea of the understanding of Sheol or the ancient Jewish understanding of the afterlife in chapter three.  It is there that the prisoners are at ease (and not made to toil) and slaves are free from their masters.  We get a sense of egalitarianism in Sheol.

Job expresses his anguish by saying it would be better to blot out his existence.  If we can look at this from a patriarchal understanding, if one’s belief is that all go to a similar dreary afterlife, then one establishes oneself through descendants.  By having a lots of offspring, one’s name is assured for generations.  From an evolutionary perspective (of which they had no knowledge), this actually makes a lot of sense – only its one’s DNA rather than one’s name that lives on.  Before the tragic news of the loss of his children, Job had thought he had secured a future for himself long after he ceased to walk this earth. 

In a time when infant mortality would have been high, he must have thought himself successful with seven sons and three daughters that lived past childhood. To lose his children was to lose everything. 

To give us an understanding of this mindset, Abram questions God’s promise while still childless when he states in Genesis 15:3, “You have given me no offspring, so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.”

What would it look like for you to lose your entire future in one fell swoop? 

Prayer for the day:

O Comforting One, Compassionate One, be with us all when we suffer loss and ache with the pain of grieving.  Give us a glimpse of the way it will be when love will never be taken away, when life itself will not be diminished, when all that we hold most precious will live and remain with us for ever.  Amen.

 

Prayer by Miriam Therese Winter, Roman Catholic Church, 20^th Century

Quoted Scripture: 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.

Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash

Daily Devotion for Lent 2025, Day 1 - Ash Wednesday

Today's Reading: Job, Chapter One

Job is a figure that is larger than life.  He's billed as sinless and goes to extraordinary attempts to keep his children safe from any possible divine wrath that one of their missteps might lead them into.  

In a sheerly ironic movement, perhaps if he had not quite been so perfect, he wouldn't have attracted the notice of the accuser (the Satan in the original Hebrew).

We see the heavenly court and this part of the story seems to be influenced by Greek religious understanding of that time.  We might imagine the various Greek gods and goddesses carrying out the same type of contest.  

It is important to note that Job is a theological book rather than a historical one.  It even starts like a fairy tale, "once upon a time..."  Certainly, the land of Uz is not known historically.  And so, we might think of Job as a parable that allows us to enter into a theological conversation.  What does it mean to suffer in this lifetime if you haven't done anything to deserve it?

If the world is unjust, is this God's fault?

We'll explore these questions and more over the next forty days as we read through Job.

In today's chapter, we see a couple of sayings that have made it into the wider culture:

"Naked I came into this world and naked I shall leave it."

"The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away."

We don't hear the follow-up as often: "Blessed be the name of the Lord."

Sometimes we can't hear any more bad news

Some might say that Job is in denial (one of the stages of grief) and isn't allowing the full measure of his grief to touch him yet (he'll get there).  His stoic nature has led to the wider cultural saying, "The patience of Job."

As we consider this chapter, it does make one ask the question, does my faithfulness to God depend upon circumstance?  As we consider this for our own lives, I think it is a question worthy of self-reflection.

Can I bless the Lord in all circumstances?  

Prayer for the day:

Gracious God, help us to wrestle with our faith during this season of Lent.  Give us a stronger sense of who we are today.  And as we move forward, may we honestly account for those places that we can celebrate with you.  At the same time, let us honestly account for those places where we fall short.  As we know your grace, may our path forward align with you more consistently each day.  Amen.

  

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash