Daily Devotion for Lent 2025, Day 24

Today's Reading: Job, Chapter Twenty-four

In this passage, we see a more general complaint by Job of the prosperity of the wicked.  This is a theological exploration more than a part of the narrative as we don't see anyone in Job's circumference that fits these characteristics.

Rather, his friends have tried to label Job as one of the wicked.  He seems to be saying that there are plenty of wicked people who never have any of these kinds of consequences happen to them.  It is very similar to what is expressed in Psalm 73.

In essence, we once again see a plea for justice.  When we are doing the right thing as opposed to someone doing the opposite, we like to find ourselves coming out on top.  And when we see someone actually taking advantage of people in order to get ahead, we would like to see their actions come back to haunt them.

This kind of desire is expressed by William Shakespeare in MacBeth.  In Scene 1 of Act 5, we see Lady MacBeth sleepwalking while she tries in vain to rub the blood off her hands.  Of course, her hands are clean, but she has the guilt of murder on her mind.  We hear her say the famous line, "Out, damned spot! Out, I say!"

If we can't get outright punishment for the wicked, we can at least see that their conscience is bothering them and keeping them miserable.  This has to do with our sense of justice.

As we weigh this with God's mercy, we may discover that we would rather have God smite them.  

But even as Job proclaims his innocence, the question we come to ask is, "Who is totally innocent?"  All of us by living in a larger system take advantage of the resources we have available to us.  This may also mean that others don't have the same advantages.  We pretend that we've earned every advantage we have, but if you are the child of royalty, you are starting with many more resources than if you are the child of a peasant.  

How can we come to understand a mercy even for people that don't deserve it?  It is not too much of a stretch to then translate this to discovering that our own blessings may not have been as "earned" as we like to imagine.  This allows us to begin to understand grace more proficiently.

Prayer for the day:

O God, make us more thankful for what we have received, more content with what we have, and more merciful of other people in need: we ask it for his sake who lived for us in poverty, Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Prayer by Simon H. Baynes, Church of England, 20th Century

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