When you carefully and thoughtfully observe the world around you, does it ever prompt some difficult and yearning questions for God? Does your own experience with suffering, pain, fear, and oppression cause you to wonder what God is up to and why does he seem absent? It did for Job, for me, and likely for you.
This long and winding poem called Job articulates artfully the probing questions we humans have for our Creator. Does he not notice what life is like for the majority of people on planet Earth?
More than half the population lives on a few dollars a day. The wealthiest of Earthlings are dying of obesity and loneliness. It's pathetic, disgusting, revolting and unacceptable. Is God proud of how miserable humanity has become? And what is he going to do about it?
Can't he handle the frustration and venting? Job is very direct with God, to the point, boldly upfront about his observations of what is going on - not only in his confusion and wretchedness, but that of so much of humanity.
We're all adrift in the same boat:
too few days, too many troubles.
We spring up like wildflowers in the desert and then wilt,
transient as the shadow of the cloud.
Do you occupy your time with such fragile wisps?
Why even bother hauling me into court?
There's nothing much to us to start with;
how do you expect us to amount to anything?
Job goes on to reflect on the seeming pointlessness of life, the brevity and turmoil of human existence - especially in comparison to nature, to the trees that seem to endure well past our own death.
For a tree there is always hope.
Chop it down and it still has a chance -
its roots can put out fresh sprouts.
Even if its roots are old and gnarled,
its stump long dormant,
At the first whiff of water it comes to life,
buds and grows like a sapling.
But men and women? They die and stay dead.
They breathe their last, and that's it.
Like lakes and rivers that have dried up,
parched reminders of what once was,
So mortals like down and never get up,
never wake up again - never.
Job doesn't want to die. He wants to live! But his suffering, and that of so much of humanity, it makes death look attractive. The prospect of wanting death is abhorrent - but that's how bad life has become. Job is stuck - he doesn't want to die, to have life be over forever.
But he doesn't want this pain. So it leads him to this question for God: if you won't take away the pain now, will you grant me death - but only if you promise for resurrection, for life again, a better life then what we have now?
Here's how Job writes it:
Why don't you just bury me alive,
get me out of the way until the anger cools?
But don't leave me there!
Set a date when you'll see me again.
If we humans die, will we live again? That's my question.
All through these difficult days I keep hoping,
waiting for the final change - for resurrection!
Our life and suffering can resonate with that of Job's. He, however, wrote with no knowledge of Jesus. We do. And where as Job longed for resurrection but with no promises that it would be a possibility for him, it is for us.
If we, like Job, gain wisdom through our sufferings, compassion for humanity wracked by sins and pain, insistence on knowing truth and reality, resurrection can become our hope.
Jesus' story has many similarities to Job's. They both longed for resurrection - for themselves and others. And through Jesus it becomes a possibility for humanity. Longing for it, looking for it, in accordance with what Jesus has to say about God and life and humanity and the future - this changes us. It changes our perspective, our attitude, our hopes.
Much like Job, we wonder why God seems to stay hidden and silent. Yet for Job, his pining for resolution led to hopes of resurrection. If it does for you too, then what Jesus has to promise you will be good news indeed!
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