Some of you may have visited the famous Carlsbad Caverns of
New Mexico. I have not, but I have read about how the ranger
guides the group to a place where they are seated on stone benches.
Then all of the lights go out. Suddenly it is as black as black can be.
You can hear water dripping you never heard before. You know
there are a hundred people around you, yet there is a strong feeling
of being alone. Some who have been there say there is a feeling of
oppressive darkness. Another way to get this feeling of aloneness
and heaviness is to suffer great loss, like Job did. The difference is,
Job could not turn on the light and dissolve the load that lay so
heavy on his heart.
Friendship is supposed to lighten the load, but in Job's case, his
friends made it even heavier. If there was some way to weigh
burdens, it could very well be that Job would be in the Guinness
Book of Records as the man who, next to Jesus, bore the heaviest
load of grief in history. Jesus is the record holder, for He bore the
sins of the world. His load was heavy beyond our comprehension.
We can grasp the load of Job, somewhat, but the weight of our
Lord's grief is beyond calculation. We read in Matt. 26:37-38,
where Jesus took His three disciples into Gethsemane, and He began
to be sorrowful and very heavy. He was grieved, and in great
distress. In the New English Bible Jesus says, "My heart is ready to
break with grief." Weymoth has, "Is crushed with anguish."
Jesus complained for the same reason Job complained: Their
friends did not recognize the load they were bearing, and offer to
give them a hand. It would have taken so little for them to lighten the
load, and add some light to the heavy darkness, and establish what
Wordsworth describes:
That blessed mood,
In which the burden of the mystery,
In which the heavy and weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened.
The burden of Jesus was just ignored by His disciples. This is
what often happens when the great suffer. Everybody assumes they
can handle things, and do not need the aid and encouragement of
their inferiors. It is a tragic mistake, for even Jesus needed the
comfort and sympathy of His disciples. Job's friends were not just
indifferent. They felt compelled to argue, scold, and reject him for
his negative expressions of grief. Having no one else to defend him,
Job comes to his own defense, and as his own lawyer, argues his case
before the court of history.
Job's major argument is that there is some negative things in life
that are natural, and they ought to be accepted by believers. Job is
not saying that these negatives are good, he is just saying they are a
part of life that we must face up to, and not try to escape. They are
like pimples on the body. There is nothing good about them, but we
have to accept their presence if we are going to deal with them. One
of the criticisms of Christians is that they cannot accept the reality of
tragedy. They refuse to accept the fact that evil is real, and that
things do happen in this world that are victories for the forces of
evil. Christians escape tragedy by denial. They say it is all really
just mysterious good that we don't quite understand.
Philip Yancy in his book, Where Is God When It Hurts, tells of a
funeral he attended for a teen-age girl killed in a car accident. Her
mother wailed, "The Lord took her home. He must have had some
purpose....Thank you Lord." Here is a typical Christian escape.
She felt the tragedy, but she could not admit it was tragedy. She
could not accept her emotions as truth. She had to assume it was
really good, and give thanks to God for it. Paul did say that in
everything we should give thanks, but not for everything. Christians
who thank God for everything are not facing up to the reality of evil.
This is escapism. By so doing Christians exalt all the works of the
devil to the level of admiration. They call black white by denying
evil and calling it good. I can just hear David following this line of
thinking. "Thank you Lord for taking Bathsheba's husband home
in that battle today." God did not take him home. David murdered
him. To say thank you God is to thank God for murder, which He
hates.
Thank God Job did not say thank God. Such a denial of tragedy
would have ruined the value of this great book. Job defends our
basic human right to feel the reality of evil and its tragic
consequences. It is true that Job did not have our New Testament
hope. Tragedy is overcome in Christ, for all evil can do, at its worst
is deny the Christian time. It cannot take from him the eternal life he
has in Christ. This does greatly modify tragedy, and give us the
victory, but even so, it is superficial not to recognize that tragedy
and evil are still real. They cannot win the war, but they do have the
power to win battles, and this can hurt terribly. We are not to
grieve as those who have no hope, but we are to grieve because evil
is real. Death is an enemy, and it can rob us of values that are
precious. Even if it is only temporary, it is still tragic and not good.
Job's friends were deniers of tragedy, but Job would not swallow
their weak medicine. He preferred to live in the real world, and not
in a world of ivory tower theory. Job not only knew that what
happened to him was tragic, he also knew that the way his friends
were treating him was also tragic. He did not submit to their
criticism without rebellion. Show me a person who feels he is being
treated unjustly, and I will show you a human volcano that could
erupt at any time. Jesus exploded when He saw how the religious
leaders were ripping off the masses in the temple exchange. Jesus
did not deny the reality of evil, and submit to everything as the will
of God. He identified evil, and fought it with powerful emotions, as
well as actions. He did not say, "Thank you Father for these
crooks." He labored for their elimination.
Job, we must remember, is also the good guy as he fights back
with powerful emotions. We are not saying he was as pure as Christ,
but the fact is, he was right, and his friends were wrong. G.
Campbell Morgan, that prince of expositors, sees in Job's defense
that which is admirable. He writes, "There is majesty in the
impatience of Job with the men who philosophized in the presence of
agony, and it is impossible to read without a consciousness of
profound sympathy with the suffering man."
Job takes off the mask, and his pious friends do not like it. They
do not consider his honesty acceptable social behavior in the
presence of godly people. They looked upon Job's honest emotions
as in offense, like swearing in the presence of a lady. They expect
him to wear the mask of hypocritical acceptability. It is better to
grieve within, and not let others know, for this makes it hard on them,
for they are embarrassed with honest emotions. They
expected Job to respect their right to be free from other people's
burdens. Why should we have to listen to your groaning and
moaning when life is just dandy for us? They wanted Job to play the
role described in this poem:
Though I am beaten,
Nobody shall know.
I'll wear defeat proudly;
I shall go
About my business
as I did before.
Only when I have safely
Closed the door
Against friends and the rest,
Shall I be free
To bow my head
Where there is none to see.
Tonight I will shed my tears;
Tomorrow when
I talk with you,
I will be gay again.
Though I am beaten,
Nobody will guess,
For I will walk
As though I knew success.
Job's friends would have been proud of him had he given such a
speech. But Job disappointed them, and let his negative emotions
out, right in their presence. Job was wise, and those who go the
other route often end up hardened, bitter, cynical, and disillusioned,
for they place themselves in a self-made hell of loneliness that God
never intended for any of His children. The whole idea of the people
of God is so that every person might have a company of friends and
sympathizers to help him bear whatever burdens life brings.
Job's friends were more concerned about theology than about
him as a person, and the result is, they failed to be what God wanted
them to be. Job's sorrows were not lightened, but made heavier by
them. They were to him like Peer Gynts onion. He pealed it and
pealed it, and could find no core. It was all outsides. So Job's
friends also revealed no real core, or heart, or inner man. They
were all outsides with their cold external system. They could not be
honest with Job, because they could not accept that being honest
with all of life, is the only way to be pleasing to God. Those who
become the greatest helpers to those who suffer are those who
express honestly their own negative emotions.
In 1967 Joni wrote of how she felt in her suffering. "Once again,
I desperately wanted to kill myself. Here I was, trapped in this
canvas cacoon. I couldn't move anything except my head.
Physically, I was little more than a corpse. I had no hope of ever
walking again. I could never lead a normal life and marry Dick...
Why on earth should a person be forced to live out such a dreary
existence? How I prayed for some accident or miracle to kill me.
The mental and spiritual anguish was as unbearable as the physical
torture." She was so utterly helpless she could not do anything to
end her life, and in angry agony she suffered and complained.
It would be easy to conclude that the suffering of a young girl
cannot be taken as a valid example of Christian feelings. What
about mature people who have lived long, and have faced a
multitude of life's trials? Let's look at their feelings, and see if Job is
supported by history. Let's look at how a great man like
Michelangelo faced grief. This genius, whose art has caused millions
to praise God, knew what it was to grieve. He wrote in a letter, as
his close friend was dying, "I am in great affliction here. Urbino is
still in bed and very seriously ill. I do not know what will come of it.
I feel this trouble as though it were my own son, because he has lived
in my service 25 years and has been very faithful. Being old, I have
no time for form another servant to my purpose, and so I am sad
exceedingly." Just how sad is that? Michelangelo wrote this after
his servant died: "...The better part of me is gone with him, nor is
there left to me ought but infinite distress."
When I read this, my mind jumped immediately to the apostle
Paul. He responded in a similar way when he had a dear friend
near death. In Phil. 2 he writes of Epaphroditus in verse 27,
"Indeed he was ill, near to death. But God had mercy on him, and
not only on him but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon
sorrow." Paul openly confesses he would express deep grief if he
had lost this dear friend. It is established, therefore, beyond a
shadow of a doubt: negative feelings are a normal and acceptable
part of the Christian life. There is nothing Christian about being a
Stoic. Job was absolutely justified in his self-defense.
