Do you hear? Do you see? The wind, the wind, the whirlwind?! Do you feel it? Is its hot breath on you as it is on me? The whirlwind, the whirlwind! I can scarcely stand up, it is so strong! Are you not blown away with these winds? Are you not devastated?
No. No. I suppose not. Few there are who have suffered what I have suffered. Not many have ever been through all that has plagued me. No, I suppose you have not been through every stormy wind that blows, nor have you been borne down by such a swelling tide of woes. You look too prosperous. You look well. You look as I used to look.
But, oh, my God, the whirlwind of destruction that has torn me apart! Great God, why? I still do not see it. I cannot perceive it. Why? Why me? Why now?
If only I could go back and have what I once had. If only I could call back into life things that once were and now are not. If only I could hold my children, one more time.
If only I could address the mighty Maker of this world to His face, surely He would answer me. If only I could stretch out my arm and tug at the outskirts of His garments, He would explain it to me. He would. If He can. If He is able. If He cares.
Stretch out my arm, indeed! I cannot stop scraping at my arms, nor my chest, nor my legs. I am diseased everywhere; I am in pain. I have not eaten anything but scraps of garbage for weeks, I am sick. Sick, I tell you! Sick unto death, and no one cares. No man cares for my soul. Nor God either, it would seem.
And yet surely He does. Surely God will hear my voice. Oh, if I only knew where I might find Him, then I might even come before His presence and plead my case to Him. If only I knew where He is. And if only this infernal whirlwind would stop! Stop! Stop, ye winds, cease your stirring! I am not at rest, for trouble continues to come. And I can take no more. It is all I am able to bear.
Ah! Ah! It’s a little quieter now. There is a moment of release. The mercies of God are sure; a quiet moment in which I may tell you my story. If you want to hear it .. if you will listen to the likes of Job. Others have come and have lectured me, not wanting to hear me. Do you want to hear? Are you prepared to listen?
If so, then prepare to be challenged. Prepare for anger, for I am not at ease. I am angry and troubled. Prepare for a story of immense proportions, for to no one has the Almighty been more cruel than to Job. And prepare to doubt yourselves, your God, and everything you have been taught, you well-dressed, self-satisfied, smug citizens of serenity! Prepare to hear Job’s accusations!
For, you see, I was once like you. I was once well dressed, well fed, well housed, well. Healthy. Happy. Full of life. Indeed, as I think of that whirlwind we saw a moment ago, I think of my life as once it was. I lived in a whirlwind of activity. I was busy. I tended my vast possessions, I invested carefully, I planned for every contingency, I prepared for every possibility. I was immensely busy, and loved every instant of it. I had filled each moment with sixty seconds’ worth of distance run. My life was a veritable whirlwind of good things.
Nor did I forget God, blessed be His name ... ah, there I go again. Old habits die hard. I used to bless the name of God, who had given me all these good things. I cannot bless His name right now. I cannot. Try as I might, I cannot and I will not, for He has turned His back on me, He has broken His promise to me, He has ...
No. No. I must be careful. Let no charge against God pass my lips. I must be careful.
Let me just tell you what God has done. In fact, I call you to witness what He has done, so that you may understand that Job is not lying, but is telling the truth. I call you to witness my righteousness and God’s faithlessness. For though I had worked faithfully and had lived uprightly, all my possessions began to slip away from me. Though I had provided carefully for my oxen and my camels, a marauding band of thieves stole them all, every last one of them. And as I was dealing with that problem, though I had intended my sheep as sacrifices for God’s altar, a lightning bolt struck tinder and my sheep were burned up, destroyed ... as if God could not wait for a proper Temple ritual. I was dumbstruck that day. To lose so much, all at once. I did not know how I would recover. The cattle on a thousand hills are His, says the Psalmist, so why should He take mine from my one little hill? I do not see it! I will not see it! It is not right!
Ah, but do not pity me yet. Do not waste tears on cattle and sheep. The worst is yet to come. That wind, that terrible whirlwind of destruction. That pestilence that walks by day and strangles by night ... my children. My children. Fine, upstanding young men and women they were. They were all together, enjoying a good meal, sharing with one another as I had taught them to do, but a great wind came roaring across the desert, it struck the house where they were sitting ... I cannot stand to speak of it. Lord, why do the innocent suffer? What can it mean for children to be ambushed in their own home, in their school, at their place of worship? Surely You gain nothing from that?
Indeed, Lord, why am I still living? Why did I not just come forth from my mother’s womb and die? Why was light granted to one who wants only darkness and death? Why? Why? It is not fair. Why?
For days afterward I was a chastened and lonely man. Still, however, I believed God. I believed that my retribution would come, and that God, who for whatever reason had done these things, would undo them and make it right. Not once, not once, did I speak ill of my Creator. Not once did anything evil pass my lips. Surely God would hear and answer.
Hmph, answer He did. He answered, all right. With the curse of illness. With loathsome sores from the sole of my foot to the crown of my head, and to this very moment they give me no relief. I scrape at them constantly, but there is no relief. None. Why, why, oh God, why? I am so miserable. So unspeakably miserable.
It will not surprise you to know that my wife gave up. She advised me just to curse God and die. Get it all over with. What foolishness, I told her. What foolishness. No, we believe that God is just, God is able. God will see us through. We believe that all that we have the Lord has given, and it is the Lord’s to take away, and we must bless the name of the Lord. She slipped away and I have not seen her again. I don’t know where she is. Living or dead, I don’t know. Nor do I particularly care. I cannot seem to think about anyone but myself these days.
Do I bore you, you well-fed, warm and cozy, whimpering wayfarers insulated from the whirlwind? Do I disturb you, so that you do not even want to look at me? My groanings are poured out like water. I cannot stanch the flow. I cannot.
If you find me troubling, then you are like all the rest of them. Some of my friends, that’s what they call themselves, some of my friends came to see me. They had heard what had happened, and they came, they said, to comfort me. Nay, I know why they came. They came to make certain that they were not walking down the pathway that leads to destruction. They came to find out what I had done to deserve such evil things. They worried that their own possessions and their own health were on precarious ground. They came to find out what faults there were in me, so that they might avoid them. They did not come for Job’s benefit. They came for themselves, elusive Eliphaz, boisterous Bildad, smarmy Zophar. They came to save their own skins.
Where are you, Eliphaz? You are here somewhere. Ah yes, I see you, Eliphaz. You found fault with me because you thought I set myself apart from others, and you told me I was no better than other men. You told me, Eliphaz, that if the Lord gives, then the Lord will take away, and that it all had to do with my sin. You found fault with me, Eliphaz, but I find fault with you, too. I find fault with you because you have no answers for me. You have no new insights. You cannot heal me. All you can do is to prate the old tried-and-true: God helps those who help themselves. If you have good things, God gave them because you are good. If you have disasters, God gave those too because your life was off course. Is that still all you can do, Eliphaz? Is that the best you have to offer? I tell you again, I am blameless. I do not deserve what I am getting. I do not. I do not. Elusive Eliphaz, who will not even try to give me a new and better answer.
Oh, I see you too, Bildad, sitting at a safe distance. What bilge Bildad serves up! What ghastly garbage! All you could do for me, Bildad, was to point me to the past and to all the others who have prospered and enjoyed their calories to the full. You gave me stories of ancient worthies and told me I ought to be like them. You told me there was nothing new under the sun and I should not even try to discover more of the depths of God. Bildad, you found fault with me even for thinking, for you said that God was the same, yesterday, today, and forever, and that it scared you even to think about new ideas. They took your breath away. Well, my friend, my insecure and miserable friend, I tell you, God is passing us by. God is doing a new thing. What it is I do not know. I only know that I don’t like it. I feel out of touch with Him. And you were no help, none.
I guess Zophar is not here. I doubt it. He was the cruelest of all . He left early. Unkind words and caustic cuts. Just do the right thing. As if I had not. As if I could, now. If wickedness is in your tent, put it away. Easy for him to say. He assumes that I am in the wrong. He assumes that I can do what I want to do. He does not know that the good I want to do I cannot always do, and that the evil I do not want, that is what I do. Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? Who? Oh, Zophar, Zophar. You are well named. So far are you from helping me. You care not for my soul.
Miserable comforters, all of them. Thoroughly miserable. They know correct doctrine from A to Z, but they do not know my heart.
Ah, the wind. The wind. It blows again. The whirlwind. Do you hear it? Can you feel it? I have nothing left, O God, but my life! Do you want that too? Will you take that from me and leave me on this ash heap to be forgotten and despised of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted only with grief? Well, you will do what you will do. Take my life, if that is what you want. This I tell you, though. Though you slay me, yet will I trust in you. Do You hear? Though you slay me, yet will I trust in you. Father, I stretch my hands to you; no other help I know. If you withdraw your help from me, ah, whither shall I go? Help me or take me. If you are fair. If you are able. If you are good. If you are God. If ..
Last week there was a small glimmer of hope. There was a word from an unexpected source. A young man, Elihu was his name, just a youth. He brought a fresh outlook. Instead of the whirlwind, a fresh breeze of refreshment. Elihu opened up in front of me and told me things I had not heard. Elihu helped me. So few do. So few. So few even come by here. I am despised and rejected of men.
But Elihu came by here for a little while, and showed me that I have not been very open. Not very teachable. I have clung to something that is not working. I have depended on ideas that are not helpful. Elihu pointed me inside myself. Elihu asked me about my heart. Not about my behavior, which has been flawless; but about my heart. The heart of man, he suggested, is deceitful above all things. He seemed to believe that there was something I had not examined; that repentance, a turning of the heart was needed. He, like the others, found fault with me, but it was different. There was a compassion in his voice. There was a new insight. God wants my heart and my soul? As well as my correctness and my good behavior? As well as my temple attendance and my tithes? He wants my inner being?
Oh, Elihu, I thank you. But how? How? If only I knew where I might find Him. I would come before His presence, and there I would plead my case. But God is so remote. The heavens shut Him behind their doors. The waters of the deep conceal His face. Where may I come before Him and be heard? I need something else. I need someone else. I need an advocate. Yes, that’s it. I need an advocate with the Father, someone fully righteous, someone whose integrity is without question. I need an advocate, a mediator, you might say, who can bring us together. We are too far apart. And the winds of change, the whirlwind of decay, are pulling us farther and farther apart. I cannot reach Him by myself.
I have tried. I can do nothing else now but fall on my knees and throw myself on the mercies of God. I can only present this miserable, tired body of mine to Him as a living sacrifice, asking that He accept me. I am weak, I am tired, I am worn. Through this storm, through this night ... take my hand, precious Lord. I am ready to go .. though there is still one thing I do not know. One nagging question I cannot resolve. If a man die, shall he live again? Is there anything beyond this, this earthly tent so full of holes and so little holiness? If a man die, shall he live again?
Uncertain though I am, I humble myself. I seek His face and pray.
Yes, Lord, I do hear. Are you at last answering my plea? Do you at last know Job, your servant? Where was I when you laid the foundations of the earth? Why, nowhere, Lord. I had not even been called into being then. And have I commanded the dawning of each day? No, Lord, I am powerless over such things. Only you. ..
Have I comprehended the expanse of earth? Lord, you know I have lived only in this one little place, and have not learned about too many things. Can I what? The what? Can I direct the stars in their courses, can I order the Pleaides and Orion and chase Ursa Major across the springtime sky? Lord, please, do not humiliate me! Of course not!
Oh Lord, our Lord, how excellent are all your works! How vast is the sum of them! When I awake, they confront me in all their splendor. And when I sleep, they continue in all their faithfulness. Worlds beyond worlds. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, it is too high, I cannot attain it. I see only the outskirts of your ways.
I will no longer plead my righteousness. I see that all that I have done is as these filthy rags I now wear. For you, Lord, desire the inward parts. You, Lord, want our hearts. You ask us to examine ourselves and see if there be any wicked way in us. And there is. Yes, there is. I see it now. I see it. I had believed in my own powers. I had not known of your grace. I had believed that by my works I could buy my way through. But it is all yours to give. To give.
I repent. In dust and ashes I repent. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect is come, then we shall know even as we are now fully known.
Lord, I would know you. I would seek your face. In all my doing the right thing, I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now in my devastation, my eye sees you.
Will the day come, Lord, when you will share our suffering? Will the moment come, Lord, when we will know more? Will you dwell among us, living where we live and feeling what we feel? We need a mediator, Lord. We need an advocate, one who will be in all points tested, just as we are, and yet truly without sin. One who is truly without spot or blemish or any such thing.
The wind. The whirlwind. It blows once more. The wind which swirled around Mt. Sinai, where the law was given, so that we might know your will. The wind which swept over Mt. Carmel, consuming falsehood by your power. The whirlwind, Lord, let it thunder over yet another mountain, where even death and evil may be defeated. You will speak. The silence will be broken. My questions are not answered, but I am assured. My heart is at ease, for I am yours. Yours. In the midst of my misery and at the eye of the whirlwind, I am yours.
I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. I stand amazed in your presence .. and wonder how you could love me, a sinner condemned, unclean. Oh, how marvelous, oh, how wonderful, that I could be yours and you mine. Oh how marvelous, oh how wonderful....
