Human suffering, as opposed to that of animals, transcends the realm of the “phenomenological” to that of self-conscious interpretation. The purely animal mind is immersed in the present moment, and its suffering (though real) is experienced without context, without a story, with no sense of meaning or ulterior cosmic purpose.
When Job was tested by God, he was immersed in a religious philosophy that provided a “map” for ordering the temporal circumstances, or phenomena, of human life. Good and evil were descriptive categories grounded in God’s approval or disapproval of a person’s character and choices. If evil things happened, then, God was expressing his disapproval of the behavior or character of the person; if good things happened, God was expressing his approval…
This was the rather crude idea of “karma” that lay behind much religious superstition and nonsense of that time. If a person suffered, then God disapproved of the person (or ignored him), and conversely, if God approved of the person, suffering would not occur. And it was sometimes unclear exactly what pleased God or offended him, ideas of “luck” and “chance” blended in with superficial notions of moral cause and effect. Superstitious religiosity thus sought to improve a person’s spiritual condition by “bribing” God through flattering words or rituals, or by seeking his approval by doing good deeds….
Meister Eckhart once said that we need God to deliver us from “God,” by which he meant that we need the revelation of truth to deliver us from our illusions of who God is and what God is like. After all, people tend to make God in their own image, and yet the LORD forbids all such forms of idolatry. We need God to know the truth about God.
This might explain Job’s wife’s response to the loss of her home, her children, and the tortuous suffering of her husband. “Curse God and die” she counseled, which might mean: “Everything you’ve believed about God is an illusion – you have been ‘religious,’ you have been pious of heart, you have been a good man, and yet all this woe has befallen us… You seek for answers using terms of a religious philosophy to get us through life, and for awhile that map seemed to work, but now it has shown itself to be untrue, or at least it is powerless to help you. Forget the map! Forget the attempt to decipher why you (and me) are suffering – for the map itself has led you astray, and there is nothing left but to let it all go – to die to all that….”
On the face of it we tend to condemn Job’s unnamed wife for being faithless, but just imagine what she was going through at the time, alongside her husband…. Her words of exasperation were unsettling, to be sure, but they were the words of someone who was greatly suffering and in need of grace….
The religious philosophy of karma runs deep within the human heart, even among the Jewish people. The law itself is karmic. How else could the “good Pharisee” pray: “I thank you God, that I am not like other men…” His gratitude was based on his comfort that he had played the “game” of religion better than others. Is that the best that legalistic Judaism can offer?
Among other things, the Book of Job “deconstructs” the religious idea of God as strictly karmic to be something more than we can fathom, as King Solomon later said during the dedication of the Holy Temple, “Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this temple which I have built!” (1 Kings 8:27).
And yet is this not the very thing we must do, to “make a place” for God within us? “Let them make for me a sanctuary that I may dwell within them” – וְעָשׂוּ לִי מִקְדָּשׁ וְשָׁכַנְתִּי בְּתוֹכָם (Exod. 25:8). Moses’ instruction to build a Mishkan was symbolic, of course, for the people were acquainted with the vast glories of the Egyptian temples, pyramids, and so on. By contrast, the Mishkan was small, humble, and nearly inconspicuous; it represented God’s Presence in disguise, unseen by proud eyes, but the very place of the Spirit of God and truth (Isa. 45:15). “Building a Mishkan” then meant “enshrining faith, hope, and love” within our hearts, beautifying and magnifying the greatness of God within us. It is an idea of God that goes well beyond “mechanical karma” to that of deep heart relationship with the Lord…
God spoke to Job from the midst of the whirlwind (סְעָרָה), and it was from the midst of the head-spinning revelation that he heard God speak…. But how did Job get there? Was it not only after he had rebuffed the religious philosophy or “map” that his friends sought to justify his sufferings? Job was adamant, however: that map didn’t work – “God” had failed him; “God” had hurt him unjustly, etc. All this “God-talk” was just that – ignorant blather used to justify the old news of karma – but something more else was going on – truth was beginning to be revealed. Using Eckhart’s terms, God was delivering Job from his illusions about “God.”
How did Mary Magdalene come to know the truth? How did the unnamed tax collector at the Temple who dared not lift up his eyes toward heaven? How did Jonah? How did you? Indeed, how can anyone come to know God apart from having their “world” crumble into dust and ashes before them? And in the midst of the implosion, in the eye of the whirlwind that churns overhead, God then speaks words to the heart…
Whatever the words are – divine poetry of the sort Job heard or something else, it doesn’t matter so much what is being said but who is saying the words, that is, who is looking upon you in all your frailty, brokenness, and ruin – whatever the words, then, what is crucial is that the person hears, the person believes, the person is wholly engaged before the One who is beyond all our understanding, and the One who is beyond all our understanding then condescends and speaks into our tears, imparting peace that is beyond all our understanding – peace that is essentially ineffable, incommunicable – an inner sense of knowing that (despite everything) “all is well, and all manner of thing shall be well…”
Did God answer Job’s question, then? Yes he did, for he gave Job what his heart needed most of all. Like the distinction between the “good Pharisee” and the “bad tax collector,” God’s ways are higher than our ways, and his thoughts than our thoughts, and therefore his Spirit “cuts through the soul and the spirit, and the joints and the marrow” to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart (Heb. 4:12). We are whatever we are by the grace of God, and faith is the “substance of hope” that affirms that this story, our story, is a good one, no matter what may happen. Let everyone be fully persuaded in his own mind.
“For we don’t live for ourselves or die for ourselves. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s” (Rom. 14:7-8). Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Heb. 4:16). “In me is darkness, but with You light; I am lonely, but You do not leave me; I am feeble in heart, but with You is help; I am restless, but with You is peace. In me is bitterness, but with You is patience; I do not understand Your ways, but You know the way for me” (Bonhoeffer). “Let me seek you in the darkness of my silence, and find you in the silence of Your light, which is love shining as the sun, flowing like the river, and joying like the heart” (Meister Eckhart).
“The whole world sighs…” (Apostle Paul). “It is of the very essence of Christianity to face suffering and death not because they are good, not because they have meaning, but because the resurrection of Jesus has robbed them of their meaning” (Merton). Amen, the final word is found in the resurrection life of our Lord, the one who emptied himself, clothed himself in our frailty, and overcame the sickness of death on our behalf.
God is both infinitely just and infinitely loving, and both of these “attributes” are inseparably a part of who he is. God is One. Nonetheless, the cross of Yeshua proves that “love is stronger than death, passion fiercer than the grave; its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame, the very flame of the Lord” (Song. 8:6). Amen, and shalom to you, chaverim.
Hebrew Lesson:
- Jer. 31:3b Hebrew page (pdf)