Who's Job? Part 2

Jesus seems to do a strangely ‘ unrighteous thing’ in the religious leaders’ minds. He doesn’t join them in their condemnation and rejection. He doesn’t turn to the woman in Jn 8 and say, "You knew what you were doing - if you had just followed God’s laws you wouldn’t be in this mess. You brought this on yourself and deserve to suffer. You my friend are on your own!". Instead, He kneels down – between the accusers and the terrified, condemned, woman who knew she was over her head and drowning. This woman had probably heard about Jesus and some of the claims He was making and thought - if this didn’t help, she was completely in the crosshairs and the trigger was about to be pulled.
Whether we relate more to Job, or the woman, our responses to these situations can be very similar.

Despair. That’s what happened with Job when trouble came upon him. It was a truckload of trouble – and all he could think about was he wanted to die – if he had just not been born it would have been better. He goes to the most depressing place he can think of – he sits in the midst of the ashes, perhaps the ashes of the house that burnt down that killed all his family. Job doesn’t have a clue why this happened. It’s dark, it’s painful, he’s completely wrecked, but what is so powerful in this experience is stated in 1:22 "In all this Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong."

Defiance. When caught by trouble, particularly of our design, like the woman before Jesus – we lash out – we turn it around and because of our pain, because of our shame, because of our experience of rejection from others, and perhaps because we feel that God has rejected us as well, we become venomous. It’s a maneuver of self-preservation – building walls of protection. We feel that others are trying to take our last bit of dignity.

Defeat. Here we find the adulterous woman. She knows she deserves to be here. I wonder if there is sense of fear of the pain of the stones, while at the same time there’s a sense of relief that it will soon be over. She has no strength to defend herself, and even if she did, she knows she is wrong. She is powerless and tired and has no place to go.

Dependence. Both Job and the woman are soon to find themselves in the same place. I find that ironic and cool at the same time. In Job’s case, he had horrible things happen – completely beyond his control. I think of people I know who are experiencing great difficulty in their lives regarding things that are completely beyond their control, and other friends who have made regrettable life decisions that have resulted in difficult and complex ramifications, but no less difficult to bear up under.

Both Job and the woman discover the same answer in the midst of very different trying times: dependence.
After Job’s friends are done condemning, accusing, and ‘preaching’ their sermons at him, they leave. Perhaps he was worse off than when they found him because they haven’t helped, but simply caused him more confusion, and more pain. He finally encounters God – Job 38:1 "Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind."
I think the whirlwind is an appropriate image. Everything for Job is up in the air, uncertain, spinning and smashing together, all mangled and tangled together – he doesn’t know which end is up. Then, in this situation that appears out of and beyond control, God speaks.
Job doesn’t get the answer that he wants, but he gets the answer that he needs. Job’s question all through the book, and the answers his friends are seeking to give focus on is "why do the righteous suffer?" And the closest answer he gets is "because". But rather then becoming an unsatisfying answer, it becomes a point of strength and faith. For Job, I believe, it a freeing answer. The disaster that came upon him was not because of sin - he didn’t cause it - nor does his behaviour determine that disaster will not happen.
Imagine the pressure, the fear, the weight the condemnation of believing that everything that happens to you is a direct result of whether you sinned or whether you managed to live righteous enough. It would put us all in the place of Job’s friends constantly making judgment – having to excruciatingly examine ourselves and each other. Every moment, every thought, every decision must be placed under a microscope to find the exact point of where you went wrong. Your release from your situation is dependent upon it. The self-condemnation is huge; "I obviously deserve this, and therefore deserve God’s rejection in my life".
Back to the woman. We left her flat on the ground where she had been tossed as if garbage. She is feeling like garbage because she knew her accusers were right. The questions that must have been whirling in her mind, "How did I get here?" "Why didn’t stop like I promised myself and God so many times?" "It’s over, I’m done, I’m exposed. What little hope I was clinging to is evaporated – it is now completely hopeless – or was it?
Anyway, I was just thinking,
Neil