Devastations and Blessings: Job 1:1-13 - Holy Trinity Sunday

It has all the hallmarks of a bet between gambling buddies: God holds up Job as the most righteous person on earth, “blameless and upright, fearing the Lord and shunning evil.”

Satan (referred to here as The Accuser) argues that Job is only righteous because of his prosperity, and that he would not remain so if God stretched out his hand against him.

So, God said to Satan, “all that he has is in your power. But don’t do anything to Job.” 

Right away, Job’s livestock and servants were plundered or incinerated. A violent storm destroyed the house where Job’s children were gathered, and they all perished.

Job rose up, tore his robe, shaved his head, then fell down and worshipped. He said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” 

It would seem now that God just won the bet. 

But Satan is unwilling to admit defeat. So, God permits him to strike Job’s body, though he is not allowed to kill Job. Job suddenly finds his body covered with grotesque sores which peeled and scabbed. All the while, he suffered fevers, nightmares, bad breath, weight loss, and relentless physical pain. Still, he refuses to curse God. He will, however, curse the day he was born, and accuse God of acting unjustly towards him. 

After all that’s just happened, I don’t think any of us would disagree. Job didn’t deserve any of this. God may have won the bet, but he doesn’t look very good. 

To be fair, God isn’t the one who afflicts Job. Satan does that. God lets it happen. Satan’s argument is that Job is righteous because he’s prosperous, in the same way that he’s prosperous because he’s righteous. That was consistent with the prevailing wisdom of the day, which prevails even now: God rewards virtue and righteousness with prosperity; God punishes unrighteousness with suffering. This mindset makes the workings of the God (or any god) very easy to understand. How many times did you hear TV preachers proclaiming that God sent Hurricane Katrina to punish the people of New Orleans, or that 9/11 was God’s judgment on America? Or that the enslavement of African Americans was justified because God “blessed” whites to be a superior race?

Job’s close friends will argue that he wasn’t as righteous as he thought he was, and his afflictions are proof. But Job knows how righteous he’s been. Just the same, he sees the prosperity of people who aren’t nearly as righteous as he is, all the while he wastes away. 

The trap Satan set for Job is that he will curse God’s name due to the injustice of his afflictions.

Job refuses to do that, largely because he is a righteous man. But also, I believe, because he’s afraid that if he does, his afflictions will multiply. (At this point, I believe he would have welcomed death, just to end his suffering.)

Either way, he’s still of the mindset that God acts according to human ideals of fairness. Up to this point, it’s worked out very well for him. The God he’s worshipped has been his own personal supernatural blessing machine and punishing machine. This shows the immaturity of his faith: Job loved God for giving Job what Job believed Job deserved. He’s held himself to such high moral standards, believing that if he does not, God will punish him. 

He is now in an existential crisis because, in his mind, God has given him what he did not deserve.

This lays bare what was true even before all the calamities struck: Job didn’t know God as God truly is. Job didn’t understand God as God truly is. That wasn’t his fault. 

The lesson he must learn, and that his friends must learn, is that God does not operate according to human standards of fairness. God’s ways are above and beyond human ways. God sees from eternity. We see only from the here-and-now.

It will happen for Job, as it happens for us all, that his faith will mature and true holiness will take hold of him through the fires of his adversities. Even though the Book of Job was written long before Jesus, it was still as true that our salvation is fulfilled through the suffering death of Jesus Christ. Christ’s sharing in our sufferings brings us to maturity of faith. Christ’s sharing in our sufferings makes us Christ-like. 

Though God allowed unfathomable suffering and loss, God did not abandon him. God’s Spirit held onto him when he could barely hold onto life.

Moreover, it is a disgrace to the Holy Name of God to point to anyone in their afflictions and declare that they are cursed by God, including someone who is suffering the direct consequences of their sin. Our God doesn’t curse. Our God saves. 

You can’t sing “Blessed be the name of the Lord…on the road marked with suffering” unless Jesus is taking you by the hand as you walk upon it. 

Why life is the way it is, and why God acts and doesn’t act, we’ll won’t know until we reach eternity. But Jesus is here for you to know now. By Christ and Christ alone can you bless the Lord on the mountaintops and in the valleys of life. By Christ and his righteousness, and not by your own works, can you trust and believe that you are saved.