Meditation on the Text of the Week

And Where Were You . . . ?

Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and worshiped. And he said, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord.”
Job 1: 20—21

Last year a number of students and a teacher from Elim Christian School were drowned in a tragedy on the Mangatepopo River. In the aftermath of mourning and burials a number of commentators saw fit to comment on the way the school community and the parents were dealing with the tragedy. It was different from the norm.

Job, in our text, had likewise just endured a terrible tragedy which had both taken the lives of all his children and destroyed virtually all he owned. Like the grieving parents at Elim School, his life had changed, radically and drastically. But, as with those parents and that school, Job's reaction was very different from the norm. Why?

In the first place, Job believed that what had happened to him was not due to extreme weather or to marauding bandits—they were merely second causes. The tragedy that had befallen him was due to God.
It was the Lord that had given to him in the first place, and it was the Lord that had taken away. Notice the active verbs. Thus, his affliction was the outcome of personal motives—in the sense that it had come about because of the deliberate plan, will, intent, and work of God Himself towards Job.

Job's understanding of God is not like many in our day. Many now want to blur the distinction between the Creator and the creature by putting human, creaturely limitations upon God. They urge us to believe that things can happen, terrible things, over which God has no control. They mistakenly imagine that by making God more “human” they can help themselves and others draw closer to God. But God is not honoured by the lies and deceits of men.

Job knows and professes the truth: he knows that there is not one hair which could fall from his head apart from the will and command of God. Therefore, when calamity struck, he knew that it was the will and work of God. Since God had given him children in the first place, it was God who had taken them away when they tragically died.

Secondly, Job holds to a “minimalist rights” position before God. Naked he came into the world; naked he shall leave it. He has nothing that he did not receive in the first place. He has no position or rights to argue before God that entitle him to be treated in a certain way or be given certain things. True, God has promised to care for His people, to provide for them. This is something to which He has bound Himself, not something that we could demand.

But, at the same time, for His own purpose and reasons, such promises can be suspended or removed—as Job has just experienced. The noble and faithful response of Job to this is not to stand on rights but to acknowledge that all he had was a gift in the first place, to which he had no intrinsic right or title. Naked he came forth; naked he would leave.

Thirdly, Job worshiped God: he bowed his knee.

That is the spiritual context of Job's sufferings. All else that follows occurs in that context. But what follows in the rest of the book is Job's struggle to come to terms with God. He desperately wants to come before God and argue his case. He wants to argue his case on the basis of God's faithfulness, promises, goodness, and greatness. He wants God to give account to him and explain why this has happened. What is the meaning and place and significance and intent and purpose of his suffering? But God is silent.

We learn from this that the Christian is not like the unfeeling stoic, who steels his heart so as to be removed from hurt. Rather, Job shows that he was deeply hurt and profoundly affected by what had happened to him. But his case was with God, not with man—it was God's face that he sought. In so doing, he showed his love for God and trust in God. “Though He slay me, yet shall I trust Him,” was his cry. His suffering was in the context of a deep faith in God and Who He is.

In the end God came to him (and so to all who believe). God does not answer Job's questions and his interrogatory. He, rather, changes the terms of the exchange. He changes the terms by reinforcing the distinction between the greatness of the Creator, and the consequent insignificance of Job. He simply asks Job, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” It is a question designed to put the hand on the mouth. It is one of the most humbling questions imaginable. In effect, He takes Job back to his original response in our text, and extends, deepens, and reinforces it.

Job has had his “day in court” as it were. God has spoken to him. And his response: “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now my eyes see Thee;
Therefore, I retract, and I repent in dust and ashes.”
Job 42: 5—6

This is the point to which God leads all His suffering children. It is the point of a deeper trust in Him, without understanding or knowing all the why's and the wherefore's of what has happened. God's purposes are just too great, and we cannot hope to comprehend them. We, after all, were not there when He laid the foundations of the earth.

This is what was evident, we believe, in those terrible days at Elim Christian School.