Job’s Third Speech: A Response to Bildad

9 Then Job spoke again:

² “Yes, I know all this is true in principle.
    But how can a person be declared innocent in God’s sight?
³ If someone wanted to take God to court,
    would it be possible to answer him even once in a thousand times?
⁴ For God is so wise and so mighty.
    Who has ever challenged him successfully?

⁵ “Without warning, he moves the mountains,
    overturning them in his anger.
⁶ He shakes the earth from its place,
    and its foundations tremble.
⁷ If he commands it, the sun won’t rise
    and the stars won’t shine.
⁸ He alone has spread out the heavens
    and marches on the waves of the sea.
⁹ He made all the stars—the Bear and Orion,
    the Pleiades and the constellations of the southern sky.
¹⁰ He does great things too marvelous to understand.
    He performs countless miracles.

¹¹ “Yet when he comes near, I cannot see him.
    When he moves by, I do not see him go.
¹² If he snatches someone in death, who can stop him?
    Who dares to ask, ‘What are you doing?’
¹³ And God does not restrain his anger.
    Even the monsters of the sea are crushed beneath his feet.

¹⁴ “So who am I, that I should try to answer God
    or even reason with him?
¹⁵ Even if I were right, I would have no defense.
    I could only plead for mercy.
¹⁶ And even if I summoned him and he responded,
    I’m not sure he would listen to me.
¹⁷ For he attacks me with a storm
    and repeatedly wounds me without cause.
¹⁸ He will not let me catch my breath,
    but fills me instead with bitter sorrows.
¹⁹ If it’s a question of strength, he’s the strong one.
    If it’s a matter of justice, who dares to summon him to court?
²⁰ Though I am innocent, my own mouth would pronounce me guilty.
    Though I am blameless, it would prove me wicked.

²¹ “I am innocent,
    but it makes no difference to me—
    I despise my life.
²² Innocent or wicked, it is all the same to God.
    That’s why I say, ‘He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.’
²³ When a plague sweeps through,
    he laughs at the death of the innocent.
²⁴ The whole earth is in the hands of the wicked,
    and God blinds the eyes of the judges.
    If he’s not the one who does it, who is?

²⁵ “My life passes more swiftly than a runner.
    It flees away without a glimpse of happiness.
²⁶ It disappears like a swift papyrus boat,
    like an eagle swooping down on its prey.
²⁷ If I decided to forget my complaints,
    to put away my sad face and be cheerful,
²⁸ I would still dread all the pain,
    for I know you will not find me innocent, O God.
²⁹ Whatever happens, I will be found guilty.
    So what’s the use of trying?
³⁰ Even if I were to wash myself with soap
    and clean my hands with lye,
³¹ you would plunge me into a muddy ditch,
    and my own filthy clothing would hate me.

³² “God is not a mortal like me,
    so I cannot argue with him or take him to trial.
³³ If only there were a mediator between us,
    someone who could bring us together.
³⁴ The mediator could make God stop beating me,
    and I would no longer live in terror of his punishment.
³⁵ Then I could speak to him without fear,
    but I cannot do that in my own strength.

Job 9

Dear God, years ago, I tried to go through Job in my typical, small-chunks-at-a-time way. I found myself so confused. I knew Job’s friends were wrong, but they didn’t sound wrong as I read what they said. I knew Job was wrong, but he didn’t sound wrong. This passage is an example of what I’m talking about. Job knows you’re God. He knows he can’t begin to argue with you or try to make sense of you. At the end of the chapter, he talks about needing a mediator between himself and you. I’ll get to that later. But first I just want to sit with the idea that he just feels abandoned by the God he thought he knew all these years. Betrayed might be a better word. He feels like your unreasonable anger has turned against him, and he is angry with you. Ultimately, he would love to take you to court to get some justice from you because he’s not feeling it.

This is the Old Testament reading for the Catholic church today, and it’s ironic because it comes on a morning when I was listening to a report about a program called “Life Surge” that has come under some scrutiny recently. Apparently, they are trying to sell wealth under the guise of selling you. The report played one pitch where they were talking about making a lot of money through doing things the right way. I couldn’t help but think, “I wonder if they think the poor widow Jesus saw putting her two coins in the offering should have just taken their class to not be poor anymore. Should she have just worked harder and smarter? Then Jesus would have taken those two coins and turned them into wealth for the rest of her natural life.”

I heard someone say one time that, when you read the Bible, almost none of the characters’ lives got easier as a result of following you. Abraham. Jacob (well, maybe Jacob). Moses. Jonathan. David. Elijah. Elisha (well, maybe Elisha). Jeremiah. Mary and Joseph. All twelve disciples. Paul. The list goes on and on. Life got harder. Almost always. Even for David becoming king. His life would have probably been easier and even more faithful to you had he not been anointed by Samuel.

So we come back to Job, and he feels betrayed by you. He has grievances, but he has no mediator. I had a time in my life when I didn’t feel betrayed by you, but I certainly felt disappointed and let down. Things didn’t turn out the way I thought they should in my family, and I was disappointed that you didn’t keep it from happening. But then I learned that you had never made the deal I thought in my head you had made. I invented that deal. All you ever said was that if I walked with you, you would walk with me. In fact, much like Jesus plainly telling the disciples that he would die and rise again and they didn’t hear it, I can look at scripture and see all kinds of examples of times when Jesus and others warned me that my thinking was wrong, but I couldn’t hear it. I chose not to because it didn’t fit the narrative I was looking for.

So back to the mediator Job mentions at the end. I have two thoughts.

• I take Jesus for granted. I take for granted the fact that I can sit here with you this morning. With your Holy Spirit teaching and comforting me. Without that mediation, you would not be able to stand my presence. But here I am, communing with you because Jesus links us.
• The mediation Jesus gives simply brokers your forgiveness of me. It doesn’t earn me anything other than the privilege of walking with you and the opportunity to give your Holy Spirit good soil in my heart in which the fruit of your Spirit can grow. It doesn’t change you except that it makes me tolerable–no, loveable–no, tolerable to you. I was going to change it to loveable, but for some reason, I’ve always been loveable to you. I’m your child, and you love me. You want me. But without my mediator, you just can’t tolerate me.

Father, I have another full day in front of me. Be glorified in it. Be glorified in me and through me to others. Love others through me. Let your kingdom come into this earth through me. Let your will be done on this earth through me. I have to say, right now, the path I’m on is pretty easy. Other than a constant sorrow, nearly every other area is much more than I deserve. Even if all of the good were to go away and tragedy were to befall me in a few or multiple ways, help me to always remember Job. The lesson from Job isn’t patience. The lesson of Job is learning the hard lesson that my life is worth nothing to me. If only I can finish the race and complete the task you’ve given me. The task of testifying to the good news of your grace (Acts 20:24).

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen