Wednesday 21^st May 2008 - Job 9

 

There is a movie where someone does try to “sue God” (The man who sued God, 2001), and to some extent he does make a very good point. ‘Acts of God’ seem to have been very carefully chosen by insurers, which is what the movie is about. Yet, as Job makes very clear, everything that happens on earth is of interest to God, and can be said to be an act of God (unless it be clearly a human act that God has permitted).

But… who can say what effect human activity might wreak upon innocent people, often quite unexpectedly? Who is responsible for the spread of AIDS? Who is causing global warming? Questions like these arise easily, but are much more difficult to answer.

Job says he is innocent, but it seemed to him that God held him as guilty. And perhaps we feel the same. What can Job do?

Again Job stumbles on an answer that is not an answer for him, but is exactly that for us. “If God were human, I could answer him”

Jesus! The Word made Flesh, who dwelt among us!

He is the one who “steps between us”, who is our mediator. And here in this wonderful verse we can know that answers did come. Whatever our sin, whatever our guilt, Jesus deals with it when we let him be the mediator.

It doesn’t answer the difficult questions I mentioned above, but God seems to love to sidestep such questions and point to a relationship in which those questions can be lived with.