Job LII

Job was not the rock of Gibraltar being beaten by crashing waves and stoically withstanding it all as though nothing was amiss. He felt the pain of loss for his ten children, he felt the physical pain of his boils, and in the time it took for his friends to come to him, he had become unrecognizable. The memory of what he’d been and what he looked like now was so different that, to their eyes, it did not seem like the same man.

The same thing happens to each of us when we come to Jesus but in the inverse. We start out sick and dirty, covered in tattered rags, lifeless and hollow, and then we encounter Him. He takes a wretch like me and patiently cleanses me with His blood, restores my soul, clothes me in white garments, and breathes new life in me. How could I not sing His praises? How could I not serve Him all the days of my life, knowing what would have been had He not found me and called me His own?

Throughout the week, we take turns saying grace as we sit down to dinner. We hold hands as a family, bow our heads, and one of us proceeds to give thanks to God for His many blessings. When they were younger, the girls would always start out thanking God for the food, the hands that prepared it, and the grace of having something to eat when others in the world might not. As they grew and began to understand who Jesus is and what He did on the cross, I noticed that both of their prayers changed, and nowadays, more often than not, they start out by thanking God for sending Jesus. They still include the food, the heat, and the roof over our heads, but Jesus and His salvific sacrifice come first.

Even at their tender age, without the benefit of attending seminary and getting a degree in pastoral studies, they understand the immeasurable gift we are freely given by the hand of God in that we were once lost, separated from His love and grace, wandering in the dark and standoffish of the light. It doesn’t take a genius-level IQ or endless hours of sitting in a classroom to understand the simple truth of the gospel. Jesus came to set the captives free. He came to give His life that we might have life, then rose again on the third day, leaving all who would believe, repent, and follow after Him with the promise that we would one day be with Him in the place He has prepared, where every tear will be wiped from our eyes, and everlasting joy will abound.

Historical context is important in understanding both that Job was now an outcast among his own people, given his painful boils and the perpetual fear of the time of contracting some incurable disease, and the depth of love his friends had for him in that they were not concerned or fearful for themselves. It’s not as though Job had the benefit of modern medicine to determine whether or not he was contagious. It’s not as though he’d gone out and done a blood panel to determine what he was suffering from. It’s not as though his friends were presented with a clean bill of health before they sat down with him for seven days and seven nights, and for all they knew, they could have contracted the same malady he suffered from if they breathed the same air or were around him for a prolonged period of time.

Whether they took the possibility of getting sick themselves into account, we will never know, but what is clearly written is that when his three friends saw the state Job was in, they lifted their voices and wept, and each one tore his robe and sprinkled dust on his head toward heaven. They cried out for mercy on behalf of their friend, given that it was the only thing they could do.

We know what man is capable of and the lengths to which he will go if he feels as though his health or his life are in danger. To this day, I still see people driving around by themselves with face diapers firmly secured to their faces, although it's rarer now than it was two years ago. Imagine living in a time before the ability to determine what someone was suffering from, before electricity or WebMD, before Urgent Care, and the encyclopedia of diseases and disorders.

Imagine seeing a friend you once knew as strong and vibrant, now unrecognizable, sitting on an ash pile, covered in painful boils from head to toe, not knowing if coming close to him will bring you to the same state. We cannot dismiss the depth of love Job’s friends had for him. We can’t wave it off and say it doesn’t count unless we try to put ourselves in their situation and determine whether we would have done likewise. These three men likely had families of their own, wives and children, servants and acquaintances, and the thought that not only would they catch what Job had but spread it to their loved ones, in turn, must have come to the fore at some point. Even so, they sat down with him on the ground for seven days and seven nights.

When we look at this event through the prism of the spiritual, we can’t help but notice some deeper truths. Jesus will sit with you at your lowest when all others have abandoned you, when the world has shunned you, and those you called friends will do everything they can to avoid you. Even in your mess, your pain, in the disfigurement sin has wrought upon your countenance, He will sit on the ground with you in the hope of lifting you up out of the dust and ash and bringing you to a new understanding of life, most notably that it doesn’t end when you go back to the dust, but that it continues into eternity with only two possible destinations.

We choose to either take His outstretched hand and humble ourselves to the point of letting Him do on our behalf what we could have never done on our own or resign ourselves to the idea that all there is is ash and dust, and painful boils, and His promise of restoration and wholeness is nothing more than a fable. Call it a fable, call it a lie, call it a fanciful tale akin to spaghetti monsters, but I know what I know, I’ve felt what I’ve felt, I know Him as my Lord, my King, and my Savior, and nothing anyone says can sway me from what I know to be true. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.