New Ending

“If a man dies, will he live again? I will wait all the days of my struggle[warfare] until my change and release will come” (Job 14:14 AMP).

"I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you;  therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5-6 ESV)

“And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job, when he had prayed for his friends. And the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before” (Job 42:10).

 

 And they lived happily ever after.

If there is one story that this does not seem like an apt ending for, it is the book of Job. We don’t know how long he suffered. For sure, thirty-eight chapters worth of time. Some people wonder why the book of Job is so long as it can seem to be repetitive through the three cycles. But perhaps it is to show that suffering is not short; suffering is a long, painful process no matter how long or short the actual amount of time. It is a time of questioning and questioning and re-questioning and visiting the same questions again. Why? What is going on? Should I have….? What if…? It is two steps forward, one step back; one step forward, two steps back. But circumstances do come to an end.

The ending of Job seems—well, misplaced. A placation from God? A flimsy replacement of the children he had lost? Not a reversal, because life is never the same after suffering. To begin again—but it is never the same. Perhaps one can walk again, but it will always be with a limp. Suffering indelibly changes us.

But this is not a misplaced ending. This is an ending of incredible courage, trust, and hope. It is an ending that speaks to my raw heart that is scared to hope for health, healing, for promises. It is an ending that speaks to the man going through deep depression, to the woman who just had a miscarriage, to those who had empty chairs at the holidays, to those who suffered job losses, who like Job are pummeled with the waves of suffering. We want to curl up. Protect. Lock up our heart. Too raw. Grief is too great. Can’t.

But God. Thirty-eight chapters of raw pain. The ending does not make up for those. It is not the ending that changes Job, it is God’s revelation of himself. It is the revelation of God that makes the ending possible. It is God, most clearly revealed in Christ, that makes the ending possible for us.

Job No. 1, Oldrich Kulhanek

Job has a new vision of God. He sees God in his goodness, in his power to curtail evil, justice, and wisdom. He knows deeper that God is a God who takes away but gives. This new vision of God, this God who comes down from heaven to speak with a little man on an ash heap whom the world has given up on and even the youth mock and the dogs have more honor—this God gives Job the courage to TRUST again. To HOPE. To ENGAGE in life again. For suffering could happen again. Another family could mean more agonizing grief. More goods could mean everything could be stripped away again. It could mean another fall, another humiliation. Job knew how helpless he was to protect his family and himself. His own righteousness could not earn protection. But Job chooses to trust God to engage in life again.

So, too, when health bounces back a little bit, we can be scared to venture out again. Another pregnancy after a miscarriage can strike fear. Looking for a new job after a layoff can seem pointless and depressing. Trying again after rejection. Spending money after a Great Depression. We are scarred by our suffering, and can be scared. Job shows us a vision of a God who is so great that he allows us to trust again as we engage in life. As Vischer notes, “This realistic this-worldly conclusion of the book shows powerfully that the real decision whether God is truly God falls in this life. Here and now faith must prove true” (1).

Second, God’s greatness and wisdom gives Job the courage to LOVE again. I find it interesting that Job names his daughters in the book, Jemimah, Keziah, and Keren-happuch (Job 42:14). I’ve heard it point to God’s care for women evident even in the early texts of the Bible. But perhaps it also shows Job’s courage to risk love again. Names show they are individuals, not just replacements for the previous daughters, but unique from the others. They are not just “rewards” for suffering—they are precious gifts. But gifts that open oneself up to hurt and loss once again. But Job’s God is big enough to tame the leviathan and the behemouth, the personification of evil and death. Job’s God is big enough to give him courage to love again.C. S. Lewis writes:

To love at all is to be vulnerable.  Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken.  If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal.  Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change.  It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.  The alternative to tragedy is damnation.  The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell. (2)

Job is not some stoic or a courageous what-doesn’t-kill-me-will-make-me-stronger-hero of Oprah Winfrey’s shows. No, Job has a big God of big grace. God gives again, abundantly. This is not an earned reward for having suffered so valiantly. Indeed, Job did have to repent of some of the things he said (Job 42:6).

In recanting Job surrenders to God the last vestige of his self-righteousness, i.e., he withdraws his avowal of innocence. From now on he will locate his self-worth in his relationship with Yahweh, not in his own moral behavior or innocence. Thus Job commits his fate into God’s hands knowing that he can bear any fate, for he has seen Yahweh. (3)

[Job] abandons his self-justification project. He retracts his demand that God, because of Job’s righteousness, must give him explanation and public vindication. He gives up trying to control God (that is to say, he stops mistrusting God) in any way. He bows before God and lets him be who he is. (4)

At the end of God’s speaking from the storm, Job knows that God is a God of grace, who cares for the ostriches and the wild donkeys, who showers rain on the righteous and unrighteous (Mat. 7:48). God is a God who gives life to all, and God reveals his character of giving in this finale.

This is our God—a God who is bringing all stories toward more than a happy ending, but a joy-filled eternity. It is this God who is involved in this world, who comes down to us in our ash heaps, who speaks, who gives and blesses, who uses even suffering for a greater story that allows us to trust, to hope, to love again. We, too, have a happy ending that does not undermine our suffering, but nor in any way does the suffering eclipse in one minutiae the great glory (2 Cor. 4:17-18). D. A. Carson notes, “[T]he epilogue is the Old Testament equivalent to the New Testament anticipation of a new heaven and a new earth. God is just, and will be seen to be just.” (5) God’s love for us (more than just our love for him), will bring us to joy. And God’s love for us gives us the courage to love and trust again, to hope, to engage in life again even when the heart is raw.

NOTES
(1) W. Vischer, “God’s Truth and Man’s Life,” trans. D. G. Miller, Interpretation 15 (1961), 145.

(2) C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves.

(3) John E. Hartley, The Book of Job, New International Commentary on the Old Testament” (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans’ Publishing Co., 1988), 537.

(4) Timothy Keller, Walking With God through Pain and Suffering (New York: Dutton, 2013), 292.

(5) D. A. Carson, “Mystery and Faith,” 54.