When I was a kid growing up, my family had the habit of reading one chapter of the Bible every night after we had eaten dinner. My mom would mark the date in the front cover of my parents’ wedding Bible and we would start in Genesis and read all the way through Creation, Abraham, the plagues of Egypt, the weird mould laws, names, names, names, all the way through Revelation and the triumphal return of the King. One chapter a night. It took about three years. By the time I had left home, I had read through the entire Bible about seven times.
It is a habit that I continue to this day, though I no longer write the dates down in the front of the Bible, and I usually read more than a chapter a day. But I start at the beginning and read through to the end and then go back to the beginning and do it again. And right about when the pandemic started, I began the book of Job.
Pretty depressing stuff to read in the middle of a pandemic. It’s like reading the news reports. Wave after wave after wave of bad news. Unrelenting waves of accusations. Unwavering protestations of innocence. And through it all, no matter what, Job’s desperate clinging to God. It’s where so many of us find ourselves right now.
But I think what has struck me the most about Job is that the whole book is a quest to find one answer: why is this happening?
And don’t we want to know that, too? Why is this happening?
Job’s friends were pretty sure they knew why it was happening. Clearly, Job had sinned. Clearly, his downfall was God’s judgement for some secret or not-so-secret sin. They begged him repeatedly to repent. Just admit what you did, Job, and this will all be over!
But Job called them cold comforters. He refused to accept that he had done wrong, and that his suffering was divine judgement. He challenged God to face him in court, fully convinced he would be justified. He pleaded with God to exonerate him.
We want to know why, don’t we? If we only knew why this was happening, it would seem less out of control. If I know that A causes B, and I don’t like B, all I have to do is avoid A. I can control the outcomes if I know the causes. We want to lay blame and sort out causes because then we could fix this. The sick helplessness is a horrible feeling. If we could only explain it, we could solve it. There must be something we can do if we only knew why this had happened. Or, if we only knew the plan, we could judge it worthy. It would be easier to endure this if we could see some great and glorious outcome. After all, we often willingly go through difficulties in order to attain some higher goal. If we knew the higher goal, the pain of today would feel less onerous. It might even feel heroic if we knew we were bearing up under hope for a bright new tomorrow.
But here’s the thing about Job and his friends — they never learned why. We know why, as readers of the divine narrative, but they did not. When God showed up at the end, he did not come with explanations about why. But here’s what he did tell them.
First, he told them that he is sovereign. He is in control. He owes no one an explanation. He does what is right and good, whether we like it or not, and all that he does is righteous and good. He does not defend himself. He simply shows up in all his glory and might and Job puts his hand over his mouth and stops talking. Because in the midst of the greatest sorrow, God is in control, and God is enough.
Second, he told them that Job’s friends were wrong. “You did not speak rightly about me as my servant Job has.” Job’s suffering was no judgement, no punishment of secret sin. In fact, in their saying so, they had sinned, and Job had to intercede in prayer on their behalf.
Third, Job met God in the whirlwind before the bright new tomorrow. The bright new tomorrow is almost anticlimactic. Job had already come to a place of silent awe. He had already submitted, not because the bright new tomorrow was worth it, but because God was worth it.
And that’s it.
So, why? Why is the world being swept by a pandemic that is sickening and killing so many? Why is the world teetering on the brink of financial collapse? Why are nursing homes being blighted by a bug no one can see? Why are so many suffering and why is this world groaning in travail? Why is this happening?
I don’t know.
What I do know is this: God is sovereign. He owes us no explanation. He does not need to defend himself to us nor does he need me to defend him. He has promised us that nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. He is sovereign. And in the midst of this greatest sorrow, he is enough.
Nor will I misspeak by declaring that this pandemic is divine judgement. We simply do not know that. If Job tells us anything, it is that Job’s friends were flat out wrong. The world is not that simple. Just repent and it will all be over sounds so comforting. It puts us in control of the outcome. But we don’t get to escape the uncertainty that easily. What we do get to do is to place our trust in our sovereign and gracious God in the midst of the uncertainty.
Finally, I ask my whys. It is a legitimate question; it is the cry of lament. Jesus himself asked it as he hung on the cross on that Dark Friday, that Friday of goodness and wonder and grace. I ask my whys precisely because he is sovereign and because I, too, know that my Redeemer lives. God, this hurts. I don’t like it. I’m sitting in the ashes of my ruined life in our ruined world and it hurts. Why does it hurt so? When will it be over? We ask why because asking why is the honest cry of God’s broken and hurting people and he is our gracious Abba. We cry the tears. We sit in the grief. We ask the questions.
We ask the question, but we do not attempt to answer it. We ask the question and we leave it with God. We come to a place of silent awe and we submit to him.
Because he is worthy.
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