Appeal to a Higher Court (God in the Dock)

Introduction 

Job, part three. An impossible task: trying to understand why someone like Job would experience so much pain and trouble. An impossible task: trying to explain the presence of evil and hurt in our world. 

 

Two weeks ago, Lee introduced Job as “a good man in a bad way”. Last week, Lee observed that Job’s friends echo the kind of thoughts we torment ourselves with when we are in a bad situation. He summarized their counsel with three basic thoughts, especially the idea, “If I only try harder, pray harder, work harder, all of the bad stuff will go away.” 

 

The friends end up saying essentially, “Job, it’s your fault. We thought you were a good man, but no one would suffer this much if they didn’t deserve it. We don’t know what you did, but clearly your problems are your fault.” 

 

Part Three: I Want God! 

Now we come to part three. Reading the speeches by Job and his friends is interesting. They keep saying, “It’s your fault.” Job keeps saying, “I know I’m not perfect, but I have kept faith with God. I want God to judge me. I want to appear before God.” 

 

At the beginning of chapter 13, he says, “‘My eyes have seen all this, my ears have heard and understood it. What you know, I also know; I am not inferior to you. But I desire to speak to the Almighty and to argue my case with God.” 

 

In 13: 20-24, Job continues, “Only grant me these two things, God, and then I will not hide from you: ²¹ withdraw your hand far from me, and stop frightening me with your terrors. ²² Then summon me and I will answer, or let me speak, and you reply to me. ²³ How many wrongs and sins have I committed? Show me my offence and my sin. ²⁴ Why do you hide your face and consider me your enemy?” 

 

Then in chapter 19, Job uses words that echo powerfully in Handel’s Messiah: “²¹ ‘Have pity on me, my friends, have pity, for the hand of God has struck me. ²² Why do you pursue me as God does? Will you never get enough of my flesh? ²³ Oh, that my words were recorded, that they were written on a scroll, ²⁴ that they were inscribed with an iron tool on lead, or engraved in rock for ever! ²⁵ I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. ²⁶ And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; ²⁷ I myself will see him with my own eyes – I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” 

 

Throughout the book, Job calls on God for a direct meeting. He wants to know what has happened to him, and why. He wants relief. He claims in faith that he knows God will answer him, but in his pain and distress, death seems closer than God does. 

 

Chapters 27 to 37 

This brings us to the chapters we gave for our four-part outline. At the centre of these chapters, another voice speaks up, the voice of Elihu. Job’s friends and Elihu see the same thing – a good man in a bad way, a righteous man whose life has fallen apart. 

 

Job’s friends conclude that it’s all Job’s fault. Elihu listens to them and to Job’s responses, and he looks at the other side of the equation. He looks at God. Elihu hears the question that Job keeps hinting at. What kind of a God would do this to me? 

 

Stop and think about it. Lee noted this question in the first part of this series. When we find ourselves in trouble, it is natural to question God. I know someone who worked with a Christian organization, going around the world to trouble spots where people were in great distress. He reached the point that he could not believe in God and left both the church and faith in God. 

 

Elihu is concerned to defend God. He sees where Job’s questions lead. Job’s friends accuse Job; Elihu defends God. Given that Job represents all of us, consider for a moment what these responses feel like when we are in distress. 

 

The passages we read earlier tell you how Job felt. In chapter 27, he makes it clear that he believes God is in some way intimately connected to his distress, but he does not allow that knowledge to change his commitment to live in covenant with God. He holds on to life with God: “Until I die I will not put away my integrity from me. I hold fast my righteousness and will not let it go.” 

 

We may quibble and say that Job has no righteousness in himself; all that he has comes from God. Job agrees! Job knows well that no human being stands “righteous” before God. His “righteousness” is precisely his covenant with God. He has placed his trust in God and will not place it anywhere else. 

 

This covenant actually sharpens his distress. It should be the guarantee of a good life, but it has become the occasion of all his trouble. Still, he will not let it go. He holds on to God no matter what happens. 

 

In chapter 29, then, Job remembers with longing the life he had before his troubles came crashing over his head. He longs for God’s presence watching over him and caring for him. He longs for God’s presence protecting him. He longs to know the truth of the Psalm we read earlier. “Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” He longs for God. 

 

Je Suis Job 

Six and half years ago, a radical attacker killed 12 people in the offices of the French magazine, Charlie Hebdo. In the aftermath of the shooting, millions of people around the world adopted the French phrase, “Je suis Charlie.” I am “Charlie Hebdo”. A sign of solidarity with those who were killed. Their action reflected the truth that the attack was really an attack on everyone in France, not just on the people who worked in a that magazine office. In the same way, we can say, “Je Suis Job.” I am Job. You are Job. Job’s experience is everyone’s experience. 

 

Our sermon series is not really about a Middle Eastern man from 3,000 years ago. The series is about us, about you and about me. When life becomes hard, what do we do? How do we respond? Where do we turn? 

 

I think of friends of ours who walked through the near-death of the husband. He recovered from a devastating heart attack, and now they are in distress again. The wife has been diagnosed with cancer and the family again is wrestling with the real possibility that one of the parents will die. I don’t know how they feel about it, but I know how their distress affects me. I begin to wonder what God is doing. I wonder why they face such difficult experiences. I know them. They are a wonderful couple and a wonderful family, with a strong faith in God. They don’t deserve this! The question “Why?” swirls around us in many different variations. 

 

I think of another friend who died recently of ALS. He was in his mid-50s. He faced death with a real faith and without complaining. I never heard him ask why, but I know that I do. 

 

I think of situations I know around the world. You have heard of the 17 missionaries in Haiti who have been kidnapped by the 400 Mawozo Gang. A Globe and Mail news story tells us this: “Weston Showalter, spokesman for the religious group, said that the families of those who’d been kidnapped are from Amish, Mennonite and other conservative Anabaptist communities in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Oregon and Ontario, Canada.” These are our brothers and sisters, threatened with death because of the violence and inequity that is endemic to Haiti. 

 

They were in Haiti to demonstrate God’s love, and now they face death. We find ourselves asking why they are rewarded for their compassion and love with the possibility of execution. We ask questions about the situation: Why does such a tragedy come to such good people? Why does God allow the 400 Mawozo Gang to continue to operate? 

 

Job and Elihu: The Point 

Elihu defends God’s honour in the questions that we raise about God’s goodness. God is good. God is just. God is gracious. God is loving. Job agrees with this truth: God is good and just. But Job is still in distress and pain, and he wants something more than reassurances that God is good. Job wants to see God. 

 

This is the point. Some people try to find answers for all the questions we ask about the pain and suffering of our world. Job knows those questions, and his friends make sure that he hears the kind of answers that people give. But Job wants something else. Job wants to see God. 

 

Je suis Job. When I am in distress, I also want to see God. That is not as simple as it sounds. C.S. Lewis expresses it eloquently in his book on the death of his wife, A Grief Observed.

When you are happy, so happy you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be — or so it feels— welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence.

Have you ever experienced that dreadful silence? No wonder Job appealed to the supreme court of God. No wonder Job wanted to state his case. No wonder Job sounds like he is trying to place God in the dock. Job wants to see God! 

 

Lewis also describes the desperate thoughts that go through our minds at such times. He writes: “Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not ‘So there's no God after all,’ but ‘So this is what God’s really like. Deceive yourself no longer.’” Or again: “Talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I’ll listen submissively. But don't come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don’t understand.”

Note: Lewis is simply recording what he felt in his experience of grief and distress. What he says here is actually quite profound. In our grief, we sing and pray and worship. This is “truth and duty”. We feel relief in that exercise of duty, but it doesn’t heal us. Rather it is the soil in which God’s salvation grows. Only God can heal us.

Does this sound like Job? His friends tried to console him, but they were (as he says) miserable comforters. They tried to justify God to him, but they could not bring a real sense of God’s love into his life. No wonder Job wanted to see God. 

 

Conclusion 

That’s where we must leave Job today. He has had enough of explanations and accusations. He wants one thing and one thing only. Job wants to see God. 

 

Remember that you and I are Job. At some point in our lives, we will come to the end of our ability to understand what is happening. Like Job, we appeal to the highest court, the court of God in Heaven. Our appeal may sound like an accusation of God’s character. But in truth we really want one thing more than anything else. We want to see God. 

 

When we appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, we are looking for a verdict. We don’t care if we meet the Right Honourable Richard Wagner (the chief justice of Canada), or if we get to share a meal with the Honourable Malcolm Rowe or the Honourable Sheilah Martin. We care about the verdict that they render. 

 

When we appeal to the highest court in the universe, the court of God, we may still care about the verdict, but even more we echo Job’s words, desiring that situation in which we are again in close communion with God. More than anything else, we want to see God. 

 

 

 

 

 

Focus Statement: When we reach the end of our rope, we turn to God. In the end, we want to see God more than anything else in the world. 

 

Thinking Ahead Questions: When we call on God, what do we really want to happen? Why do we turn to God when all else fails? 

 

Scriptures: 

1) Psalms 121.    2) Job 27: 1 to 6; 29: 1 to 6

27 Job again took up his discourse and said: ² “As God lives, who has taken away my right, and the Almighty, who has made my soul bitter, ³ as long as my breath is in me and the spirit of God is in my nostrils, ⁴ my lips will not speak falsehood, and my tongue will not utter deceit. ⁵ Far be it from me to say that you are right; until I die, I will not put away my integrity from me. ⁶ I hold fast my righteousness and will not let it go; my heart does not reproach me for any of my days.

29 Job again took up his discourse and said: ² “O that I were as in the months of old, as in the days when God watched over me; ³ when his lamp shone over my head, and by his light I walked through darkness; ⁴ when I was in my prime, when the friendship of God was upon my tent; ⁵ when the Almighty was still with me, when my children were around me; ⁶ when my steps were washed with milk, and the rock poured out for me streams of oil!

A Cross-Shaped People

We have been going deeper throughout Lent, and now we come to the centre of the Christian story. The crucifixion stands at the heart of who God is and who we are. This morning, I want to look at this event through the eyes of someone who has studied the religions of the world for much of the past 30 years or so.

 

The Big Question

People in every place and every time have had to deal with the uncertainty and pain of living. Whether in a place beset by war and famine or in a peaceful country, people face the reality that life is uncertain. In the words of Thomas Hobbes, an English political philosopher who wrote 370 years ago concerning the natural condition of humankind: “the life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” 

 

We may not go as far as Hobbes in our assessment of life, but in the past year, Covid-19 and climate change have both asserted our powerlessness in the face of natural events. Between the prevalence of human sin and the power of evil in our world, we are faced with an insoluble problem: Where does evil come from, and what can we do about it? Consider three answers common in our world, and then hear again the answer in the story at the centre of our faith. 

 

Buddhism 

The heart of the Buddhist faith is expressed in “the Four Noble Truths”. According to an article on Buddhism, found on the BBC’s website:

“I teach suffering, its origin, cessation and path. That’s all I teach”, declared the Buddha 2500 years ago. The Four Noble Truths contain the essence of the Buddha’s teachings. It was these four principles that the Buddha came to understand during his meditation under the bodhi tree.

1. The truth of suffering (Dukkha) 

2. The truth of the origin of suffering (Samudāya) 

3. The truth of the cessation of suffering (Nirodha) 

4. The truth of the path to the cessation of suffering (Magga) 

Found at https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/buddhism/beliefs/fournobletruths_1.shtml

  

The truth about suffering is simple: All life is suffering. Suffering comes from human desire for change. If we give up all desire, suffering comes to an end. In short, Buddhism deals with suffering by giving up everything in life. The answer sounds a lot like Jesus, “The one who gives up life will live. The one who holds onto life will die.” The difference is that Buddhism says, “The one who gives up life will die and disappear forever.” At the centre of the Buddhist faith, the answer to human suffering is extinction, the complete and eternal loss of everything. 

 

This way of dealing with suffering – let go of everything – reflects the belief that nothing is at the centre of the universe. The Buddhist word for heaven, “Nirvana”, means “the perfection of nothing”. Let go of everything, and your suffering will come to an end. 

 

Islam 

In contrast to Buddhism’s view of God – God is “Nothing”, Islam sees God as Everything. All-powerful, completely Other, so far beyond us that there is only one right response for us to God: Submission. Life is full of hurt and pain, that is true. Muslims call this suffering, “kismet”, and they see it as dealt out by an all-powerful and all-knowing God. We can only submit to God. 

 

Think of the cry Muslims give as a form of rejoicing: “God is Great!” “Allahu Akbar”: Literally, “God is greater [than anything else].” One of the most common statements for a Muslim when making plans or discussing what will happen next is, “Inshah Allah”: “If God wills”. You can see how close Christians and Muslims are to each other. We agree that God is greater than any other power in the world, and we agree that God’s will is basic to our lives. My Dad would often add the phrase, “God willing”, to plans that we were discussing. 

 

So, Buddhism approaches suffering as inevitable and as something to help us let go of everything in life, and Islam sees suffering as inevitable and as a reason to submit to God. What about ordinary Canadians who have no particular religious faith at all. Students of religion call them “the nones”. How do they see suffering? 

 

Secularism 

One of the most common statements I hear when tragedy strikes is that we must find out what went wrong, “so that no one will ever be hurt like that again.” In this statement, I think we can see how many people around us view life and suffering. They see suffering as bad, and they think we can get rid of it. Every other religion in the world has seen suffering as basic to life and as having some role to play in helping us deal with life. Secularists just want to get rid of it. It is not good for us, and we should do whatever we can to get rid of it. 

 

My own view is that secularism shows its shallowness in this question, because history shows that life is incredibly difficult. Only people insulated from the pain and suffering of the world around us can suggest seriously that “this should never happen again”. When it happens again, they find that secularism has no answer to suffering, and they may become cynical and just tune out the painful experiences of others. 

 

The Christian View of Suffering 

Clearly, I have touched far too lightly on these worldviews. A proper consideration would take books, not a Friday morning sermon. Equally clearly, adherents of these religions could answer what I have said. If you have friends who hold to one of these, it would be worthwhile taking time to ask how they deal with suffering and pain and to listen to them seriously. They are worth listening to. 

 

Meanwhile, this is Good Friday, and we are Christians, remembering what stands at the centre of our faith. At the centre of Buddhism stands “Negation”; at the centre of Islam stands “Power”; at the centre of Secularism stands “Self”. What is at the centre of our faith? How does God come to us and enable us to deal with the suffering of life in this world? We have read the story of the cross again today. This is the centre of our faith. We worship a cross-shaped God who makes us into a cross-shaped people. The cross is a symbol of suffering and pain. Isaiah 53 is the song of the Suffering Servant. 

³ He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. ⁴ Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. ⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. 

 

John 18 and 19 tell the story of Jesus walking the path of the suffering servant. When Jesus finished praying in the garden (John 17), Judas guides a detachment of soldiers, given the task of arresting Jesus. The soldiers are aware that something big is going down and they appear frightened, but they press on with their task. Peter draws his sword and strikes out to defend Jesus, and Jesus stops him from going further. The soldiers take Jesus to Annas, the father-in-law of the high priest, to go on trial for his life. 

 

We have then an interlude in which Peter denies Jesus. All his followers watch from a distance, and Jesus has to walk the path into death alone. “Jesus walked that lonesome valley. He had to walk it by himself. Nobody else could walk it for him. He had to walk it by himself.” The trial continues. Jesus is sent on to Caiaphas, the high priest, who continues the interrogation. The religious leaders are trying to find a reason to convict Jesus, but finally they take Jesus to Pilate. Pilate wonders why; they reply that only he has the authority to declare the death penalty. 

 

A side note here: John’s account reads like a summary of the story for people who know it well. He does not state the charges directly, nor does he give the details about Pilate that we find in the synoptic gospels. The details are not John’s concern. 

 

Their conversation functions to establish that Jesus is the king in ways that Pilate cannot understand. Pilate continues the trial by having Jesus scourged and then trying to set him free, but the religious leaders and people chant, “Crucify him!” Pilate asks, “Shall I crucify your King?” They respond, “We have no king but Caesar!” Every person must choose between the rulers of this world and Jesus, and they have made their choice. 

 

Finally, Jesus is taken out and placed on the cross, with the inscription above him, “The King of the Jews.” As he dies on the cross, the soldiers gamble for his clothes. Jesus gives John the charge to care for his mother. After a final sip of wine vinegar, he dies, with the words “It is finished” on his lips. As the hymn puts it, “The great transaction’s done!” Jesus lived our life and died our death. This is the centre of our faith. This is what the Christian story is all about. 

 

Suffering and the Cross 

Come back to the question with which we began. Buddhism says that pain and suffering come from life and calls us to give up life itself. Islam says that pain and suffering come from rebellion against God and calls us to submit to God. Secularism says that pain and suffering are accidents of existence and calls us to get rid of them. Christian faith does not place the answer at the centre of our faith. You can find Christian answers, but at the centre we find something else. We find a God who suffers and hurts with us. We find Jesus, dying on the cross for us. 

 

There are reasons for this death. Jesus breaks the power of sin with his death. Jesus enables us to reconcile with God through his death. We celebrate these wonders in our hymns and scripture readings. But something else is deeper. Here it is: Jesus died for us. Buddhism presents God as “Nothing”. Islam presents God as “Power”. Secularism presents God as “Self”. Jesus shows us God as Love. 

 

The centre of the story is that Jesus loves you and Jesus loves me. He doesn’t start by fixing our pain and suffering. Jesus starts by loving us. He comes into the room where we sit in grief and pain and sits with us. Remember his name at his birth? Immanuel. God with us. God is love. God loves us so much that God died for us. 

 

I have been listening to excerpts from the trial of Derek Chauvin in Minnesota. Where was Jesus as George Floyd lay dying a year ago? Lying on the pavement with him. Where is Jesus as the Army overthrows the government in Myanmar and slaughters peaceful protestors? Standing with the protestors as the bullets fly. When I was in the hospital last November, I could hear a friend fighting for life across the hallway. Where was Jesus as my friend struggled for his life in his last days? Lying beside him in the bed. Our volunteers in the SCO have walked with people in significant personal struggles. Where is Jesus as an addict fights the urge to shoot up again? Wrapped up in the struggle with him. 

 

Our Response 

If we take the cross seriously, we find that God comes to us in love and embraces us when we are at our worst. Our God is a cross-shaped God, and God calls us to be a cross-shaped church. That means that we love people around us, near and far. We never turn away from suffering and pain and say, “That’s their problem.” We embrace people with God’s love and fill up in our own bodies what was lacking in Christ’s suffering (Colossians 1: 24) – that is, we make God’s love complete by extending it in our own lives to those around us. 

 

In the Canadian Mennonite (March 15, 2021), Emily Summach quotes Rachel Held Evans in a fitting conclusion for us today: 

Death and resurrection. It’s the impossibility around which every other impossibility of the Christian faith orbits. Baptism declares that God is in the business of bringing dead things back to life, so if you want in on God’s business, you better prepare to follow God to all the rock-bottom, scorched-earth, dead-on-arrival corners of this world—including those of your own heart—because that’s where God works, that’s where God gardens. … It’s just death and resurrection, over and over again, day after day, as God reaches down into our deepest graves and, with the same power that raised Jesus from the dead, wrests us from our pride, our apathy, our fear, our prejudice, our anger, our hurt and our despair. 

 

We come to the resurrection on Sunday. Today we celebrate the incredible love of God, who joins us at rock bottom and dies with us – because God loves us even more than we love ourselves. 

 

 

Steinbach Mennonite Church 

2 April 2021 

 

Isaiah 52:13-53:12 

The suffering and glory of the servant 

¹³ See, my servant will act wisely; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted. ¹⁴ Just as there were many who were appalled at him – his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being and his form marred beyond human likeness – ¹⁵ so he will sprinkle many nations, and kings will shut their mouths because of him. For what they were not told, they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand. 

 

53 Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? ² He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 

 

³ He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. ⁴ Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.

 

⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. ⁶ We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 

 

⁷ He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. ⁸ By oppression and judgment he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished. 

 

⁹ He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. ¹⁰ Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. ¹¹ After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. 

 

¹² Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. 

 

John 18:1-19:42 

 

 

Theme: Deep in the shadows: Called deep into the story.

Focus: We go deeper with Jesus to the centre of the Christian story, where we find the cross. The cross of Jesus is the centre of our lives as God’s people.