February 8

February 8, 2009

Job Part 2: Evil for a Purpose
Only a Partial Answer, but Not to Be Despised
a sermon on Job 2
by David C. Mauldin
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Mobile, Alabama

One of my favorite verses of scripture comes from the book of Job. I find it useful in a variety of situations nearly every day. It is Job 13.5: “O that you would be altogether silent, for you that would be wisdom.” If I had a bumper sticker on my car, that would be it. Job says this to his friends in response to their “helpful” advice. To their credit, they started out with wisdom. They went to comfort Job, and when they saw his plight, they wept with him and sat in silence with him for seven whole days. Then, as Job was cursing the day he was born, one of them decided to be helpful and began, “If one ventures a word with you, will you be offended? But who can keep from speaking?” Have you ever heard such a polite way to blow up the wall that held back a sweeping flood of insensitivity and ignorance? At least they meant well.

This sermon series on Job is not only for those who suffer, but also for those who would comfort their friends, hopefully better than Job’s friends did. Here are a few of tips: (1) Show up. Do not avoid people when they suffer because you don’t know what to say. (2) You don’t have to say anything. Don’t feel you must make a wise pronouncement that takes away the pain. You can’t, and no one expects you to. (3) If you have to say something, say, “I love you” or “We love you.” (4) Never say, “I know how you feel.” If you have been in the same situation (for example, losing a spouse), you can say, “I’ve been there.” And that may help, but don’t claim to know how someone feels.

Job’s friends made the mistake of trying to console him by explaining his suffering. In last week’s sermon, we heard how Satan secured authority to take away everything Job had. In our reading this morning, his authority is extended to Job’s health. Last week we saw how the book of Job creates the problem of evil by taking away the easy answers that are too simplistic to cover the facts. The problem is: God is just and good; God is all-powerful; yet evil and unjust suffering happen. The easy answers are: there is no god; God is not really good; God is not really powerful; or all suffering is just, because you only get what you deserve. The book of Job takes all these away, and leaves us with a mystery. Why does God allow such things? We are left with a mystery and a person: God, seen most clearly in Jesus Christ. At the heart of the mystery of suffering is the cross. There are things here—things part of our everyday experience—that we simply cannot understand.

Today I want to consider this business about God allowing evil for a purpose. The sermon title says it all. I think there is something to this. Sometimes God can only get our attention when we fall on our faces. This is an answer not to be despised. And yet, it is not enough. It does not clear up the mystery—partially perhaps, but not the whole thing. Only God can do that because only he understands it.

OK, then, here we go: Does God allow evil and suffering for a purpose? Absolutely he does. We see this even in the book of Job. The most encouraging verse in Job comes right before the end in chapter 42, verse 5. Job tells God, “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.” What did Job get from all his suffering? He knew God better. This is an awesome reward. God, the Creator, is so much better than anything else in all creation. Anyone who wouldn’t be willing to trade the whole world for just one tiny glimpse of God is a fool. A legend is told of Thomas Aquinas, the great 13th century theologian. One day Thomas was in prayer in a chapel. The voice of God spoke to him from the crucifix. It said, “Thomas, you have written well of me. What would you have as your reward?” Imagine that, a blank check from God! What would you ask for? … Thomas answered, “Only yourself, Lord.” He got it. He was no fool. So when I say that Job knew God better in the end, I mean he got something worth suffering for. His friends, too, learned something by his suffering.

As I read the book of Job, God did not allow Job’s suffering so that God could find out whether Job would be faithful. God already knew his heart. Nor did God get duped by Satan, as if God had anything to prove to anyone. Satan was a pawn. But to what purpose? Did God want Job to learn something? I still don’t know.

Let me give you a couple of more examples. One is Joseph, son of Jacob, in the Old Testament. You recall how his brothers sold him into slavery. He ended up in Egypt. He was accused of a crime he didn’t commit and ended up in prison. He did a kindness to a prisoner about to be released, but this person quickly forgot Joseph once he was on the outside. Joseph spent many long years suffering unjustly with no hint of a reason why or even the certainty that there was a reason. Then God’s plan fell into place. The servant remembered Joseph at a crucial time. He interpreted Pharaoh’s dream. Impressed, Pharaoh elevated him to the highest office in the land next to Pharaoh’s. Joseph’s wisdom averted disaster. He stored up food in the fat years, so Egypt had enough to eat in the famine years. Joseph’s own family was thereby saved. He told his brothers when they were reconciled, “You meant what you did to me for evil, but God meant it for good.”

Perhaps something like this has happened to you. I knew a guy who met his wife when his truck broke down outside the building where she worked. He went in to borrow the phone—this was in the days before cell phones—and, well, there you go. I have known people to have an odd pain caused by a minor condition easily cured. But in the process of diagnosing and treating the minor problem, a big one like cancer is discovered in time.

The best example of this is the cross. Jesus suffered terribly and unjustly. Yet God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. His death opened the way to eternal life for all who believe. We even call the day Good Friday, even though the worst crime ever committed happened that day. Jesus, of course, knew his suffering had a purpose. Joseph did not. He had to trust God and wait. That’s the Bible’s answer to suffering: trust God and wait, even if you have to wait until the end of time and the great day of resurrection when God makes all things new. That’s not the answer we wanted. We want to see now what purpose our suffering has.

People can endure a lot of suffering gladly if they know it serves a worthwhile purpose. A soldier will endure a lot during war that as a civilian he would never tolerate during peacetime, because he loves his country and his buddies. A good parent willingly suffers for the good of her child, just as lovers suffer joyfully for each other if necessity demands it. Just show me the purpose! Show me why I am suffering! Show me the positive result of it! I wonder if Joseph ever prayed that? I know many people who have. Sometimes we get to a place in life where some suffering makes sense, but not always.

I am grateful to Peter Kreeft for making me aware of the difference between being satisfied and being blessed. When we call someone happy, ourselves for example, we usually mean we are satisfied. I am comfortable. Things are generally how I would want them to be. I am satisfied with my life at this moment. That is a narrow, modern definition of happiness. In the ancient world, happy could also mean “good” and “blessed,” so that a person might not be satisfied at all—on the contrary, he might be miserable—and yet be happy. We use the word happy to describe our subjective feelings. The ancients also used it to describe a person’s objective condition. Jesus used the word happy this way in the Beatitudes. “Blessed are those who mourn.” Most translations use the English word blessed, because happy means something different to us, but in Greek it is the same word. “Happy are those who mourn.” No they’re not. Not in the sense we think of it. And yet, in God’s eyes they might be very blessed. Think of Joseph and Jesus again. Joseph in prison. Jesus on the cross. Does either of them feel happy? No! But aren’t both of them right where God wants them to be? Aren’t both of them part of God’s plan and objects of his love and favor? Absolutely!

Kreeft says our feelings are not always reliable guides to our condition. The same is true of our health. You may have a passing cold and feel miserable, but otherwise you are very healthy. You may feel terrific, but a stroke or heart attack will take your life before the day is over. How you feel and your actual condition can be very different. The same is true of what I will call blessedness. You can be crushed and miserable but still right in the center of God’s will. God may be thrilled with you. He loves you. His hand is on you, guiding you, sustaining you. And all the while you feel wretched. Your faith is about to collapse. You have no idea where God is, if he is even there at all. It happens. That’s why we wait and trust. It’s why we hold on to his promises, because sometimes that’s all he leaves us to hold onto.

My point about the difference between happiness as satisfaction and happiness as blessedness is this, and it is very important: God wants to bless you. God does not want to satisfy all your desires. Whatever twists and turns God’s plan for your life may take, you already know your destination. God is determined to transform you until you are just like Jesus Christ. All of God’s work in your life is ultimately directed toward this goal. So while you may feel happier and more satisfied if you never got sick or if you didn’t have to worry about money, God allows illness or poverty because he knows giving you what you want will hinder your progress toward holiness. Those are merely possible examples. They illustrate the point that God works to maximize your blessedness, your goodness, your holiness—not your contentment. Because this is true, we can hope that much of our suffering serves a good purpose and we will, in the long run, be better off for it.

Your suffering may have a worthwhile purpose, even if you don’t know what it is. But does this clear up the mystery of unjust suffering? Is every bad thing a blessing in disguise? I say no. Not just because I have heard of suffering that I cannot imagine a purpose to, but also because the Bible says so. If the most comforting verse in Job is 42.5, the most chilling is found in our reading this morning. If it didn’t curdle your blood, you weren’t thinking about what you were hearing. In Job 2.3, God tells Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil. He still persists in his integrity, although you incited me against him, to destroy him for no reason.”

In Hebrew the word here is hinnam. We’ve already met it once in Job, back in 1.9 when Satan challenged God, “Does Job fear God for nothing” … For nothing, for no reason, for no purpose—that’s the meaning. Job has a reason to love God, a motive. That was Satan’s angle. But Job’s suffering, it has no reason. At the very least, this word means Job suffers unjustly. The attacks against him were unprovoked and unjustified. Might it also mean he has been destroyed for no purpose? That is, his suffering serves no higher goal. If Job had complained, “Just show me the reason for my suffering. What’s the purpose?” might God have answered, “There isn’t one”?

This is a frightening thought. Could it be true? On one hand, I have been taught that God always has a purpose. “God works all things for good for those who love him,” right? On the other hand, so much suffering appears pointless from our perspective. Granted, God has a better perspective than we do. Still, might some suffering be not only unjust but pointless?

I am going to dare to say yes. If we have unjust suffering, and in Job 2.3 God calls Job’s suffering unjust, why not pointless suffering? But here is why I can say yes and not feel I am slandering God: I believe God never allows anything to happen that he cannot redeem.

That’s a whopping statement, and it takes a lot of faith to say it and mean it: God never allows anything to happen that he cannot redeem. I make a distinction between suffering having a purpose and suffering being redeemed. We say suffering has a purpose when it furthers a greater good, like Joseph’s slavery and imprisonment. We may recognize the purpose, or we may not; but a purpose is there. My suffering has a reason. If there is such a thing as pointless suffering, suffering that does not serve a higher goal—and honestly I believe there is—even then such suffering is not beyond God’s power to redeem.

What do I mean by redeem? I mean God takes your suffering and not only makes it better but also makes it worthwhile. He takes it and turns it into something beautiful. That’s crazy—I know. It almost doesn’t even make sense, unless you know God. It only starts to make sense—we can only begin to hope it is true—when we look at the cross. This is how God loves and saves the world?! God is capable of things you cannot imagine.

Personally, I find this line of thought both liberating and hopeful. If all suffering has a purpose, then when I suffer, I want to know what it is. And if I cannot imagine a purpose, I might become discouraged. But if God allows not only unjust, but also pointless suffering, then I don’t have to have a reason; but I can still trust. My cloud may or may not have a silver lining. Nevertheless, I trust that God can redeem it.

I have spoken of this before with respect to the death of a child. God redeeming such a tragedy means not only raising that child to eternal life, but also restoring the potential for good that child might have done with a full life. How is that possible? I don’t know. In Joel (2.25) God promised to restore the years the locusts had eaten. I don’t know how. God can do it.

You may agree or disagree with me on the issue of whether we ever suffer without purpose, but in either case I hope you share my confidence that God can redeem all our suffering. Sometimes God is at work in our suffering in ways we do not recognize. Even if our suffering does not serve a higher purpose, however, God can still redeem it. This too is a mystery, and at its center is the cross. Amen.

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