The 'big questions'
Commentary
Object:
Every child asks her mother “Where did I come from?” Every teenager asks “Who am I?” Every man and woman asks “What is my place in my family? In my community? In the universe?” Although we have churches, mosques, synagogues, and temples all over the world, everyone still asks “How can I know God? Does God know me? Does God love me?” Humans all over the world fear the unknown, and therefore want to know the Creator, to gain God’s favor, and every religion has some formula for gaining God’s favor. But in Christianity alone we teach that we need do nothing but trust the God Jesus represents.
Still, we need to realize that we cannot look at every book in the Bible identically. The Jewish Law contained in the Torah (the first five books in the Bible) is not of the same order of writing as, say, Ruth, Esther, or Job, any more than a book of poetry is the same as a dictionary. Today’s scriptures introduce us to a new understanding of Satan, Jesus as High Priest, and ourselves as disciples of Jesus.
Job 42:1-6, 10-17
Job is one of the most misunderstood books in the Bible. According to Rabbi Boruch Clinton1, “Job is a book that ranks as one of the most difficult books in the Tanach (Bible), for two reasons: its incredibly complex and obscure Hebrew -- allowing for multiple translations and meanings, and the complex and delicate nature of the subject matter.” It is part of the miscellaneous writings (K’tuvim in Hebrew) which were written during or after the Exile in Babylon, and is not considered essential for our understanding of God, even though it is in the Bible as we know it today.
The Exile had forced the Jews to rethink their relationship with God, and even who God was. By the time they were freed to return to Judea, they had rejected both the gods of the Babylonians and the insular idea they had had of Yahweh before they had been defeated in war and forced to leave their homeland and Temple. In light of their experiences, they had come to the conclusion that their predicament had not come from God, but as a consequence of their actions as a nation. They had come to see God as the Creator of the universe, not just the God of Israel, reigning supreme above all other gods. Prior to the Exile, they had believed that when Babylon and Judea went to war there was also war in the heavens between Yahweh and Marduk (the chief god of the Babylonians), and the war was a reflection of a heavenly contest between these two gods. When Babylon won, it must be because Marduk was stronger than Yahweh.
But after two generations of living amongst the Babylonians, the Jewish priests had worked out a new understanding: all the gods that Babylon worshiped -- the sun, moon, various powerful animals, and so on -- were not gods at all! Yahweh was not just the god of Israel but the Creator, and all the things we see in nature were created by him. And the loss of the war was not because Marduk was stronger than Yahweh; it was the fault of the nation of Judea. It was not that God had failed them, it was that they had failed God. Much of what we see in the book of Job reflects these new understandings.
There is nothing in the book to suggest who the author was, and no claim that there was a vision of heaven that allowed the author to see the discussion between God and Satan. The various arguments that are put forward by Job’s friends as the reason for Job’s suffering represent the variety of possible explanations we all have for why good people suffer just as much as those who obviously have done things to “deserve” punishment.
The story is simple enough, as Rabbi Clinton says: Satan, one of God’s loyal angels, returns to heaven from a trip on earth, and God asks if Satan had noticed God’s faithful servant Job. Satan says that of course Job is faithful -- God has given him everything a man could hope for! He’s rich, he has a large number of faithful children, his crops never fail; but take all of this away from him and he will turn on God in an instant. So God gives Satan permission to test Job’s faith. The only stipulation is that he can’t take his life.
Satan goes back to earth and one by one takes away everything that made Job’s life wonderful. His children are all killed when a violent storm hits the house where they’re gathered. His wealth disappears. And he himself is afflicted with a painful disease. His wife turns on him, telling him to “curse God and die.” And then his “friends” come to help him get well by telling him that he must have offended God somehow, and that’s why he’s in such terrible straits.
But Job claims that he has not offended God. He has done everything in his power to serve God, even offering up sacrifices on behalf of his children just in case they might have sins he knows nothing about. His friends badger him with various reasons he’s being punished, but Job insists that he has been a righteous man. At last (chapter 38:1) God comes in a whirlwind and speaks to the men gathered. But even here, the obscurity of the Hebrew affects our ability to understand exactly what happens.
The New Interpreter’s Study Bible notes that although the traditional reading of chapter 38 is that it is aimed at Job, it repeats much of what Job’s friend Elihu (pronounced E-lie-who) has just been saying. Therefore the first reprimand may well be aimed at the friends, particularly Elihu; the end of the story supports that idea. If we accept the NISB comments, God’s response to Job most probably begins with chapter 40, when the text specifies “And the Lord said to Job: ‘Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? Anyone who argues with God must respond.’ ”
The point of Job’s story is a set of questions that everyone who believes in God faces with a certain amount of regularity: Why do bad things happen to good people? Is God really in control of this world? Is God just? Is life fair?
The quick answers would be:
Define “good” people. Paul reminds us in Romans 3:23 that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” In the light of that understanding, are any of us good?
Yes, God is in control, and God is just. Even though it seems life is not fair, we cannot know the mind of God, nor the reasons things happen the way they do. And God, who has created everything we see, really does not have to answer to us.
Here, I’m quoting Rabbi Clinton: “According to Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman (the 12th-century commentator known as the Ramban), that answer would have been good enough for most of the world. There are very few people who go through life with absolutely no sin, and G-d, who is in charge of this world, and is a just judge, most definitely punishes.... But according to the Ramban, this answer won’t answer Job’s question, because he really was clean. When G-d finally spoke to Job at the end of the book He answered differently: In essence, He told Job that ‘I am G-d, and you are only a tiny, finite human being -- you can’t possibly hope to understand the way I run My world. Everything I do is just, even if you can’t see the justice.’ ”
That answer really doesn’t ring quite true if we have read the opening of the story. What is just to God doesn’t play when the story begins with a wager between God and Satan. And the modern Christian, unaware of the Hebrew meaning of the name “Satan,” wonders how God can make a deal with the devil. So this is the point where we have to really begin to dig into the text.
First, satan is not as a name for the devil in the Old Testament. In most of its appearances, satan is a verb meaning “to oppose, accuse, or slander.” And it is used of both human and supernatural opposition.2 The Old Testament belief was that when we die we appear before God for judgment, and the satan stands in the position of the prosecuting attorney to accuse us of our sins. 1 John 2:1 speaks from this belief when it says “if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” The Satan is the accuser; the Christ is our advocate.
The dualistic idea that the average Christian has today, that the devil and God are locked in a struggle for control over humans, is absolutely foreign to the Old Testament. Monotheism (the belief in only one God) stood against the dualism that the Babylonians believed in. So for the Judeans, all things -- both those we consider “good” andthose we consider “bad” -- come from God, and reflect our communal standing with God, because nations as well as individuals can be sinful and deserving of punishment. Every person in a wicked country will experience God’s punishment, because it isn’t always possible for God to move the just people out of the way.3
We Westerners, especially Christians, emphasize our individual responsibility before God. But this is not the Eastern point of view, and this difference is one reason Christianity has had a hard time gaining traction in Eastern countries.4 In the Eastern mindset, humans are judged as part of a group or tribe or nation. This is part of the reason that terrorists don’t feel that they are attacking “innocent bystanders” -- in their view, there are no innocent people. We are all part of a sinful society, and so we individually cannot be free from sin. The Old Testament peoples would be in firm agreement.
This is part of the meaning of the various statements that Job’s friends (today we would probably call them “frenemies”) make to him about his suffering: “You must have missed something, bro -- look at all the suffering God’s visiting on you!”
But when God comes on the scene in chapter 38, he speaks against all these accusations directed at Job. Most of our Bibles label this chapter as “The Lord Answers Job,” but The New Interpreter’s Study Bible, while keeping the title, says in the notes for chapter 38 that “Since it is Elihu who had the last word, God’s initial questions appear to have been elicited by his speech rather than by anything Job has said.” So it makes sense to say that this speech is directed at Elihu, and God’s comments to Job only begin in 40:1, where the text clearly says that “the Lord said to Job.” And he has only one question, stated two ways: “Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty?” and “Anyone who argues with God must respond.”
Job’s response is, in effect, “You’re God, and I am not; so I’ll shut up now.”
God lays out for Job what God can do that we cannot, and as we get to 42:1, Job admits that he spoke out of ignorance. But then he says something interesting: “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” (vv. 5-6).
Wouldn’t we all have a different attitude toward God if we could see God? But the wisdom of the ages is that no one can see God and live (see Psalm 42:2). Even to see the angel of God was considered dangerous (see Exodus 3:6 andJudges 6:22, for example). There are stories in the Bible about people experiencing visions of God. Isaiah has a vision of God while he is serving in the Temple (seeIsaiah 6:5), and his response is: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” The only person who had seen God and lived was Moses, who had asked God to reveal his glory to him; even then, God said: “You cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live” (Exodus 33:20). Visions are on a different order, but even then, most visionaries have said that God is light and they could not see the face.
Furthermore, while many see this speech as being a confession, the NISB points out that what is usually translated as “repent” actually has the lesser meaning of “regret,” and the verb translated as “I despise myself” in the NRSV “is not a reflexive verb,” and therefore should be translated “I hate/reject dust and ashes.” In this understanding of the section, Job is not sorry for confronting God: “Instead, he seems to be accepting that God will never give him what he wants: an apology.”
What follows is even more amazing: God admits that Job has been suffering for no reason he can understand! He had not sinned, and all his friends were wrong as they criticized Job. As a punishment to them, God tells them to get seven bulls and seven rams and have Job offer them as a sacrifice, because Job is God’s faithful servant. To prove that, God restores all of Job’s wealth and gives him another seven sons and three new daughters, each more beautiful than the last, and Job bestows an inheritance on his daughters as well as their brothers, which is an amazing thing and not at all customary. The NISB notes are interesting: “Perhaps Job’s suffering has made him more sensitive to the plight of the powerless, especially women.” And they go on to say that although Job’s life was long, and his end is described in the same way as Isaac’s and David’s are, “Perhaps this is the storyteller’s covert way of saying that although Job may have appeared appeased, he never fully recovered from his tribulations.”
The story of Job is our story. We all have bad things happen to us, no matter how good we are nor how often we attend church. Pastors’ family members get cancer; suffer from chronic, crippling conditions; and die in accidents. Pastors themselves become disabled, suffer with various conditions, and die. There is no preference given to the saints, and their suffering is no nobler or easier to bear than yours and mine. We all have times and events and losses in our lives for which we would like to have an apology from God.
But we Christians have had an apology from God, in the form of Jesus the Christ. If Jesus was truly the incarnation of God, then his crucifixion perhaps has a different meaning than we have thought. It might be that the crucifixion is God’s apology to us all, God putting us “at one” (the meaning of atonement) by suffering the same way we have suffered. If that were so, what would you want God to apologize for? If that were so, how would it change your attitude toward the crucifixion? If that were so, how would it change your relationship with God?
Hebrews 7:23-28
The book of Hebrews is in the form of a sermon, and the author is unknown. Modern theologians have posited that the author might be one of the women who had been a part of Paul’s ministry for a long time.
As a sermon, Hebrews gives us an insight into the thinking of Jewish Christians of the first century. To start with, this sermon takes about an hour to deliver. So the early Christians were clearly deeply into learning about this new vision of God’s relationship with humans. Second, they were still living with the understandings they had had growing up in Judaism. For them, there was no abrupt walking away from the ceremonies and symbols they had valued all their lives. But there was a new slant on their beliefs about God.
This is illustrated vividly in today’s reading. Jesus is presented not as God or even God’s only Son, but as a new high priest. Unlike the high priest Caiaphas, who thought it was expeditious for one person (Jesus) to die for the nation, this new high priest (Jesus) is “holy, blameless, undefiled, and separated from sinners.” This makes him different from any priest or pastor or even the high priest, in that “he has no need to offer sacrifices day after day first for his own sins.” That means that when he offers a sacrifice it goes to cover our sins, rather than having to be offered for his sins first.
But more important to the writer, the sacrifice that Christ offered up (in the crucifixion) is able to perfectly and completely wipe out our sins, never to be heard from again. This does away with the necessity to ever again make sacrifices to God. It means that our standing with God is absolutely guaranteed by the life and death of Jesus (v. 25). We are saved completely and forever.
Unfortunately, we have spent the last 2,000 years arguing about how this works, and we still have the attitude that we have to offer some sort of sacrifice -- not animals, of course, but a personal sacrifice still seems necessary. But even in the Old Testament, we have the witness of the psalmist (Psalm 51:17): “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” What this means is that all God wants is our repentance, and our relationship is as good as new.
If we cannot believe that the need for sacrifices has been superseded by the sacrifice on the cross, we negate the power of the cross and the Christ in our lives. As the Gospel of John says, we are still in the dark, even though the light has come.
Mark 10:46-52
Jericho may be the oldest continuously occupied city in the world, going back to 10,000 BCE. It is located on the West Bank, not a great distance from Jerusalem, so it’s no surprise that bar Timaeus (the son of Timaeus, so no first name is implied) had heard of Jesus and knew his reputation as a healer.
What is a surprise is the way in which Bartimaeus names Jesus. While Mark calls Christ “Jesus of Nazareth” in this story, the beggar calls him “Jesus, Son of David.” This is absolutely a messianic claim for Jesus. And it’s one of only two places in his gospel where Mark employs the title. The other is 12:35, where Jesus asks a group gathered around him about David’s reference to the Messiah as “his Lord”: “How can the scribes say that the Messiah is the son of David if David calls him ‘Lord’?” Part of the point of this is that Mark is avoiding calling Jesus the son of David. Mark, in fact, avoids a birth narrative altogether; and in designating him as “Jesus of Nazareth” he is pointing away from the expectation that the Messiah would be out of the house and lineage of David. This puts him in opposition to the Temple authorities, who insisted that Messiah would be part of their class and standing.
Yet when Bartimaeus calls Jesus “Son of David,” Jesus stops and tells the people gathered around to bring the blind man to him. Bartimaeus is so eager that he throws off his cloak and “springs up.” This man has not been blind for his whole life, because when Jesus asks him what he wants he asks, “My teacher, let me see again.” The title rabbouni also honors Jesus, this time for his reputation as a powerful and respected teacher, but not just a teacher (rabbi) -- he says my teacher. It is a second claim on Jesus. He is not just Messiah, God’s Anointed One, he is the blind man’s personal rabbi, the person he can turn to and depend on.
Jesus doesn’t assume that he knows why this man has been yelling for his attention. Bartimaeus has been shouting “Have mercy on me.” He could of course mean he wants to be healed, but he could have other things on his mind. It might be that he is facing death, or he might be asking for money -- he is, after all, sitting there to beg for his living. It would seem that the people in the crowd thought he was begging as he called out, because Mark says that many people ordered him to be quiet. But he persists, shouting even more loudly.
This is not the only story in which Jesus asks the person asking for his attention what s/he wants. There is the lame man by the pool in the Temple (John 5:2-3) who has been there for 38 years; Jesus asks him “Do you want to be healed?” It seems that Jesus is sensitive to the fact that even the disabled and sick have other concerns besides getting well. And he understands that healing will change this person’s life in ways that may make life worse for a while, since he will no longer be able to beg and hasn’t worked for some time. Healing is more complicated than we like to think.
I have suffered with arthritis for many years. Three years ago I finally had my left knee replaced. Naturally, I needed to be in physical therapy after the surgery. I was nearly done with therapy when my therapist asked me why I was still using my cane when I came in. Wasn’t the knee responding? I said, “Sure, the leg is great! But I also have arthritis in my spine and right knee.” She was crestfallen! All that work, and I was still in pain! It didn’t bother me any -- that knee had been giving out from under me, locking up, and any day it merely ached was a good day. But it wasn’t the first time I, the disabled person, was comforting others about my disability.
A decade ago I started having to use a wheelchair when I was going to be in settings that required a lot of walking and standing. I went to the annual conference of my denomination in my own chair that year, and most of my friends were shocked and needed reassurance that I was not in the chair all the time, that I could still function as a pastor, etc. One friend of mine was a social worker, and she came over to me and asked if she could touch my chair so she could squat down and look at me at my level. When we were eye to eye, she said, “So -- how are you doing with other people’s fear of your chair?” I was so shocked at her deep understanding that I burst into tears. I was very embarrassed by my own reaction, but I nodded and said, “That’s harder than my own reaction to being in this chair.”
I’m doing much better now, but no one thing has changed my disability. Healing requires a change of heart and mind, and prayer as well as medications and surgeries. And being better now carries its own set of challenges. Others have to remind me that all I have to do is lift something too heavy, work too long, get too little sleep, gain a few pounds, and I could be laid up for days. Being healed isn’t easy.
Bartimeus gets what he asks for. Jesus says simply, “Go your way. Your faith has made you well.”
Oh, how we misuse that statement! How many times have I heard someone flippantly say, “Well, his/her faith must not have been strong enough.” How many so-called healing ministers have used the excuse that some people aren’t ready for healing, or that you have to have the right kind of faith? Yes, Jesus says that Bartimeus’ faith has made him well, but what does that mean? It’s perhaps not as obvious as it first appears. After all, the man started shouting at Jesus as soon as he found out who was causing a stir in the streets of Jericho. He had evidently heard good things about Jesus. And his understanding of Jesus made him cry out one of the messianic titles, not just Jesus’ name. According to the apostle Paul, no one can call Jesus Lord without the Holy Spirit moving us to do so (1 Corinthians 12:3). So this man was moved not by his private understanding, but by the understanding of God’s Spirit. It may well be that it is that inspiration Jesus is referring to as this man’s faith. In any event, we also have Matthew telling us that Jesus told his disciples it isn’t the faith of the one needing healing that counts, but the healers’faith that they can have results, and their preparation to do so (Matthew 17:19).
We Christians have been entrusted with Jesus’ legacy. We are entrusted to bring good news to the suffering, and healing to individuals and the world. If we are unable to do that, we need to avoid the model of Job’s “frenemies” and learn to rely on the promises of Christ that we have been put “at one” with God, and therefore have the power to do so.
1 Rabbi Clinton teaches at the Ottawa Torah Institute Yeshiva high school and Machon Sarah high school for girls in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and writes for torah.org.
2 See Psalms 38:20, 71:13, 109:4, 20 and 29; Zechariah 3:1; 1 Samuel 29:4 (used to refer to David); 2 Samuel 19:22, where David uses it of Abishai, who asked David to kill Shimei.
3 Check this out on torah.com.
4 I learned this firsthand when visiting a Christian seminary in Nanjing, China, in 1988.
Still, we need to realize that we cannot look at every book in the Bible identically. The Jewish Law contained in the Torah (the first five books in the Bible) is not of the same order of writing as, say, Ruth, Esther, or Job, any more than a book of poetry is the same as a dictionary. Today’s scriptures introduce us to a new understanding of Satan, Jesus as High Priest, and ourselves as disciples of Jesus.
Job 42:1-6, 10-17
Job is one of the most misunderstood books in the Bible. According to Rabbi Boruch Clinton1, “Job is a book that ranks as one of the most difficult books in the Tanach (Bible), for two reasons: its incredibly complex and obscure Hebrew -- allowing for multiple translations and meanings, and the complex and delicate nature of the subject matter.” It is part of the miscellaneous writings (K’tuvim in Hebrew) which were written during or after the Exile in Babylon, and is not considered essential for our understanding of God, even though it is in the Bible as we know it today.
The Exile had forced the Jews to rethink their relationship with God, and even who God was. By the time they were freed to return to Judea, they had rejected both the gods of the Babylonians and the insular idea they had had of Yahweh before they had been defeated in war and forced to leave their homeland and Temple. In light of their experiences, they had come to the conclusion that their predicament had not come from God, but as a consequence of their actions as a nation. They had come to see God as the Creator of the universe, not just the God of Israel, reigning supreme above all other gods. Prior to the Exile, they had believed that when Babylon and Judea went to war there was also war in the heavens between Yahweh and Marduk (the chief god of the Babylonians), and the war was a reflection of a heavenly contest between these two gods. When Babylon won, it must be because Marduk was stronger than Yahweh.
But after two generations of living amongst the Babylonians, the Jewish priests had worked out a new understanding: all the gods that Babylon worshiped -- the sun, moon, various powerful animals, and so on -- were not gods at all! Yahweh was not just the god of Israel but the Creator, and all the things we see in nature were created by him. And the loss of the war was not because Marduk was stronger than Yahweh; it was the fault of the nation of Judea. It was not that God had failed them, it was that they had failed God. Much of what we see in the book of Job reflects these new understandings.
There is nothing in the book to suggest who the author was, and no claim that there was a vision of heaven that allowed the author to see the discussion between God and Satan. The various arguments that are put forward by Job’s friends as the reason for Job’s suffering represent the variety of possible explanations we all have for why good people suffer just as much as those who obviously have done things to “deserve” punishment.
The story is simple enough, as Rabbi Clinton says: Satan, one of God’s loyal angels, returns to heaven from a trip on earth, and God asks if Satan had noticed God’s faithful servant Job. Satan says that of course Job is faithful -- God has given him everything a man could hope for! He’s rich, he has a large number of faithful children, his crops never fail; but take all of this away from him and he will turn on God in an instant. So God gives Satan permission to test Job’s faith. The only stipulation is that he can’t take his life.
Satan goes back to earth and one by one takes away everything that made Job’s life wonderful. His children are all killed when a violent storm hits the house where they’re gathered. His wealth disappears. And he himself is afflicted with a painful disease. His wife turns on him, telling him to “curse God and die.” And then his “friends” come to help him get well by telling him that he must have offended God somehow, and that’s why he’s in such terrible straits.
But Job claims that he has not offended God. He has done everything in his power to serve God, even offering up sacrifices on behalf of his children just in case they might have sins he knows nothing about. His friends badger him with various reasons he’s being punished, but Job insists that he has been a righteous man. At last (chapter 38:1) God comes in a whirlwind and speaks to the men gathered. But even here, the obscurity of the Hebrew affects our ability to understand exactly what happens.
The New Interpreter’s Study Bible notes that although the traditional reading of chapter 38 is that it is aimed at Job, it repeats much of what Job’s friend Elihu (pronounced E-lie-who) has just been saying. Therefore the first reprimand may well be aimed at the friends, particularly Elihu; the end of the story supports that idea. If we accept the NISB comments, God’s response to Job most probably begins with chapter 40, when the text specifies “And the Lord said to Job: ‘Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? Anyone who argues with God must respond.’ ”
The point of Job’s story is a set of questions that everyone who believes in God faces with a certain amount of regularity: Why do bad things happen to good people? Is God really in control of this world? Is God just? Is life fair?
The quick answers would be:
Define “good” people. Paul reminds us in Romans 3:23 that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” In the light of that understanding, are any of us good?
Yes, God is in control, and God is just. Even though it seems life is not fair, we cannot know the mind of God, nor the reasons things happen the way they do. And God, who has created everything we see, really does not have to answer to us.
Here, I’m quoting Rabbi Clinton: “According to Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman (the 12th-century commentator known as the Ramban), that answer would have been good enough for most of the world. There are very few people who go through life with absolutely no sin, and G-d, who is in charge of this world, and is a just judge, most definitely punishes.... But according to the Ramban, this answer won’t answer Job’s question, because he really was clean. When G-d finally spoke to Job at the end of the book He answered differently: In essence, He told Job that ‘I am G-d, and you are only a tiny, finite human being -- you can’t possibly hope to understand the way I run My world. Everything I do is just, even if you can’t see the justice.’ ”
That answer really doesn’t ring quite true if we have read the opening of the story. What is just to God doesn’t play when the story begins with a wager between God and Satan. And the modern Christian, unaware of the Hebrew meaning of the name “Satan,” wonders how God can make a deal with the devil. So this is the point where we have to really begin to dig into the text.
First, satan is not as a name for the devil in the Old Testament. In most of its appearances, satan is a verb meaning “to oppose, accuse, or slander.” And it is used of both human and supernatural opposition.2 The Old Testament belief was that when we die we appear before God for judgment, and the satan stands in the position of the prosecuting attorney to accuse us of our sins. 1 John 2:1 speaks from this belief when it says “if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” The Satan is the accuser; the Christ is our advocate.
The dualistic idea that the average Christian has today, that the devil and God are locked in a struggle for control over humans, is absolutely foreign to the Old Testament. Monotheism (the belief in only one God) stood against the dualism that the Babylonians believed in. So for the Judeans, all things -- both those we consider “good” andthose we consider “bad” -- come from God, and reflect our communal standing with God, because nations as well as individuals can be sinful and deserving of punishment. Every person in a wicked country will experience God’s punishment, because it isn’t always possible for God to move the just people out of the way.3
We Westerners, especially Christians, emphasize our individual responsibility before God. But this is not the Eastern point of view, and this difference is one reason Christianity has had a hard time gaining traction in Eastern countries.4 In the Eastern mindset, humans are judged as part of a group or tribe or nation. This is part of the reason that terrorists don’t feel that they are attacking “innocent bystanders” -- in their view, there are no innocent people. We are all part of a sinful society, and so we individually cannot be free from sin. The Old Testament peoples would be in firm agreement.
This is part of the meaning of the various statements that Job’s friends (today we would probably call them “frenemies”) make to him about his suffering: “You must have missed something, bro -- look at all the suffering God’s visiting on you!”
But when God comes on the scene in chapter 38, he speaks against all these accusations directed at Job. Most of our Bibles label this chapter as “The Lord Answers Job,” but The New Interpreter’s Study Bible, while keeping the title, says in the notes for chapter 38 that “Since it is Elihu who had the last word, God’s initial questions appear to have been elicited by his speech rather than by anything Job has said.” So it makes sense to say that this speech is directed at Elihu, and God’s comments to Job only begin in 40:1, where the text clearly says that “the Lord said to Job.” And he has only one question, stated two ways: “Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty?” and “Anyone who argues with God must respond.”
Job’s response is, in effect, “You’re God, and I am not; so I’ll shut up now.”
God lays out for Job what God can do that we cannot, and as we get to 42:1, Job admits that he spoke out of ignorance. But then he says something interesting: “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” (vv. 5-6).
Wouldn’t we all have a different attitude toward God if we could see God? But the wisdom of the ages is that no one can see God and live (see Psalm 42:2). Even to see the angel of God was considered dangerous (see Exodus 3:6 andJudges 6:22, for example). There are stories in the Bible about people experiencing visions of God. Isaiah has a vision of God while he is serving in the Temple (seeIsaiah 6:5), and his response is: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” The only person who had seen God and lived was Moses, who had asked God to reveal his glory to him; even then, God said: “You cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live” (Exodus 33:20). Visions are on a different order, but even then, most visionaries have said that God is light and they could not see the face.
Furthermore, while many see this speech as being a confession, the NISB points out that what is usually translated as “repent” actually has the lesser meaning of “regret,” and the verb translated as “I despise myself” in the NRSV “is not a reflexive verb,” and therefore should be translated “I hate/reject dust and ashes.” In this understanding of the section, Job is not sorry for confronting God: “Instead, he seems to be accepting that God will never give him what he wants: an apology.”
What follows is even more amazing: God admits that Job has been suffering for no reason he can understand! He had not sinned, and all his friends were wrong as they criticized Job. As a punishment to them, God tells them to get seven bulls and seven rams and have Job offer them as a sacrifice, because Job is God’s faithful servant. To prove that, God restores all of Job’s wealth and gives him another seven sons and three new daughters, each more beautiful than the last, and Job bestows an inheritance on his daughters as well as their brothers, which is an amazing thing and not at all customary. The NISB notes are interesting: “Perhaps Job’s suffering has made him more sensitive to the plight of the powerless, especially women.” And they go on to say that although Job’s life was long, and his end is described in the same way as Isaac’s and David’s are, “Perhaps this is the storyteller’s covert way of saying that although Job may have appeared appeased, he never fully recovered from his tribulations.”
The story of Job is our story. We all have bad things happen to us, no matter how good we are nor how often we attend church. Pastors’ family members get cancer; suffer from chronic, crippling conditions; and die in accidents. Pastors themselves become disabled, suffer with various conditions, and die. There is no preference given to the saints, and their suffering is no nobler or easier to bear than yours and mine. We all have times and events and losses in our lives for which we would like to have an apology from God.
But we Christians have had an apology from God, in the form of Jesus the Christ. If Jesus was truly the incarnation of God, then his crucifixion perhaps has a different meaning than we have thought. It might be that the crucifixion is God’s apology to us all, God putting us “at one” (the meaning of atonement) by suffering the same way we have suffered. If that were so, what would you want God to apologize for? If that were so, how would it change your attitude toward the crucifixion? If that were so, how would it change your relationship with God?
Hebrews 7:23-28
The book of Hebrews is in the form of a sermon, and the author is unknown. Modern theologians have posited that the author might be one of the women who had been a part of Paul’s ministry for a long time.
As a sermon, Hebrews gives us an insight into the thinking of Jewish Christians of the first century. To start with, this sermon takes about an hour to deliver. So the early Christians were clearly deeply into learning about this new vision of God’s relationship with humans. Second, they were still living with the understandings they had had growing up in Judaism. For them, there was no abrupt walking away from the ceremonies and symbols they had valued all their lives. But there was a new slant on their beliefs about God.
This is illustrated vividly in today’s reading. Jesus is presented not as God or even God’s only Son, but as a new high priest. Unlike the high priest Caiaphas, who thought it was expeditious for one person (Jesus) to die for the nation, this new high priest (Jesus) is “holy, blameless, undefiled, and separated from sinners.” This makes him different from any priest or pastor or even the high priest, in that “he has no need to offer sacrifices day after day first for his own sins.” That means that when he offers a sacrifice it goes to cover our sins, rather than having to be offered for his sins first.
But more important to the writer, the sacrifice that Christ offered up (in the crucifixion) is able to perfectly and completely wipe out our sins, never to be heard from again. This does away with the necessity to ever again make sacrifices to God. It means that our standing with God is absolutely guaranteed by the life and death of Jesus (v. 25). We are saved completely and forever.
Unfortunately, we have spent the last 2,000 years arguing about how this works, and we still have the attitude that we have to offer some sort of sacrifice -- not animals, of course, but a personal sacrifice still seems necessary. But even in the Old Testament, we have the witness of the psalmist (Psalm 51:17): “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” What this means is that all God wants is our repentance, and our relationship is as good as new.
If we cannot believe that the need for sacrifices has been superseded by the sacrifice on the cross, we negate the power of the cross and the Christ in our lives. As the Gospel of John says, we are still in the dark, even though the light has come.
Mark 10:46-52
Jericho may be the oldest continuously occupied city in the world, going back to 10,000 BCE. It is located on the West Bank, not a great distance from Jerusalem, so it’s no surprise that bar Timaeus (the son of Timaeus, so no first name is implied) had heard of Jesus and knew his reputation as a healer.
What is a surprise is the way in which Bartimaeus names Jesus. While Mark calls Christ “Jesus of Nazareth” in this story, the beggar calls him “Jesus, Son of David.” This is absolutely a messianic claim for Jesus. And it’s one of only two places in his gospel where Mark employs the title. The other is 12:35, where Jesus asks a group gathered around him about David’s reference to the Messiah as “his Lord”: “How can the scribes say that the Messiah is the son of David if David calls him ‘Lord’?” Part of the point of this is that Mark is avoiding calling Jesus the son of David. Mark, in fact, avoids a birth narrative altogether; and in designating him as “Jesus of Nazareth” he is pointing away from the expectation that the Messiah would be out of the house and lineage of David. This puts him in opposition to the Temple authorities, who insisted that Messiah would be part of their class and standing.
Yet when Bartimaeus calls Jesus “Son of David,” Jesus stops and tells the people gathered around to bring the blind man to him. Bartimaeus is so eager that he throws off his cloak and “springs up.” This man has not been blind for his whole life, because when Jesus asks him what he wants he asks, “My teacher, let me see again.” The title rabbouni also honors Jesus, this time for his reputation as a powerful and respected teacher, but not just a teacher (rabbi) -- he says my teacher. It is a second claim on Jesus. He is not just Messiah, God’s Anointed One, he is the blind man’s personal rabbi, the person he can turn to and depend on.
Jesus doesn’t assume that he knows why this man has been yelling for his attention. Bartimaeus has been shouting “Have mercy on me.” He could of course mean he wants to be healed, but he could have other things on his mind. It might be that he is facing death, or he might be asking for money -- he is, after all, sitting there to beg for his living. It would seem that the people in the crowd thought he was begging as he called out, because Mark says that many people ordered him to be quiet. But he persists, shouting even more loudly.
This is not the only story in which Jesus asks the person asking for his attention what s/he wants. There is the lame man by the pool in the Temple (John 5:2-3) who has been there for 38 years; Jesus asks him “Do you want to be healed?” It seems that Jesus is sensitive to the fact that even the disabled and sick have other concerns besides getting well. And he understands that healing will change this person’s life in ways that may make life worse for a while, since he will no longer be able to beg and hasn’t worked for some time. Healing is more complicated than we like to think.
I have suffered with arthritis for many years. Three years ago I finally had my left knee replaced. Naturally, I needed to be in physical therapy after the surgery. I was nearly done with therapy when my therapist asked me why I was still using my cane when I came in. Wasn’t the knee responding? I said, “Sure, the leg is great! But I also have arthritis in my spine and right knee.” She was crestfallen! All that work, and I was still in pain! It didn’t bother me any -- that knee had been giving out from under me, locking up, and any day it merely ached was a good day. But it wasn’t the first time I, the disabled person, was comforting others about my disability.
A decade ago I started having to use a wheelchair when I was going to be in settings that required a lot of walking and standing. I went to the annual conference of my denomination in my own chair that year, and most of my friends were shocked and needed reassurance that I was not in the chair all the time, that I could still function as a pastor, etc. One friend of mine was a social worker, and she came over to me and asked if she could touch my chair so she could squat down and look at me at my level. When we were eye to eye, she said, “So -- how are you doing with other people’s fear of your chair?” I was so shocked at her deep understanding that I burst into tears. I was very embarrassed by my own reaction, but I nodded and said, “That’s harder than my own reaction to being in this chair.”
I’m doing much better now, but no one thing has changed my disability. Healing requires a change of heart and mind, and prayer as well as medications and surgeries. And being better now carries its own set of challenges. Others have to remind me that all I have to do is lift something too heavy, work too long, get too little sleep, gain a few pounds, and I could be laid up for days. Being healed isn’t easy.
Bartimeus gets what he asks for. Jesus says simply, “Go your way. Your faith has made you well.”
Oh, how we misuse that statement! How many times have I heard someone flippantly say, “Well, his/her faith must not have been strong enough.” How many so-called healing ministers have used the excuse that some people aren’t ready for healing, or that you have to have the right kind of faith? Yes, Jesus says that Bartimeus’ faith has made him well, but what does that mean? It’s perhaps not as obvious as it first appears. After all, the man started shouting at Jesus as soon as he found out who was causing a stir in the streets of Jericho. He had evidently heard good things about Jesus. And his understanding of Jesus made him cry out one of the messianic titles, not just Jesus’ name. According to the apostle Paul, no one can call Jesus Lord without the Holy Spirit moving us to do so (1 Corinthians 12:3). So this man was moved not by his private understanding, but by the understanding of God’s Spirit. It may well be that it is that inspiration Jesus is referring to as this man’s faith. In any event, we also have Matthew telling us that Jesus told his disciples it isn’t the faith of the one needing healing that counts, but the healers’faith that they can have results, and their preparation to do so (Matthew 17:19).
We Christians have been entrusted with Jesus’ legacy. We are entrusted to bring good news to the suffering, and healing to individuals and the world. If we are unable to do that, we need to avoid the model of Job’s “frenemies” and learn to rely on the promises of Christ that we have been put “at one” with God, and therefore have the power to do so.
1 Rabbi Clinton teaches at the Ottawa Torah Institute Yeshiva high school and Machon Sarah high school for girls in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and writes for torah.org.
2 See Psalms 38:20, 71:13, 109:4, 20 and 29; Zechariah 3:1; 1 Samuel 29:4 (used to refer to David); 2 Samuel 19:22, where David uses it of Abishai, who asked David to kill Shimei.
3 Check this out on torah.com.
4 I learned this firsthand when visiting a Christian seminary in Nanjing, China, in 1988.
