i'm tied to the mast

between water and wind

A sermon on Job's tête-à-tête with his friends, & even God

Last week Job stood tall in the face of everything! This week, though, all he has to show for it is how much worse it all has become. Last week Job lost everything he had, including his children. This week, though, he’s even lost his health. Job was afflicted with oozing, awful sores that covered his body. And then, as so often happens in times like these, Job got into a bitter argument with his spouse, too.

Unable to bear it any longer, Job goes off by himself to lick his wounds. But then, in the middle of that misery, three of his friends show up. And what friends they are, too! They just plop down right next to Job. For seven days and seven nights, no one says a word. They just sit there with Job. Letting him know, by their presence, he isn’t alone.

The silence is broken, though, when Job pipes up and curses the day of his birth. All that chaos and calamity just built up too much, and Job had to release the pressure valve. 

And what a stream of anguish it was! It’s shocking to read such words in the Bible. Isn’t it? Well, it was shocking to Job’s friends, too. After a verse of this cursing, Job’s friend, Eliphaz, speaks up. And what he does, interestingly enough, is offer Job some of his own advice. 

This is always a tricky tactic, but for Job, it explodes on impact. His old advice goes down bitterly. In fact, hearing those words he himself had tossed around so casually turns on Job and bites him! In fact, Job’s old advice only makes his situation that much worse!

Now Job has really lost it all. His wealth, his family, and now his friends, and even his religion, too! As that 90’s band, R.E.M, sang, Job is losing his religion. Now, all the world and even the other-world have turned on Job! They point the accusing finger at his very existence, and Job can bear the brunt no longer.

The trouble for Job is, he will admit his friends have a point. However, all that advice ISN’T working anymore! All that religion that’s always offered easy answers in the past is now only raising up questions. Awful questions. Terrible questions.

Questions we all have wrestled with during our own dark nights of the soul. The difference between Job and us, though, is we can usually avoid those questions. We can distract ourselves. And the thing is, this often works! In no small amount of time, whatever it was that was causing us such distress has passed, and we can get on with our lives. Job, though, CAN’T. And if we’re all being honest, we’ve all also bumped up against such problems that were too big for us to ignore, too.

Well, this is where our Scripture for today ends. Job takes all his desperation and utters a prayer you only make from the end of your rope. Which is good advice. When you’re at your wit’s end, you don’t have to pray the way you think you should. You can pray the way you really feel. God can take it. Jesus, the only begotten Son, made some pretty anguished prayers himself.

Here’s the thing, though, that’s just advice. And the religion of advice fails every time it matters most. If nothing else, that’s what this snapshot in today’s Scripture reveals. If all you get from church is advice, you’re not getting the goods. Because, ultimately, one day, all those easy old answers will turn on you like they did Job. 

All those suggestions will stop working one day. And when they do, they will point the accusing finger your way. Insisting the problem isn’t the advice. It’s you. And in those moments, no amount of advice will be able to deliver you. 

…There is one who can deliver you, though. He is the one who hears Job’s prayer for it all to end, and then goes ahead and actually dares to answer that devastating prayer! And the way this deliverer answers Job’s prayer isn’t to strike him dead on the spot. No, the way the deliverer answers this prayer for it all to stop is by going to the end himself! 

When Jesus said, “It is finished,” from the cross, he meant it! And he meant it in toto! When Jesus said it is finished, he didn’t just mean his ministry. He meant it all! In his cross, every last bit of advice, improvement, and all those other failed means of self-salvation, have come to an end! 

What’s more, Jesus even meant this regarding religion itself! 

Here’s the thing, religion can’t save you. Only Jesus can do that. And the way he does it is by going to what religion points to and going past it, through it, to the other side of it! And then, he returns from that abyss and actually hands over to you the goods!

Religion points to the other side of all this. And what Jesus does is go there! Jesus actually, really died! He even suffered complete separation from God. And in that act, he closed the abyss in his body forever! Now Jesus stands on the other side of eternity and hands you, not advice or more religion, but salvation itself!

At the cross, Jesus took on the entire shipwreck of history. And he didn’t repair the ship. He went down with it. And by taking that cataclysm onto himself, he became it! Transformed it! Redeemed it!

Jesus did not come to repair the fixable. He came to raise the dead! The really dead. The so far gone, religion and advice to them are no use anymore. In fact, they only make matters worse. BUT what Jesus gives those who are past the end of their rope is what he returns from the other side holding, the end of it all! The end of advice. The end of religion. The end of even death itself!

Jesus’ death has turned death on itself! Now, death is like Job’s own advice thrown in his face! Now death no longer works! Now death serves Jesus’ redemption! It is in your own failures where Jesus is most present! And not present at a giver or advice. But present as a giver of redemption! 

Are you here today with a string of failures under your belt? Are you here today with a bunch of advice that’s not doing any good anymore? Are you here today with prayers you’ve been too afraid to utter? If you are, look up! Your redemption is at hand! And his name is Jesus! 

And he meets you, not where you’ve got it together, but where it’s all come apart. And what he does there isn’t tell you to fix things up. What he does there is become your disaster. He becomes your disaster, so you might become his redemption! And when that happens, all that advice and religion will fall away. And all that will be left is Jesus and the salvation he brings in his cross! The cross, the tool of disaster he transformed into the means of salvation itself!