Job is one of the oldest stories in the Bible. It begins, “There was a man in the land of Uz…” which is like saying, “Once upon a time.” Job is like us, only better. He is a saint, in that he has chosen to live a holy life. Like most people who go regularly to church, he expects to be rewarded for his saintly efforts. One of the morals of the story, though, seems to be that holiness is its own reward. I think Jesus was summarizing Job when he said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”(Matthew 5:8). Those who have read about the troubles of Job, though, ask if seeing God is worth it.
Most of us religious people don’t like Job. We assume that the point of being good (Fill in the blank here as to what being good means to you; is it staying in a marriage that isn’t working, or avoiding your pet temptation, or going to church?) is that we get rewarded in the end with something more substantial than a visit from God. Job doesn’t end with this saint being given a golden crown and harp lessons in heaven. Spoiler alert: Job glimpses God in the end and says that it was worth all his troubles and effort. The other ending, where Job gets all his lost stuff back, may have been a late scribe’s attempt to fix the story for religious folk.
Before we get to the end of Job, the middle is worth reading:
Oh, that my words were recorded.
Oh, that they graced a holy scroll,
And that an iron pen,
Marked them in stone.
For, I know that my redeemer lives.
I know my suffering has value.
And even if flesh and blood fails,
My savior stands with me,
And while still living, I will see God.
This is the yearning of my soul.
– Author’s adaptation of Job 19:23-27
To be able to stand with Job and know by faith that seeing God is the point of it all takes one thing; a boat load of troubles.
The mystic poet John Donne wrote about this process of sanctification in the years following his wife’s death:
Trinity
Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp’d town to another due,
Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov’d fain,
But am betroth’d unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
– John Donne 1609