I was going to jump into Psalm 42 today since our reading plan just finished Job and is back into the psalms. However, this is too good not to share. It connects with yesterday’s A Good Ending to the book of Job. It connects also with Easter, which we all celebrated just over a week ago. The ultimate Good Ending…
This is, in fact, how Navalny concludes the memoir, which one of his political allies called his gospel.
Are you a disciple of the religion whose founder sacrificed himself for others, paying the price for their sins? Do you believe in the immortality of the soul and the rest of that cool stuff? If you can honestly answer yes, what is there left for you to worry about? – Alexei Navalny
Amen.
Death is swallowed up in victory. (1 Corinthians 15.54, ESV)
We need to close Job out before we transition in our reading plan back to the Psalms, Book 2, beginning with Psalm 42. Job 42 opens with Job repenting:
Then Job answered the LORD and said: “I know that You can do everything, And that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You. You asked, ‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. Listen, please, and let me speak; You said, ‘I will question you, and you shall answer Me.’ “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, And repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42.1 – 6, NKJV)
Job repents of challenging God, but God holds his friends responsible for their Santa Claus Theology:
And so it was, after the LORD had spoken these words to Job, that the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My wrath is aroused against you and your two friends, for you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has. Now therefore, take for yourselves seven bulls and seven rams, go to My servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and My servant Job shall pray for you. For I will accept him, lest I deal with you according to your folly; because you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has.” (Job 42.7, 8, NKJV)
Then after Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar offer their sacrifices, Job prayed for his friends…
So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went and did as the LORD commanded them; for the LORD had accepted Job. And the LORD restored Job’s losses when he prayed for his friends. Indeed the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before. (Job 42.9, 10, NKJV)
It’s probably non-trivial that Job prayed for his friends. He probably could have been tempted to secretly wish they would experience what he had experienced!
But it’s part of his identity as a “Job 31 man” that he didn’t do that:
If I have rejoiced at the destruction of him who hated me, or lifted myself up when evil found him (Indeed I have not allowed my mouth to sin by asking for a curse on his soul)… (Job 31.29, 30, NKJV)
The story ends:
Now the LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; for he had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, one thousand yoke of oxen, and one thousand female donkeys. He also had seven sons and three daughters…In all the land were found no women so beautiful as the daughters of Job; and their father gave them an inheritance among their brothers. After this Job lived one hundred and forty years, and saw his children and grandchildren for four generations. So Job died, old and full of days. (Job 42.12 – 17, NKJV)
I’ve been distracted twice by “leviathan.” First, when I was reading in Job 26:
By His Spirit He adorned the heavens; His hand pierced the fleeing serpent. Indeed these are the mere edges of His ways, And how small a whisper we hear of Him! But the thunder of His power who can understand? (Job 26.13, 14, NKJV)
“His hand pierced the fleeing serpent.” NKJV in Logos Bible software links to Isaiah 27.1, equally obscure:
In that day the LORD with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea. (Isaiah 27.1, NKJV)
There are four verses containing “Leviathan:” (Job 41.1, Psalm 74.14, 104.26, and Isaiah 27.1) NKJV note says “A large sea creature of unknown identity.” “Unknown identity” doesn’t stop people from trying to figure it out, especially when an entire chapter of Job is given to it. Hence my second day of distraction when I got to Job 41 in my reading. It opens:
Can you draw out Leviathan with a hook, Or snare his tongue with a line which you lower? Can you put a reed through his nose, Or pierce his jaw with a hook? (Job 41.1, 2, NKJV)
God is making the point that Job can’t control Leviathan, but God made Leviathan. Leviathan seems to be a fire-breathing dragon!
His sneezings flash forth light, And his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning. Out of his mouth go burning lights; Sparks of fire shoot out. Smoke goes out of his nostrils, As from a boiling pot and burning rushes. His breath kindles coals, And a flame goes out of his mouth. (Job 41.18 – 21, NKJV)
In the Hebrew Bible, in the Book of Psalms, Psalm 74, Psalm 74:13–14, the sea-dragon Leviathan, is slain by Yahweh, god of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, as part of the creation of the world.[35][36] Isaiah describes Leviathan as a tanin (תנין), which is translated as “sea monster”, “serpent”, or “dragon”.[37] In Isaiah 27:1, Yahweh’s destruction of Leviathan is foretold as part of his impending overhaul of the universal order:[38][39]
In that day the LORD will take His sharp, great, and mighty sword, and bring judgment on Leviathan the fleeing serpent — Leviathan the coiling serpent — and He will slay the dragon of the sea.[40]
Job 41:1–34 contains a detailed description of Leviathan, who is described as being so powerful that only Yahweh can overcome it.[41] Job 41:19–21 states that Leviathan exhales fire and smoke, making its identification as a mythical dragon clearly apparent.[41] In some parts of the Old Testament, Leviathan is historicized as a symbol for the nations that stand against Yahweh.
See how easy it is to be distracted? Here’s what’s clear:
Satan is referred to as a dragon:
And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it…Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him…Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. And he stood on the sand of the sea. (portions of Revelation 12.1 – 17)
Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while. (Revelation 20.1 – 3, NKJV)
Here’s something else that’s clear:
The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. (Deuteronomy 29.29, ESV)
Jesus was clear also on what commandments we should focus on:
Jesus answered,
“The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’
The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12.29 – 31, ESV)
Have fun thinking about dragons, but don’t forget to love God, love your neighbor, and be on guard against our enemy, the real dragon.
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. (Ephesians 6.10, 11, ESV)
As we come to the end of Job, God speaks in chapters 38 – 41. I just noticed something in the opening:
Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said… (Job 38.1, NKJV)
It was a literal storm that Elihu was talking about in Job 37!
From the chamber of the south comes the whirlwind, And cold from the scattering winds of the north. By the breath of God ice is given, And the broad waters are frozen. Also with moisture He saturates the thick clouds; He scatters His bright clouds. And they swirl about, being turned by His guidance, That they may do whatever He commands them On the face of the whole earth. He causes it to come, Whether for correction, Or for His land, Or for mercy. (Job 37.9 – 13, NKJV)
The remainder of chapter 38 is God asserting his control over the earth, the oceans, the stars – “I was there when they were created, I control these things, do you?”
Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? To what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone, When the morning stars sang together, And all the sons of God shouted for joy? “Or who shut in the sea with doors, When it burst forth and issued from the womb; When I made the clouds its garment, And thick darkness its swaddling band; When I fixed My limit for it, And set bars and doors; When I said, ‘”This far you may come, but no farther, And here your proud waves must stop!”(Job 38.4 – 11, NKJV)
It wouldn’t hurt to remind ourselves every now and then to consider our size and power relative to God!
Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?…Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales; behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust. Lebanon would not suffice for fuel, nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering. All the nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness. To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him? (Isaiah 40.12, 15 – 18, ESV)
As we approach the end of the words of Job’s friends, we come to the inevitable conclusion: God is hard to figure out! Elihu, for example, gets it wrong about Job with his Santa Claus Theology:
Indeed He would have brought you out of dire distress, Into a broad place where there is no restraint; And what is set on your table would be full of richness. But you are filled with the judgment due the wicked; Judgment and justice take hold of you. Because there is wrath, beware lest He take you away with one blow; For a large ransom would not help you avoid it. (Job 36.16 – 18, NKJV)
Then Elihu turns right around and speaks truth about God’s power:
Remember to magnify His work, Of which men have sung. Everyone has seen it; Man looks on it from afar. “Behold, God is great, and we do not know Him; Nor can the number of His years be discovered. For He draws up drops of water, Which distill as rain from the mist, Which the clouds drop down And pour abundantly on man. Indeed, can anyone understand the spreading of clouds, The thunder from His canopy? (Job 36.24 – 29, NKJV)
We can be thankful for “revelation knowledge.” God reveals himself not only through creation but also through his word:
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork…The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple… (Psalm 19.1, 7, ESV)
And, finally, God has revealed himself through Jesus:
God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. (Hebrews 1.1 – 3, NKJV)
And the depth of human misunderstanding of God is demonstrated by Holy Week: they killed Jesus.
Even his disciples couldn’t understand Jesus:
They went on from there and passed through Galilee. And he did not want anyone to know, for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.” But they did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him. (Mark 9.30 – 32, ESV)
I say again, God is hard to figure out!
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55.8, 9, ESV)
What do you do when you can’t work in your chosen field? We looked at one positive response to that situation yesterday. What if you’re a pastor?
I shared a story in my first book Join the Adventure! in which I suggested a simple action plan that I’ve blogged about before.
Be there
Pay attention
Do what you can
Tell the truth
My grandson told me once that he liked the action steps except the first one: “GrandBob, the first point is stupid! Everyone is where they are.” To which I responded, “No, sadly, they’re not.” Here’s what I wrote in Join the Adventure!
Some people often want to be somewhere else. I was talking with a young man who was on part-time staff at a church, and who held down a full-time job in the computer industry. He really wanted to be in “full-time ministry” completely oblivious to the fact that his “there” for at least 40 hours a week was at his job, around people who would never come to his church since most of them lived in another town 45 minutes away!
By contrast, I knew a pastor who was in his second or third year of no church job. In the meantime, to put bread on the table, he was working in a call center for a national insurance company. Guess who the de facto chaplain for the people in that call center was? To whom did they go for counsel or prayer? That pastor! A man who was “there,” where God had him at the time, not thinking of a church where he’d rather be. – Page 18, emphasis added
Jesus paid attention:
As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. (John 9.1, NIV)
As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him. (Matthew 9.9, NIV)
I close with the well-known Halverson Benediction:
You go nowhere by accident. Wherever you go, God is sending you. Wherever you are, God has put you there. God has a purpose in your being there. Christ lives in you and has something he wants to do through you where you are. Believe this and go in the grace and love and power of Jesus Christ. – Richard Halverson, former chaplain of the US Senate
My friend Robyn Griffith is between jobs as a pharmaceutical R&D specialist. She posted a nice essay on LinkedIn in early April in which she bemoaned the lack of opportunities in the pharmaceutical industry but closed by saying she’s gone back to being a waitress, which she did in high school and college. I don’t think she needs the money. She writes:
So, I got tired of sitting in front of my computer all day long, applying to jobs with no luck, and began working in the same type of position where I very first started. The age of 15, I worked at McDonald’s (still have my first paystub). I really appreciated the flexibility in hours, as a cheerleader, figure skater, class representative and singer & piano player at church. I worked there until my senior year when I began to waitress, which I did all the way through college (loved Red Robin!).
I love her attitude:
The longer I am there, the more it brings me back to my happy and fulfilling “blue collar” days.
Working hard, wiping tables, greeting customers, smiling and helping these young new leaders understand what positive outcomes hard work brings. It brings me joy. I take pride to my daily shifts and I love seeing others smile and have a great time playing ‘Angry Birds’! I still really desire returning to my passion of bringing new treatment to patients and seeing the positive outcomes and solutions that it brings to millions of people. Until then, I will greet you with a smile and recommend my favorite TopGolf games to play!
This story reminds me of another, which I’ll share tomorrow.
Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky… (Philippians 2.14, 15, NIV)
We have a valuable lesson from The Masters Golf Tournament, which finished at Augusta National back on Palm Sunday. I know this is ten days after the fact, but I couldn’t publish this during Holy Week.
Even if you’re not a golf fan, this year’s Masters gave us a valuable lesson.
The tournament was way more exciting than it needed to be. Rory McIlroy was leading by four strokes when he blew up on the par-5 13th hole. Just plain hit a bad third shot pitching to the green and landed in the water. Double bogey. Bogey on the next hole, and he was suddenly tied with Justin Rose who had jumped to a big lead the first day, then had a really bad third day. But he came back and was the only player to challenge McIlroy.
But Rory came back too after the 13th. He missed a makeable eagle putt on the 15th, settling for a birdie, and made a birdie on the 17th to go up one. All he needed was a par on the 18th. Rose was already finished, having made a 20-foot birdie putt on the 18th. Rory missed a 5-foot par putt, and they went to extra holes.
They both had good approach shots, but Rory’s was much closer. He made the birdie putt to win, giving him a career grand slam. I didn’t know there were so few of those: Sarazen, Hogan, Nicklaus, Player, Woods. That’s all. Now McIlroy. It took Rory 11 years (11 tries at Augusta) to finish his.
Back to the April 13 fourth day of the Masters. Both Rose and McIlroy showed remarkable persistence, but McIlroy prevailed.
Jason Gay of the Wall Street Journal wrote about all the bad shots and missed putts, but then he observed:
In the end, it’s all footnotes, because the 35-year-old Northern Irelander shook off his extended bad luck at Augusta National and prevailed. In the fading light on the 18th green, McIlory hit a clutch playoff birdie putt against runner-up Justin Rose to capture the only major title that had eluded him, making him one of six modern players to win all four of golf’s major tournaments.
It was a reminder that great sporting accomplishments don’t require unbroken greatness. McIlroy didn’t win Sunday by going out and stomping the field. He didn’t play close to his best golf. On CBS ,Jim Nantz called it a “masterpiece,” but it was a messy mod-art canvas at best.
Perseverance, not perfection. Did you just relapse into a sin you thought you’d left behind? Did you lose your temper…again? Remember the lesson from Rory McIlroy’s Masters: it’s perseverance, not perfection.
You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For, “In just a little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay.” And, “But my righteous one will live by faith. And I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back.” But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved. (Hebrews 10.36 – 39, NIV)
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us. (1 John 1.9, 10, NIV)
With Holy Week fresh on our minds, it’s instructive to look at the juxtaposition of Elihu’s observations in Job 34 and Jesus’ words in Mark 8. First, Elihu’s Santa Claus Theology:
Therefore listen to me, you men of understanding: Far be it from God to do wickedness, And from the Almighty to commit iniquity. For He repays man according to his work, And makes man to find a reward according to his way.” (Job 34.10, 11, NKJV)
Job is suffering. Every man is repaid according to his work. Therefore, Job is wrong when he says he is righteous.
But look what happened to Jesus!
And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me…” (Mark 8.31 – 34, ESV)
Jesus took up his cross of suffering literally. We are told to take up our crosses, perhaps metaphorically. But there might be real suffering. Jesus was precisely NOT repaid according to his work. To think otherwise is to set our minds on “the things of man.”
For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. (1 Peter 2.21 – 24, ESV)
I would be remiss if I didn’t comment on the passing of Pope Francis, today, Easter Monday, 7:35a, local time in Rome. It can be said that, like Queen Elizabeth, he worked until he died. Good for him. On Easter Sunday he gave the “Urbi et Orbi” blessing to the “City [of Rome] and to the World” while an aide read his address. He later greeted cheering crowds in St. Peter’s Square from the popemobile.
He was 88, assuming the office of Pope at age 76. It’s hard to imagine. I’m 78, and it’s been years since I wanted to lead anything. I don’t mind working, but being in charge of an organization as large as the Roman Catholic Church at that age boggles the mind.
Because of who he was as a man and a Jesuit priest, he was often at odds with tradition and with the keepers of that tradition. Here are a few snippets from Pope Francis: Why He Leads the Way He Leads by Chris Lowney. The book was written (and I read it) not long after he took office.
[He was trained by] the Jesuits, a religious order that forms leaders not by management courses but in a month-long silent retreat, by sending trainees off on an arduous pilgrimage, and by preparing recruits to counsel adults by having them teach young children.
He challenged “lukewarm Christians” and “couch potato” Christians to engage much more energetically in spreading the Church’s message, not to “take refuge . . . in a cozy life,” but to get beyond our “comfort zones” and live with greater “apostolic fervor.”
He challenged his Church to be more forthrightly “poor, and for the poor.”
Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, reacting to the pope’s challenges, told an interviewer, “I find myself examining my own conscience . . . on style, on simplicity, on lots of things.”
“Your proper place is the frontier,” the cultural frontier, where they were “not to build walls but bridges” to those who did not share Catholic beliefs or culture. He told a group of devout Catholics that we should not “lock ourselves up in our parish, among our friends . . . with people who think as we do” but instead “The Church must step outside herself. To go where? To the outskirts of existence, whatever they may be.”
All the more stunning, then, that Pope Francis dispatched with tradition nearly a half-dozen times in his papacy’s first two hours: eschewing the red papal cape (the mozzetta); keeping his own simple pectoral cross instead of choosing from the more precious ones offered him; greeting the faithful in St. Peter’s Square with an informal “good evening” instead of more formal language; asking the crowd’s prayer for blessing before bestowing his own; and, at the end of it all, leaving the papal limo empty to join his fellow cardinals on the bus.
L’Osservatore Romano, the staid newspaper of record for Vatican watchers, called the performance “unprecedented and shocking.” Except it wasn’t a performance at all. We were not watching someone trying to act like a pope. We were watching a person unafraid to be who he was: Jorge Mario Bergoglio, called to serve as pope, not someone donning a costume to play a new role. In fact, if anything discomfited him at all, it seemed to be only the costuming, apparently a bit too regal to hang comfortably on his shoulders.
With Holy Week fresh on our minds, I’ll close the excerpts from Chris Lowney’s book with how Pope Francis handled Maundy Thursday:
Jesus bathed filthy, dust-covered feet that might have been flecked with traces of human or animal waste. That’s what Jesus did.
This iconic moment is commemorated in Christian churches on Holy Thursday, with selected parishioners standing in for the disciples and the parish priest for Jesus. The ritual typically unfolds like in the movies—that is, with no verisimilitude whatsoever. My brother was invited to have his foot washed when he was about ten years old, but my reverent Irish mother did the real washing, scrubbing away two or three epidermal layers, and, for good measure, dumping so much baby powder into my brother’s shoe that a fragrant mushroom cloud wafted over the altar when he yanked off the shoe.
The ritual is no less stylized when the pope enacts it at the Basilica of St. John Lateran, with select bishops or seminarians representing the apostles; I doubt any of them ever risked the career-ending gambit of presenting smelly feet to the pope.
But in 2013, Pope Francis recovered some of the shock value of Jesus’ original gesture. He forsook St. John Lateran’s gleaming marble floors for the drab stone flooring of the Casal del Marmo juvenile detention center, and he kissed the feet not of carefully chosen clerics and other Catholic worthies but of male and female juvenile delinquents who had been judged unworthy of walking the streets without close supervision.
There’s no shortage of news stories on the Pope’s passing and on his papacy. Some positive. Some negative. You can research and read those for yourself. I’ll just leave you with what Loyola Press shared this morning. A quote from Pope Francis himself:
Dear friends, if we walk in hope, allowing ourselves to be surprised by the new wine Jesus offers us, we have joy in our hearts, and we cannot fail to be witnesses of this joy. Christians are joyful; they are never gloomy. God is at our side…Jesus has shown us that the face of God is that of a loving Father. Sin and death have been defeated. Christians cannot be pessimists! They do not look like someone in constant mourning. If we are truly in love with Christ and if we sense how much he loves us, our heart will “light up” with a joy that spreads to everyone around us. —Excerpted from Embracing the Way of Jesus by Pope Francis
Joyful Pope Francis…
The Apostle Paul shared this joy:
And being confident of this, I know that I shall remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy of faith, that your rejoicing for me may be more abundant in Jesus Christ by my coming to you again. (Philippians 1.25, NKJV)
