Christ and Job: Easter Saturday

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A Catholic Pilgrim

, Pickering Church 15th Century.

This mini-series looks at the Easter story through the lens of the Book of Job.

Easter Saturday is a time to reflect upon the pain and suffering of Good Friday, and experience the feeling of hope, looking towards the joy of Sunday.

Christ suffered injustice. He did nothing wrong and did not deserve the punishment of the Cross. The Roman Enpire found no fault in Him, nor did the criminal next to Him on the Cross or the Roman centurion who declared Him to be a righteous man.

Jesus chose the righteous path, and accepted God’s will.

Luke 22 v 42

“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”

At the beginning of the Book of Job, he says,

Job 1 v 21

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.”

Here Job accepts all the misery of the first chapter as God’s will, and does not blame Him.

Job 1 v 22

In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.

By the end of the story, he admits he does not know why his suffering happens and it is beyond his ability to comprehend. So, he repents and chooses to trust God.

Job 42 v 2-6

“I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted. You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’ My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”

Suffering is one of the most complex parts of Christian theology. Why would a loving God allow suffering? If He was God, surely He could stop all the pain.

Humanity lives in a temporal world. Unlike the Heavens, which appears static, Earth (or the physical realm) is subject to change. This means everything has a beginning and everything will end. Everything experiences change throughout its existence.

Change tends occurs through struggle, and struggle does not happen without some form of suffering.

A baby is born through suffering. The birth pains of the mother and the struggle of the child to come into the World.

When we have to pass an exam, the struggle of learning and revising for it can be mentally exhausting.

When we get a new job, there is an element of struggle as we learn new skills and processes.

Life is suffering. But we know at the end of the painful birthing process, a child is born. After an exam, there is (hopefully) joy when the results show the candidate has passed. And the satisfaction we get when we work hard, brings fulfilment.

I would define these as good suffering, as it can lead to positive outcomes. The opposite of this is pointless suffering.

By and far, most of our pointless suffering is self-inflicted. Due to the sins we commit, stupid decision we make and how we choose to respond to different situations. Some of this type of suffering is down to others. And even less incidences of suffering are attributed to ‘acts of God’, which are events outside the influence of people, like a tsunami or an earthquake.

In Viktor Frankl’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning, he discusses his time in the Auschwitz concentration camp. The suffering he and fellow inmates experienced was beyond anything most people will today. But those that got through it, still managed to lead productive and positive lives, like Viktor.

He suggests, what stops the suffering of life from overtaking people is they find meaning in the pain. A big enough ‘Why?’ causes them to keep going, even though the obvious action is to end it all. This purpose drives them through to live another day.

With Jesus, He set his eyes on the ‘joy set before Him’.

Hebrews 12 v 2

Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

For Job, it was knowing that he should trust God, no matter what.

And for Christians, I think it is different for each one of us. For some of us, it is we don’t want to disappoint God, we are loyal to Him. For others, it might be we love Jesus and can’t bear to live without Him. For some, it might be the same as for Christ and for Job.

Whatever suffering we may experience in our lives, it is this ‘Why?’, which will get us through the darkest and most pointless times of suffering.

So this Easter Saturday, reflect upon what is the big ‘Why?’ which keeps us going. Why don’t we simply give up when the going gets tough?