Shock

So Job loses everything.  In my experience, losing things is hard, but losing people is way, way worse.  People who went off to have a good time and never came back … that cuts deep and clean and not just once.  Over and over and over again.  I imagine some perverse comfort in the fact that there was not intentional betrayal.  It was the wind, the storm, the tornado that got Job’s kids. 

But if those things are acts of God, then that might start to feel like God betrayed you.  Ooof.

And it’s not just one kid.  It’s all of them. 

All ten of them. 

Gone. 

Centuries later, I feel that.  Maybe it was different because kids were listed in the same categories as livestock, but still.  Maybe it was different because God hadn’t yet shared God’s own “kid” with us, and maybe people didn’t understand families in that way, but losing your kids like that has got to strike something deep.

I hope those kids were having such a good time that they didn’t even hear the storm coming.  I hope all the siblings were laughing together with their glasses raised when the house fell.  I hope they died happy.  That is the best thing I can think of to hope for there.

I don’t know what Job hoped for – either immediately upon hearing the news or as he continued to process it.  If you told me both my kids were suddenly struck dead by natural disaster while they were having fun together, I think my first hope would be to die, too.  That impulse makes God’s caveat that Satan spare Job seem particularly cruel.  Actually, I don’t like to admit it, but this whole thing makes God seem cruel.

We don’t know what Job hoped for, but we do know what he did.  In the final verses of Chapter 1, we read that Job got up, tore his clothes, shaved his head, fell to the ground, and worshiped.[1]

Ummm … what? 

I imagine that shock would arrive like the 5th messenger, directly on the heels of the 4th, shutting down physical and emotional responses so Job could continue to breathe.  Is this shock? 

Tearing robes and shaving heads … that sounds like OT ritual to me, the proper way to mourn or grieve.  It even kind of makes sense to me.  Tragedy can make you feel exposed and torn.  Tragedy can seem incongruous in that you are totally destroyed on the inside and yet perfectly the same on the outside.  Shaving your head says very clearly that something has happened.   You are not the same person.  And maybe growing that back out would give some sort of evidence of time passing, of your own survival, maybe even your own growth.  The tearing and shaving, that resonates with me in a weird way.

I can even get behind the falling to the ground.  Pain takes you out at the knees.  Sometimes it takes a very long time to lift your head, much less stand again.

But worship?  At a time like this?  That’s where Job loses me.  It definitely underscores his love of God and his righteousness, but it seems utterly inhuman to me.  And it seems like loving God with your whole self should not deny the experience of being human.  You lose every single kid, and your first words are “I started with nothing, I’ll end with nothing.  The Lord gives, and the Lord takes.  Blessed be God’s name”? 

Were the kids really just slightly more precious livestock?  Were they also more dangerous, as their potential for sin could splash off on Job and somehow diminish his perfect record?  Was there some measure of relief that he wouldn’t have to spend so much time and energy making amends for their potential screw-ups?  Was Job’s parenting style so obsessed with perfection that to lose his kids actually made him feel somehow okay because he knew they were no longer his responsibility, could no longer negatively affect him?  If so, in my world today, that is as much as tragedy as the other losses in Job’s life.

I’m skeptical.  The only way I can wrap my head around that is shock.  Job looks for some familiar words to utter because he can’t find any of his own.  He’s never felt this type of pain.  It takes a lot of time and intention to articulate it. 

Also, in this proclamation, we see for certain that Job does indeed consider these to be acts of God.  And Job persists in his righteousness, not blaming God for what has happened.  I’m having a really hard time buying it. 


[1] It really makes me crazy that we don’t spell the past tense of worship with two “p”s.  It’s an affront to my senses that it’s not spelled “worshipped.”

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