Wednesday 3rd June - Clinging to the Rock

DAILY BYTE

The theologian Karl Barth says, “Job is like a sailor, clinging to the rock on which he’s shipwrecked.”

We have discussed being in the midst of suffering this week. This is not an easy topic. It is not an easy task. So, when we go to places of suffering and stay there in the midst of it, what do we cling to?

Some would say that if you have to “cling” to something, you are a weakling, not strong enough to stand on your own without a crutch. But perhaps, clinging to something is not a sign that our weakness is bad and should be rejected but it is an acknowledgment that our weakness is simply the reality of being human. We may like to think that we are superhuman, but really, we are just plainly and wonderfully human.

When we cling to God, the rock who created us as fragile, breakable creatures, we glimpse a great mystery. We see a greater vision of the face of Christ – the rock that suffered for and suffers with every shipwrecked, broken human being.

And so, Job’s friends heard about this great mystery of suffering, and they dared to go and journey to it. But then, they see it for themselves. Hearing about something like a shipwreck and actually seeing it are two very different experiences, are they not? Before visiting a place like an AIDS hospice, you might imagine a little of what it would be like, but it is completely different actually going there and sitting with people in the midst of their suffering.

When Job’s friends saw him, the Scriptures say, “they lifted up their eyes,” as if toward heaven, but instead, their eyes met their friend, and they could hardly recognize him – this boil-ridden, grief-stricken, fragile human being.

And when they realized what had happened to him, they “lifted up their voices,” but not with words. They lifted up their voices with weeping for him and with him. No words are necessary.

All they could do was rip their clothes – showing their mourning and distress, and they threw dust heavenward – toward the God who had made Job, who made us all from the crumbling dust of the earth.

This moment of wailing is a moment of solidarity between the whole of humanity and the whole Spirit of God, who is present within every moment, every gesture, every wail.

When you see and experience the presence of suffering, where do you see God present in it? In someone’s crying? In other acts of grief? Do you feel shipwrecked like Job? Why can you and do you cling to this God?

GUIDING SCRIPTURE

Job 2:12 (ESV)

And when they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him. And they raised their voices and wept, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven.