Jesus and Job

The challenge of seeing a childhood hero self-destruct is causing me to reflect on pain and suffering. What better place to start than Jesus and Job?

There's no perspective quite like the perfectly innocent and once beautiful boy hanging broken and shredded on a cross, pinned by His love for His creation like a bug cruelly stuck to the Jr. High student's foam board for display. He's labeled, but even when the label is true it is intended to mock and use Him for political gain. Truly, nothing in my life compares to this torture.

Then there's Job. Job, no doubt, feels stuck to the board and wrongly labeled by his remaining family, friends, and society at large. Even God has, in Job's mind, mislabeled him.

The thing that gets me is that Job, especially around the middle to end of chapter 9, is hoping beyond hope for reconciliation. The way he speaks about how that could happen and what it would be like reminds me of Jesus' words "all the prophets and the Law speak concerning me."

So, feeling down? Jesus and Job give some great perspective to pain and suffering. Feeling mislabeled? Who hasn't? Wondering how it can get better? Look to Jesus and Job. Ultimately, their answer is ours.