Job 9:1-16: a reflection

1Then Job answered, 2“Truly I know that it is so, but how can man be just with God? 3If he is pleased to contend with him, he can’t answer him one time in a thousand. 4God is wise in heart, and mighty in strength. Who has hardened himself against him and prospered? 5He removes the mountains, and they don’t know it, when he overturns them in his anger. 6He shakes the earth out of its place. Its pillars tremble. 7He commands the sun and it doesn’t rise, and seals up the stars. 8He alone stretches out the heavens, and treads on the waves of the sea. 9He makes the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades, and the rooms of the south. 10He does great things past finding out; yes, marvelous things without number. 11Behold, he goes by me, and I don’t see him. He passes on also, but I don’t perceive him. 12Behold, he snatches away. Who can hinder him? Who will ask him, ‘What are you doing?’ 13“God will not withdraw his anger. The helpers of Rahab stoop under him. 14How much less will I answer him, and choose my words to argue with him? 15Though I were righteous, yet I wouldn’t answer him. I would make supplication to my judge. 16If I had called, and he had answered me, yet I wouldn’t believe that he listened to my voice.

Job wrestles with a question that has no easy answer: how can a mortal be righteous before God? He is overwhelmed by the sheer greatness of God, who is wise in heart and vast in strength, who moves mountains, shakes the earth, commands the sun and stars, and stretches out the heavens. God does great things beyond understanding, marvels without number. Before such a God, Job feels the impossibility of standing as an equal or arguing his case.

Job's sense of God's transcendence leaves him feeling small and unable to answer. If God passes by, he says, I cannot even see him; who can question what he does? Job longs to make his case before God but feels there is an unbridgeable gap between the Creator and himself. He senses, without being able to resolve it, his deep need for someone to stand between him and this overwhelming God, a mediator who could bridge the distance he feels.

Job's honest struggle points beyond itself to a need the gospel answers. The gap Job felt between a mortal and the vast, holy God is real; on our own, we cannot stand before such greatness or plead our case. But what Job longed for and could not find, God has provided in Christ, the one Mediator between God and humanity, who bridges the distance and brings us near. Let Job's sense of God's greatness humble you, and let it drive you not to despair but to the Mediator, through whom you can come to the great God without fear.

Lord, Job was overwhelmed by your greatness, feeling the impossibility of standing before you or pleading his case, and longing for a mediator he could not find. Let his sense of your greatness humble me too. And thank you that what Job longed for, you have provided in Christ, the one Mediator who bridges the distance and brings me near. Through him I come to you, the great and holy God, without fear. Amen.