Tuesday of the Twenty-sixth Week in Ordinary Time
Sometimes it seems like there’s no clear reason for our lives. We may feel useless and our daily toil and worry seems to be of no avail. At such times life can appear to be meaningless and without purpose. As the writer of Ecclesiates writes: “Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth, vanity of vanities! All things are vanity! What profit has man from all the labor which he toils at under the sun?” (Ecclesiastes 1: 2-3). Perhaps, like Job, we even curse the day we were born, thinking it better if we had never existed (Job 3: 1-15). But even if we don’t go that far, we can sometimes wonder why we bother getting out of bed in the morning. Wouldn’t it just be easier to sleep all day – to “drop out” of our busy lives? This is not even to mention the fact that good people seem to suffer and those who do great injustice to others often seem to escape without punishment or even seem to prosper.
For Job, as for us, there is no easy solution to the problem of evil and suffering. After Job insists that he has remained righteous (chapter 31), God tells Job that he is powerful, awesome, and in control (chapters 38-41). One wonders whether this is enough to satisfy Job that his suffering was not in vain. In the end, though, Job is rewarded by God, because of Job’s perseverance in faith despite the apparent injustice of his situation (chapter 42).
In the gospel reading for today we have a sobering reminder of Jesus’ passion and death. When Jesus’ story is connected to the reading from Job, it raises a number of unpleasant questions that focus on Jesus’ humanity in relation to his divinity: Did Jesus think the sorts of things that Job thought? Did he wonder what was the point of his life? Did he question why he had to suffer? Did he question why he had to carry out God’s plan even to death on a cross? If we as Christians take seriously Jesus’ command that we take up our cross and follow him (Matthew 16:24), then we may be called at times to suffer as a result, and consequently we may find ourselves asking similar questions about our own lives.
In the end, God’s ways are beyond human comprehension. The reasons why some people suffer yet others have it easy are not clear. Nevertheless, as Christians we believe that Jesus in his life and work reveals the correct response to God’s will. Jesus remains obedient even unto death on a cross. In his obedience to God’s will, Jesus reveals the kind of love that should be central to our lives as Christians—that is, to love God above all things and our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22: 37-40). We know that God loves us and wants what is best for us. Therefore we can trust that what he commands of us is good and true. We can also be confident that our lives have meaning and that it matters how we respond to suffering and evil. Our response to what we experience should be shaped by our love, and it also should also make us more loving of God and other people.
- Joel Schickel