Chuck Larsen

With all that Job has been through, he must have been hard to look at. But in Job 6:28, Job calls for his friends who are preaching to him to just “look at me.” Piper observes, “According to Job 7:5, Job was covered with boil-like sores that opened and ran with puss and then got clogged with dirt and infested with worms. It was not a mild case of measles. It was a horrid thing from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet.”[1] If Dr. Mayhew is correct, Job is suffering from an extremely advanced form of Leprosy. It is sometimes referred to as “black leprosy.” It so distorts one’s appearance that a diseased person becomes grotesque and often unrecognizable, which was the case with Job.  He’s repulsive, and it’s difficult to maintain eye contact with him.

Being unable to look at him, Job’s friends resort to an intellectual debate over the cause of his situation rather than ministering to Job in the midst of his suffering. Job answers, “Do you think your words are convincing when you disregard my cry of desperation?”  Job is crying out for help, comfort, and support as he struggles for life at the bottom of the pit of despair. His friends stand around the edge of the pit and talk about how Job got into the pit in the first place when what he needs is help at the moment. Job’s cry for them to look at him was a cry for compassion and comfort. His friends didn’t care about his pain. It’s like the blind man who cried out for Jesus. The disciples told him to be quiet. He was making a scene. They were unconcerned about his plight. There was no compassion.

Finally, Job shouts, “Look at me!” But they don’t want to. He’s too repulsive. He’s too hard to look at. He wanted them to see his suffering, to acknowledge his pain, to empathize with his situation. He knew if they would open their hearts, then open their eyes, they would recognize his need is not intellectual debate but compassion and comfort. But he gets none! Israel as a nation was suffering in unimaginably repulsive ways. Unlike Job, they may have brought the suffering on themselves because of their rebellion and disobedience to God. But Isaiah doesn’t focus on the cause-effect reasoning but tells them there will come a great comforter who will be their Messiah. Isaiah writes what this Messiah will do and say. “Comfort, comfort ye, my people. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and tell her that her iniquity is pardoned.” (Isaiah 40:1-2) In his suffering, Job needed comfort. So do we! We need the Messiah, Jesus. Who will come and sit next to us in the pit of despair. The “man of sorrows” who is “well acquainted with grief” will take our hand in his own nail-pierced hands and comfort us in our pain, and He will lift us out of the pit.

[1] Job: Reverent in Suffering | Desiring God

After preaching on the book of Job one Sunday, a member of the church came up to me and told me a Joke. He asked if I knew why Job had such a bad time sleeping at night. I told him that I didn’t, and he replied, “It’s because he had such miserable comforters.”  Take a minute! Well, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Elihu, Job’s friends, were definitely miserable comforters. They began their dissertations on “Retribution Theology” in Chapter 4 and continued through most of the rest of the book. Eventually, God gets tired of it all and speaks on behalf of Job. Their finger-pointing and caustic remarks contribute even more to Job’s suffering. In his first reply to them, he addresses their lack of kindness and consideration at the time he needs it most.  He says to them in Job 6:14, “He who withholds kindness from a friend forsakes the fear of the Almighty.”

Like Job, when we suffer, we don’t need a theological dissertation on God’s goodness nor a rational explanation of our situation. No, we need comfort. We need kindness.  We need compassion and understanding. Once, during Queen Victoria’s reign, she heard that the wife of a common laborer had lost her baby. Having experienced deep sorrow herself, she felt moved to express her sympathy. So she called on the bereaved woman one day and spent some time with her. After she left, the neighbors asked what the queen had said. “Nothing,” replied the grieving mother. “She simply put her hands on mine, and we silently wept together.” This is the kind of thing we all need when we suffer.

After all the suffering that Israel had endured, God tells Isaiah in 40:1 to “comfort, comfort ye, my people.” It is the prophetic proclamation regarding the coming of the Messiah, who will do just that. Jesus never pointed his fingers at sinners; rather, he turned pointed fingers back at the ones pointing them and said things like, “Let the one without any sin cast the first stone.” He never rejected the defiled but touched and healed them. He fed the hungry and gave sight to the blind and sound to the deaf. He never turned away the hurting, but he comforted and restored them. He never condemns the sinner. He saves them.  Job dumped his pain on his friends in Chapter Three. They responded with accusations and theological discussions. They could not personally identify with his suffering. They had not suffered like Job. But Jesus is the one person who will never preach a theological treatise when we dump our hurt on him. Regardless of the reason for our suffering, he will open his arms wide, take your hand, and weep with you. You see, Isaiah 53:3 describes Jesus for us who need a comforter in all our sufferings. “He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, well acquainted with grief.”