Human beings can survive and prevail over great suffering and travail as long as our lives have meaning and love at their core. It is the source of our courage. It is regenerative. And its absence is life threatening.
For most people, it seems, it was easier to believe that Jesus was blaspheming than that he was speaking the truth about his oneness with God. Probably for most people, it is easier to believe that they are sinners than that they are divine.
Visitors like Elihu can make a sufferer feel doubly cursed — not only for the suffering of their illness, but also for the implied responsibility that it was their fault that they didn’t get well.
The book of Job declares that anyone who grounds their faith in a belief that life will reward the diligent, upright and honest, is simply failing to see reality. Anyone who persists in defending systems they believe to be just, will end up victimizing those who suffer unjustly, victimizing the victim.
Gerald May said, “In all my experience as a psychiatrist and as a human being, the deepest, most pervasive pathology I have seen is the incredible harshness we have towards ourselves.” Some of the fault lies with religious education, he says. “Religious condemnation and moral guilt have been used for child-rearing and political control. …The more cruel we are to ourselves, the more likely we are to be mean to others.”
Here is an evocative passage about the meekness that enlightens, from the 7th century monastic John Climacus:
The light of dawn comes before the sun, and meekness is the precursor of all humility…
The people of Israel began as a labor movement. Their Egyptian overlords instituted a policy of increased productivity — gather your own straw and meet the same output quotas. Having no union and no standing to negotiate with management, they cried out to God. God answered their complaints, and sent Moses to be their representative in some collective bargaining
Jesus takes that image of hope and invites the thirsty to come to him and to receive the life-giving Spirit which will burst from within them like a hidden spring in their souls. The image hits a responsive chord. People speculate: Is he a prophet? Is he the Messiah?
Time for the attack ad.
Job is an example of honesty. He can tell God what he really thinks…
After many years of being with people during their final passage to death, I’ve formed a rather simple, literal belief that God works with particular meaning and efficiency around the timing of death.