A mediator

 January 19, 2024

Job is suffering. He’s lost his fortune, his family, and his health. His three friends who have come to comfort him do pretty well as long as they sit silently with him, offering the companionship needed when life gets hard. It’s when they open their mouths that things begin to go downhill, which is often the case with caregivers. We do well until we try to explain God’s ways and justify the calamity. People have often said to me that they don’t know what to say to someone who is grieving. I tell them, “Don’t say anything; just be there.”

His friends decided that what Job needed was some correction. “God rewards the upright and punishes the guilty. You are suffering; therefore, you must be guilty.” Even if we haven’t accused someone else of suffering because of their sin, I doubt there are too many of us who haven’t accused ourselves of as much. “What did I do to deserve this?” we ask ourselves, often deciding when we can’t match the suffering with an adequate sin, that God is unfair. And (to parody St. Paul), if God is against us, who can be for us?

That is Job’s dilemma. He states it clearly:

“[God] is not a mere mortal like me that I might answer him, that we might confront each other in court.”

Fortunately, Job ponders his situation a bit more, musing, “If only there were someone to mediate between us, someone to bring us together,” —Job 9:32-33 

Lo and behold, that is exactly what God has done in Christ:

”For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time.” —1 Timothy 2:5-6 

When our suffering made it look as if God were against us, instead of condemning us, he joined us in our suffering as he provided the mediator we need in the person and work of Jesus Christ. When your suffering makes you feel that God has abandoned and turned against you, remember that he instead turned toward you in Jesus, embracing your suffering in his own, and offering the understanding of one who has been through it all and is right beside you, encouraging you, comforting you, and giving you hope and a future.