Henry Paris, December 23, 2008 (all rights reserved) revised Day 194 blog
I can read Job as a presage of Christmas, as an Advent story:
The Innocent stands on the street at the entrance to the building listening to the noise and hurrah within but is not quite able to make out what is said. Not only is he not welcome inside, he is forbidden entry. Yet, he clings to his inner confidence of who resides inside.
Two men come out of the building walking in a deliberate pace. They are engaged in an animated, angry complaint and brush by the Innocent, pushing him aside as one says to the other, “I’m tired of waiting, I doubt this thing is ever going to get started. I’m going home. This is pointless.”
Regardless of the danger, The Innocent decides to enter to learn exactly what is not getting started. He walks confidently through the door and finds a spot on the low wall behind the top row of the central aisle that leads down to the stage. He leans forward on the wall with his elbows and watches and listens.
The crowd is restive. The building is full. It is hot, hazy or smoky, the light is not very good and everyone is sweaty and uncomfortable.
The Innocent realizes previously a series of speakers seated at the front have mounted the stage and warmed up the crowd, this must have been the noise he heard when he was outside on the street. Now, two more great men stand to speak and proclaim great hope for the future and woe to the crowd for its behavior. The person leading the ceremony names the next, Jeremiah, the Innocent thinks he hears. This speaker quotes the words of THE LORD to the crowd, “I am sick of your sacrifices, your burnt offerings; why are you not caring for the poor, freeing the captives and honoring the stranger in your land? Circumcise your heart to me lest my wrath go forth like fire!”
At these strange words the noise level of the crowd drops quite noticeably. The speaker had hardly finished speaking when a voice in the crowd shouted from the other side of the hall echoes, “Thou art my King and my God who ordained victories for Jacob, through you we push down our foes, for in our own strength we cannot trust and we continually give thanks to you; yet you have cast us off and abased us, made us a laughingstock among the peoples of the world. Why do you hide your face? Why do you forget our oppression? Rise up and come to our help in the name of your steadfast love!”
Then another voice from the rear of the auditorium to the right of the Innocent shouts back, “Can a man carry fire in his bosom and his clothes not get burned? Wise men lay up knowledge, but the babbling fool brings ruin near.”
While all this is happening, the Innocent watches as who appears to be the final speaker harangues the crowd. Many faces among the crowd redden with anger and frustration at this speaker’s words. Shaking fists are raised. A renewed chorus of shouts, “Blasphemy! Blasphemy!” rain about this final speaker, the insane one named Ezekiel, as he steps down from the stage defiantly and walks towards his seat in the front row inwardly smiling while dodging fists from patrons nearby and objects thrown at him from the crowd afar.
Finally the crowd’s shouting diminishes. Suddenly a deafening sound from nowhere and everywhere as if it were a whirlwind forming a voice echoes in the hall, “I thought I would pour out my wrath upon you and spend my anger against you in the wilderness. But, I withheld my hand and acted for the sake of my name, that I would not be profaned in the sight of the nations in whose sight I brought you out. Moreover, I gave you statutes that were not good and ordinances by which you could not live; and I defiled you through your own gifts by demanding you offer to the fire all your first born so I might horrify you, so you will know I AM THE LORD.”
The crowd turns into angry pandemonium and the organizers panic. They try to keep control of the proceedings by hurrying the anonymous announcer of the fight onto the stage with microphone in hand. He begins, "Gentlemen, in one corner we will have The Innocent standing in for the goodness and kindness of God and human virtue. In the other corner we will have his Adversary standing in defense of the Psalms (especially the 44th), and wisdom of Proverbs.
The noise of the crowd increases. Out in the rear seats a heckler with “King Lear” written across the front of his baseball hat sputters at this spectacle and shouts in a strong bass voice, “As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport."
In the wings off stage-right, The One called God smiles with a self-satisfied knowledge and casts his gamble with The Adversary who is standing on stage-left. The Innocent, who in actuality is a stranger from another land, has learned of this God and has come to love and honor Him more greatly than his people in this audience. The Innocent standing far in the rear listens but the noise and pandemonium drown out the words from the stage. He stands erect and moves to the center of the aisle that leads down to the stage to better hear the discourse. One of the organizers looks up at the motion and recognizes the man. He bids his fellows to drag The Innocent to the stage, now converted to a ring for the fight.
The Adversary considers his wager and taunts The One, ”Of what value is faith if practiced only for reward?” He leaves the building, smiling with a self-satisfied knowledge.
Thirteen rounds later the Innocent is no more an innocent but a beaten, defeated man who still fights to deny his newly found knowledge that there can be no assurance of reward for the loyal servant; that this God can do ill to a good man. Yet he still clings to his faith in God, even with the knowledge that he has unleashed the crowd to splay and kill his family and burnt his home and possessions. All this carnage at God’s instigation by a wager with…can it be Himself? Cowering, fearful and trapped, the Innocent clings to that faith even though his Adversary has broken his body.
Now, the organizers from the ring drag the Innocent into the wings, bloodied and diseased. As they pass behind the curtain on stage-left, The Innocent turns his head and shouts across the stage to The One standing there that this cannot be without cause and demands of the Adversary, the Wrath of God, to explain what ill the Innocent has done to merit this defeat.
Unaware a nearby microphone is still turned on, The Gambler still stands in the wings of stage-right stunned, not by this nothing’s words, but that he has allowed this horribly cruel and capricious thing of his Own to unfold. A tear rolls down the cheek of The Gambler as the Innocent demands this explanation; but as fast as the tear forms, an impulse of unbounded fury rises in his chest. He shouts with a rage so intense that it shakes the walls and roof of the entire building so strongly bits of plaster fall down on the crowd,” It is so because I wanted it so!”
This final fury cows the Innocent lying on the floor. He is too terrified and too devastated to look directly at The Adversary and question again boldly why this ill-made reward for goodness results only from His capriciousness. The Innocent is determined however to hazard a very quietly and a very carefully crafted final acknowledgement, “I now see You for who You are and can only fear for us all.”
The crowd has watched this one-sided beating unfold and now most eyes of the crowd stare stunned at the empty stage, they are staggered, ears listening to this argument and the veiled resistance of the beaten Innocent coming from the PA system.
People stand uneasily. Finally those towards the rear begin to file out. As they leave, a woman waiting at the rear turns to her husband and grabs his arm tightly. She whispers, “This can’t be it. This can’t be all there is, can it? Is this it?” The husband struggles for some assuring words, finally muttering to his wife under his breath, “No, it can’t be. There must be hope for reward.” Another fellow in the departing crowd who hears the man’s reply to his wife says, “Hey, don’t be too zealous, or too rowdy, find the middle ground. Don’t rock the boat or you’ll get stepped on.”
There in the wings the Innocent struggles to his feet and the Gambler stands in silence. Both are too uncomfortable to look at each other, for their misery is great. Both are devastated by what has unfolded. They squirm in the pain of self-acknowledgement, the Gambler in recognition of who He is, the Innocent in sullen, submissive recognition of who God is. Finally The Gambler turns to leave, holding the fight’s purse, a bag of coins. As he passes the Innocent Man, he tosses the bag of coins at the Innocent’s feet along with another equally sized bag. The One speaks tenderly, “I AM my Word. I will not restore your family but I remember Second Isaiah’s words, today I repent; your fortune shall be restored. You shall receive double compensation. Now, I must go away to think of what we have done here today.” He bows his head and yet even though in his repentance his anger is kindled against the crowd, still he relents.
He will speak no more for 500 years, when at last he will decide finally enough is enough. He will come to show to both the crowd and The Innocent’s people by way of an inexplicable Supreme Sacrifice, “I do love you all as I love Myself. I do forgive and I do repent for you are a part of me. Truly, no more shall death have its sting. The Adversary is defeated.”
Have a joyful Christmas – Amen.
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