Is Jesus Enough?

Job 2: 1-10
Hebrews: 1:1-4, 2:5-12

 Please raise your hand if you think you’ve experienced a blessing from God in your life. Now, I want you to think about those blessings. Perhaps you have always had good health, or a loving spouse, or you were given children during your life. Perhaps your blessing is your job and the ability to keep a roof over your head and food in your belly. Perhaps your blessing is that someone far away is fighting for you and your freedom. That someone is willing to sacrifice their well-being, giving up parts of their body, their mental and emotional well-being as well as their lives for all of us here today. Perhaps your blessing is a good education and the ability to provide the same for your family. Perhaps your blessing is the sanitation workers who are willing to clean up your garbage and other things so we have a safe, clean environment. Perhaps your blessing is the sun that continues to shine every day and the grass that continues to grow despite the billions of people who never think about these things as blessings at all.

And then there are the personal blessings, the ones that affect only you. That time God’s voice stopped you from cheating on your spouse. That time when you braked quickly enough not to hit that child in the street. That time you managed to ignore temptation and not take advantage of an easy situation. That time when you persisted in getting a second opinion because you knew there was something wrong and the next doctor discovers cancer in its beginning stages.

These are our blessings. We acknowledge they come from God. They make us feel warm inside and help to strengthen our faith in God’s goodness and mercy. We preach about Good News because we have experienced goodness and love. But now, I want you to imagine all of those blessings never happened or were stripped away from you like Job.

 Everything you hold dear and precious in your life; everything that has made your life worth living is gone. Your children, and grandchildren, and spouse are dead. Your home and business are gone, taken from you by others. Now, even your health is gone and so you sit homeless, on an ash heap, sores covering your body while your friends ask what you did to anger God. Surely someone who is suffering so much has done something to receive such curses upon their life. But you look around, you look inside yourself and you know – you did nothing so bad as to merit such a harsh punishment as you have received. You have been cursed and you have no idea WHY.

How do you feel about God now?

There was a woman I knew in seminary who was a devout Christian. She loved Jesus so much. She had dedicated her existence to furthering the Gospel and helping others. At 27 she was diagnosed with cancer. A rare form that is severely painful. While still fighting it, she found out she was pregnant and lost the baby to the chemo and radiation treatments she had started before knowing she was pregnant. She finally got the cancer into remission and was just putting her life on track when at 31 she went to the doctor for a routine checkup and was told that her bones had a disease that weakened them and eventually she’d be in a wheelchair and then she’d die from this disease. Her husband couldn’t take it and so he left her.

Five more years she spent fighting this disease, while continuing to attend church, to pray to God and help others - still a dedicated Christian. I met her as she was dying from the disease. I remember her looking at me from behind the oxygen mask, wasted away and pale, and she lifted it away for a second and said, “Why? What have I done to deserve this?”

The truth of her story, the truth in Job’s story is that we don’t always suffer because we deserve to - sometimes bad things; horrible, awful things happen to the best people in the world. There is nothing we can do to shield ourselves from the awful situations of this world. However, how we respond to these things tells us more about our belief and faith in God than how we react during the good times.

Can you still praise God when no blessings flow? Will you still believe in God if God only ever promises you Eternal Life and no other blessings? Is it enough to know that God sent His Son to die for you on the Cross so that you might live in the Kingdom of Heaven, if while on earth you suffer torment equal to Hell?

This passage we read today is one most people like to skip right over. These are not easy questions to answer for any of us. We can all point to a moment in our life when things were AWFUL and doubts about God came to the surface. We all struggle with our faith in the bad times. If all we ever had were bad moments, would we believe in God? Would we believe in the promises, would we believe in the sacrifice Jesus Christ made for us?

Whether you believe in Jesus or not – there are going to be bad times. There is going to be pain. Sometimes we try to say that if we lead a good life then good things will come to us. We tell each other that if we love others we will be loved. If we care for others we will be cared for. We tell ourselves that God loves us so much that Jesus will save us from every disaster and pitfall. But the truth is that sometimes we don’t get saved from the pain and hurt. Belief in Jesus Christ does not equal a life free from torment.

And once we realize that, then what? Will you still believe in God if tomorrow you are stripped from every blessing you have but the promise of eternal salvation? It’s the only assurance Jesus gives us in our life. “Believe in me and I will bring you Eternal life.” Jesus does tell us that we will suffer just as he suffered. We ignore that truth too often. Jesus does not promise us roses and rainbows. He promises eternal salvation in heaven, and he promises torment on earth.

This passage cuts through the flowers we would lay around the cross to hide the blood, sweat, and tears. This passage takes away the gilding, the cloth that drapes the altar which is a place of sacrifice; it takes away the pretty stained glass windows that depict serene pictures of love and Jesus. It takes away all that is pretty and good and leaves us with the barren truth.

Job sits on the ash heap, sores covering his tired and shell shocked body. His children freshly buried in graves, his home and farm destroyed. His wife comes to him as he scratches at his sores and she says, “Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!”

She says to him, there is no point in saying nice things about God. There is no point in silently remaining faithful when God has stripped you bare of everything that was yours to love. Curse God and end this agony, let your body die so that your torment will end!

And Job replies, “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” Job makes a point we often forget about with our rosy outlook on the Resurrected Jesus. For Jesus to live, he had to die. For Jesus to save us, he had to suffer a horrible death and separation from God. Jesus’ faith was as tested as ours is tested.

We can respond by continuing our faithful, quiet belief in God, or we can curse God and die. God promises us one thing, and as long as you believe in Him, you will receive that promise. You will be given salvation.

Is that enough for you?

Amen.