May: Day 6: Holy and Righteous Job the Much-Suffering

May: Day 6:
Holy and Righteous Job the Much-Suffering
 
(On Christian Patience)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. Righteous Job, whose great patience is glorified in today's ecclesiastical hymns and readings, lived in Arabia 1900 years before the birth of Christ. He was a rich and famous man. He had seven sons and three daughters. His estate included seven thousand small cattle, three thousand camels, five hundred pairs of oxen, five hundred donkeys, and a great many servants. His children loved and honored him; all his neighbors and acquaintances paid him special respect. But this was not the glory of Job: he was rich in holy faith in God and good deeds; he was a merciful man and did much good to people. But in order to glorify the virtues of Righteous Job, the Lord allowed the devil to strike Job with the most difficult and bitter trial. And so Job was deprived of all his earthly wealth and happiness.

One day a messenger comes to Job and tells him that wicked people, the Sabeans, have taken his oxen and donkeys from the field and killed his servants with the sword. Then comes another messenger and says to him that fire has fallen from heaven and has scorched his sheep and servants and destroyed them. Then comes a third messenger and says that the Chaldeans have taken his camels and killed his servants with the sword. Then comes a fourth messenger and says, "Your sons and daughters were feasting in your eldest brother’s house, and behold, a mighty wind blew and caught the four corners of the house; the house fell, and all who were there perished." What was Job to do in such great sorrow? But in the midst of grave temptations, not only does he not lose faith in God, but on the contrary, he blesses Him and humbly submits to His will. He fell to the ground, bowed down, and said, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; as the Lord willed, so it is done; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21, 22).

But now Job is faced with a new difficult trial: the Lord allowed the devil to strike Job from head to foot with fierce leprosy, and Job, covered with painful scabs, sat on a festering spot far from his home. Job’s wife, unable to bear his suffering, wishes him death and encourages him to murmur against God. But the righteous sufferer said to her: “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” (Job 2:9, 10).

People also began to offend the great sufferer and righteous man. Those who previously respected him now began to despise him; relatives and acquaintances shun him; his servants do not obey him (Job 19:13, 16); the wretched people abhor him and are not afraid to spit in his face (Job 30:10). Three friends came to him, but instead of comforting him in his grief, they recognized him as a great sinner and told him that he deserved such a great calamity for his sins, and therefore advised him to repent before God of his secret sins. But Job defended his innocence, was firm in his faith in God and, “bearing all his sufferings with great patience, placed all his hope in God” (Job 19:25-26).

And the faith of the righteous man did not put him to shame: the Lord solemnly testified to the innocence of Job, blessed his patience, returned to him health, wealth, and honor, blessing his last days more than before. The Lord blessed him with his family as well: he had another seven sons and three daughters (Job 42:12-13). He died in extreme old age and the Lord glorified him with eternal glory.

II. The Holy Righteous and Much-Suffering Job is a great teacher for all Christians of “true patience,” about which we will speak today.

There is nothing we encounter in life so often as misfortunes and sorrows. Sometimes physical illnesses oppress us, sometimes the death of people close to us saddens us, sometimes human arrogance offends us, sometimes evil-pagan slander falls on us, sometimes human envy and hatred pursues us, harming our well-being everywhere, blackening us in the eyes of those on whom our social or official position depends; sometimes, like a whirlwind, an unexpected disaster, a fire, a theft flies at us, and in one day, in one night deprives us of what we have acquired through many labors and years. And is it possible to list all the types of troubles and misfortunes that accompany us, wanderers on earth, in this temporary life? It is not in vain that the earth and our earthly life are called a vale of tears and lamentation. And there was not, and is not, a person who would not experience grief and sorrow in his life. What should we do, how can we protect ourselves against all and every misfortune of this life? Nothing else, brethren, other than Christian patience.

a) In fact, it is impossible to do without patience in every misfortune, in every sorrow; because whoever is familiar with the nature of sorrows and misfortunes (and who among us is not familiar with them?), knows very well that they are never a matter of a moment: on the contrary, for the most part, between the beginning of the disasters and sorrows that befall us and their end, not a little time passes, when willingly or unwillingly we have to endure, to bear this yoke - to bear and suffer. But often such patience on our part is purely involuntary. Often we suffer, but do not endure - we suffer because we could not avoid the cause of our suffering, and at the same time we grumble, become despondent, and are saddened by everything about our unhappy fate. It would be more correct to call this cowardice, and not patience in the Christian sense of the word.

The Holy Faith does not demand such patience from us. It demands patience from us as a good feat, which we would go through without complaint, with good nature and constancy, with complete devotion to the will of God, which punishes and pardons us; the Holy Faith demands that we endure sorrows and misfortunes in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, who endured the sufferings of the cross and death for the sake of our salvation, consoling ourselves “with the fellowship of His sufferings” (Phil. 3:10). “This is pleasing to God, if anyone, mindful of God, endures sorrows... For to this we were called, because Christ also suffered for us...” (1 Peter 2:19-21).

Gentleness, meekness, deep humility, complete and whole devotion to the will of God – these are the features in which our patience should be demonstrated! “Patience,” says Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk, “is a great cure for every misfortune. Every suffering is alleviated by patience. Look at those who are in a long-term illness: they become so accustomed to this misfortune that they seem not to feel it. 'From tribulation comes patience' (Rom. 5:3). He who suffers with patience thinks to himself: 'I have endured until now – I can continue to endure in the same way. Yesterday I endured – today I can endure… For one who wants to endure, nothing is impossible, especially when God helps him.' Such patience is the happiest state of the heart. Sweet is this silence! Most favorable peace in which the heart is so at rest!” It is to this rest that Christ the Lord calls us: “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matt. 11:29). Such true Christian patience thus attracts to us the special favor and mercy of God: “if you endure chastening,” says the Holy Apostle, “then God deals with you as with sons” (Heb. 12:7).

b) The incentives for patience are very great and varied.

1) We must arm ourselves with patience, no matter what happens to us. Only then can we live on earth. In this vale of tears everything disturbs us; only patience gives us peace. To be able to live peacefully means to be able to endure.

2) But we do not only receive temporary peace from patience; it opens the doors to eternal peace, to eternal joy and blessedness: “Those who sow in tears will reap in joy” (Psalm 125:5). Only through sorrow and patience is eternal blessedness achieved: “Through much tribulation we must enter into the Kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22).

The more we endure, the more we are cleansed of sins: gold becomes brighter and shinier from fire; our soul becomes purer from patience. To endure is as salutary for our soul as to be engaged in salvation. Patience is sometimes even more important than other God-pleasing deeds (Chrysostom, "On Matthew", 31). “By your patience, save your souls” (Luke 21:19)!

c) Is there any further need for encouragement to patience? Take as an example the prophets and all the righteous men of the Old and New Testaments. Sufferings and sorrows have always been the lot of God’s chosen ones on earth; with patience they conquered all evil, as well as the perpetrators of their sorrows and sufferings. Righteous Job, having lost all his riches and children, covered with scabs, drags out many days on a dunghill, comforting himself with such a pious consciousness: “Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” (Job 2:10). Meek David constantly suffered persecution from Saul, who owed him most of his victories. Humbly the Prophet Elijah withdrew into the desert to hide from the wrath of the wicked Ahab. With the advent of the blessed kingdom of Christ, after the Author and Finisher of our faith Himself suffered death on the cross, we see even more examples of the innocent sufferings of God's chosen ones and their supreme patience. Should we mention His first disciples, the Holy Apostles, who for the sake of the name of Christ suffered everything and even death; or the entire hosts of martyrs who during the first three centuries of Christianity stained the sinful earth with their holy blood?

III. Therefore, brethren, let us endure everything patiently, great and small, with faith and hope, accepting all our sufferings as punishment and as God’s mercy. “He who endures to the end will be saved” (Matt. 10:22). Amen. 

Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.