( Job 2:1-13 ) - [ Deutsch ]
Perhaps some of you remember the advertisements from the 80s: Idyll, Swiss mountains, green meadow, 2 purple cows and delicate cowbell ringing. And a voice saying: Milka, in purple paper. The softest temptation since chocolate was invented.
But it's not tender and it's not exciting and it's not much fun. The temptation. Maybe for a short moment. But in the long run, nothing good usually comes of it.
Those who are tempted are put to the test. It's about moral values that a person stands by or just gives up at that moment.
Being honest, even if it puts me at a disadvantage? To evade taxes when no one sees it? To let someone give me something and then bribe them with it? Can I remain true to myself?
Sunday Invokavit is about temptation.
Dear congregation, I am happy about the novel character Job in the sermon text today. He plays a very central role when it comes to temptation.
The book of Job in the Old Testament belongs to world literature and is one of the oldest and most comprehensive texts in the Bible. The book was written between the 5th and 3rd century B.C. and reacts to the time after the exile in Babylon. In 586 BC, the troops of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II destroyed Jerusalem and its temple. destroyed Jerusalem and its temple. The leading class of the Jews was deported to the Babylonian empire.
And in exile, in a foreign country, they thought anew about how to explain it - this infinitely great suffering that has now hit them. But it also hits people everywhere again and again. And what, above all, does God have to do with it? Is he responsible for it? Are we being punished because the generations before us sinned? At least that was the explanation for suffering up to that time.
Influential circles arose in Israel at that time and they thought: besides Yahweh, besides God, there must be a second power. A good God against an evil God, so to speak, and both are equally strong.
And it is precisely to this idea of the dualism of two powers that the author of the Job novella reacts.
In a prologue, we are introduced to the main character Job. And excitingly, he is not an Israelite, but one could say a pagan. He comes from the land of Uz, the border region between today: Jordan and Saudi Arabia. He is considered a role model. Because Job was righteous and upright. God-fearing. He kept away from all evil. And he was very, very rich.
But then ... Job falls into misfortune. There is talk of a heavenly court council. And when the sons of God come together, one thing is clear: YahwehGod sits on the throne and the sons of God, including Satan, come before him and all have to give an account of what they do and do not do. It is Yahweh alone who sits on the throne and is in charge. He alone has the power. He is the boss.
This heavenly scene occurs twice in the prologue.
Satan, translated: the troublemaker who always drifts across, had challenged Yahweh the first time at the gathering. For he knows the people, he roams the earth. He investigates exactly what people are doing. He is interested in them. And he wants to know why they stick to God. What is their motivation?
A good question, actually: what does faith bring me? Do I hope to gain anything from it?
"Have you taken care of my faithful servant Job? There is no one else like him in the world" God asks Satan.
Satan is sure: Job is only a God-fearing man because he is doing well. He has everything. "Why should he not believe in you?" he asks Yahweh the counter question. "Faith is pure calculation for Job. You are only a means to an end for him. But take away your blessing from him: he will publicly deny you."
And so it happened. Yahweh went along with the wager. That is, HE,
God alone was responsible for putting Job's faith to the test. And so Job loses everything he has. Job remains faithful to God, submits to Him and pays homage to Him. Satan has to make amends.
Sermon text from Job 2:1-13
Job's health is at stake. "His skin will be more important to him. He will curse you to your face." Satan is convinced of this. And God gives him into Satan's hand, but also sets him a limit: spare his life. Again it becomes clear: Satan only gets the power that God grants him. Job gets bad ulcers from top to bottom. Skin diseases were considered contagious. The sick had to go to a place outside the city, the so-called mazballah, a hill on which burnt residue and ashes from the oven were piled up. There Job sat and scraped his itchy skin and rubbed himself with ashes that acted like a powder coating against heat and cold.
And Job... keeps faithful to God.
At first you think: what kind of a wife has he got who advises him to curse against God. But you have to consider: she actually means well with him. She sees how he is suffering and wishes him a quick death. If Job curses God, he must be stoned to death. The suffering would come to an end.
Job is suffering, he has lost everything. I could understand if he wanted to die. But Job rejects his wife. He resists the temptation.
And says the famous sentence: Have we received good from God and should we not also accept evil?
Satan was wrong once again.
Dear congregation, I wish I could follow Job in this when suffering comes to me. But no one can predict it. Suffering hits you.
It is sometimes hard to connect the loving merciful almighty God with the endless misery in the world. How can he allow this? The classic theodicy question.
There is no explanation for the suffering and no answer as to why God gives in to Satan here in the throne room with Job.
What possibilities are there to understand God when he acts incomprehensibly for us? What does this mean especially for the experience of suffering and death? Martin Luther found the distinction between the deus absconditus, the hidden God, and the deus revelatus, the revealed and preached God, to be able to deal with this question theologically:
For me it is clear: Job is a model for me. Not the afflicted is "the" Job, but the one who holds on to God.
The one who holds on to God in all temptations, no matter how tender they seem to be, is the one who is actually strong in faith. God is higher than our understanding. Job knows that, and that makes him an example.
Have we received good from God and should we not also accept evil?
Confessing Him and looking at the Holy Scriptures help us to stand firm in the temptations of life and to serve God properly: Feeding the hungry, clothing the poor.
And when it gets too hard? Then hopefully - as with Job - friends are there to mourn with us, to comfort us, to encourage us.
Amen