Just back from a lovely, wild, blustery Dock Walk in the windswept Titanic Quarter.  Our search for a sheltered place to listen to our Wordlive reading today led us to discover a whole new previously-unexplored part of the TQ! – a path out to the very edge of the Musgrave Channel, directly under the towering Samson and Goliath cranes.  Walking in their shadow, sheltered from the elements by a crumbling old wall, we shared insights and questions from our readings in the book of Job in the past week – and listened together to one passage, which appropriately enough began with the words “The Lord spoke to Job out of the storm…”

The book of Job is a huge, profound, difficult, deep grapple with that eternal question: why does God let bad things happen?  After 38 chapters where different characters (Job’s comforters, and Job himself) struggle with that question, God finally speaks in the last chapter.  His answer is surprising and uncomfortable – he doesn’t give the “why”, he doesn’t explain Job’s suffering away by revealing the reasons and rhythms that made it necessary.  He instead asks a series of questions – in breathtaking, poetic language – that remind Job (and us) of his power and majesty.

It’s not an answer that’s going to satisfy everyone – but it satisfies Job.  He doesn’t know Why, but he knows God, and that is enough.  Out in that windswept Titanic Quarter beneath the massive cranes, I know we were all thinking about the times we’ve asked the same questions as Job – and as we talked, prayed, listened to the incredible old hymn How Great Thou Art and stood in the midst of soft showers, turbulent sky, warm wind full of the scents of rock and rain – I think we were all reaching for that same answer.  Here’s just some of that awe-inspiring passage – the questions that God asks of Job:

How did I lay the foundation for the earth?  Were you there?  What supports the foundation?  Who placed the cornerstone, while morning stars sang, and angels rejoiced?…
Did you ever tell the sun to rise?  And did it obey?…
Job, have you ever walked on the ocean floor?  Have you seen the gate to the world of the dead?  And how large is the earth?  Tell me, if you know!…
Where is the home of light, and where does darkness live?  Can you lead them home?…
From where does lightning leap, or the east wind blow?  Who carves out a path for thunderstorms?…
Who sends torrents of rain on empty deserts where no one lives?  Rain that changes barren land to meadows green with grass…

(Job 38)