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April 17, 2009 Great and Holy Friday
By reading on Great and Holy Friday of the recompense given the righteous Job after
his afflictions, the Church connects the Prophet's sufferings and the passion of our sinless Lord
Jesus followed by His glorious Resurrection, which together encourage you and me to endure
afflictions for the sake of virtue.
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Job 42:12-16 (4/17) Second Reading at the Great Vespers of Great and Holy Friday
Recompense: Job 42:12-16, especially vs. 12:"And the Lord blessed the latter end of Job, more
than the beginning...."
Does this reading concerning the restoration of the Prophet Job seem a strange assignment for
Great and Holy Friday? Be assured: it is no accident. We are on a journey through Great and
Holy Week, through our days and years in this present existence, and, by the grace of God,
through the process of growing in Christ. Indeed, God encourages us in this passage on this great
and holy day concerning our sufferings for virtue.
Understand, first, that this reading is the last in a series of five select passages from Job assigned
for reading from Great and Holy Monday to this Friday. The first three lessons covered the
opening of the Book of Job: 1:1-12 reported how God permitted the devil to afflict the Prophet;
1:13-22, described the ensuing catastrophe that fell on Job so that he "...arose, and rent his
garments, and shaved the hair of his head, and fell on the earth, and worshiped, and said:....the
Lord gave, the Lord has taken away..." (vss. 20, 21), and 2:10 recorded that "Job sinned not at all
with his lips before God" although "...his affliction was dreadful and very great." (2:13).
However, the Book of Job confronts every single person with the gnawing question of why God
permits affliction to fall upon those "...who go forth according to His commandments..." (Job
23:11). Job himself made an attempt to answer this issue: "...I have kept His ways; and I shall not
turn aside from His commandments, neither shall I transgress ; but I have hid His words in my
bosom" (Job 23:11,12). However, yesterday, in the fourth reading (Job 38:1-23), God
highlighted the great gulf between human and Divine understanding, thereby silencing the
Prophet, his friends, and every one of us: "And is there a store...for thee against the times of thine
enemies, for the day of wars and battle?" (Job 38:23). I am driven to prayer for mercy.
Still, God's question leads to Great and Holy Friday, and to the vexing problem of 'Why should
the Lord Jesus Christ have suffered affliction and death, being without sin?' God's answer lies in
the recompense of Job as a foreshadowing of the Resurrection of Christ. It speaks of the Lord's
abiding and overcoming love. Thus, at Orthos today, we sing the Fifteenth Antiphon: "Today He
is suspended on a Tree Who suspended the earth over the waters" [repeated three times]; and
three more times the hymn continues "Thy sufferings we adore, O Christ." And then, finally, we
are able to plead: "Make us to behold Thy glorious Resurrection."
Maximos the Confessor addresses this mystery of suffering in the world created by the loving
God. He spot-lights the Divine revelation of the Incarnate Son of God, and adds these words:
"For everyone living the life of ascetic practice who glorifies God in himself by suffering for the
sake of virtue is himself glorified in God through the dispassionate illumination of divine
realities perceived during contemplation. For the Lord said as He drew near to His passion, 'Now
is the Son of man glorified in Him. If God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in
Himself; and He will glorify Him at once' (Jn. 13:31-32). From this it is clear that divine gifts
follow sufferings endured for the sake of virtue."
The Book of Job explores the reality each one of us knows too well in his own flesh - that we
endure suffering. May you find solace in the fact that God does recompense His beloved for
sufferings endured for the sake of virtue. Job agrees that pain and death are facts of human
existence that befall God's enemies as well as those who serve God as King and Lord. Hence,
Symeon the New Theologian says, "You should be ready each day to receive all kinds of
afflictions, regarding them as your release from many sins; and you should thank God for them."
Thy Cross, O Lord, is life and resurrection for Thy people; and therein is my trust.
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