Job 42:6 “Therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
Today is Ash Wednesday. In some churches around the world this is a day people will go to their church and participate in a very old tradition of having the priest or pastor put a small amount of ashes on their forehead. This is supposed to be a symbol of their mortality, as in the ashes to ashes, dust to dust that we shall all return to one day. It is to remind us that we need to be right with Jesus so that when that day comes, we will have faith that will lead us to heaven.
Though that phrase is not in the bible, the book of Ecclesiastes talks about being taken from dust and returning to dust (3:20), and there are several places where the bible talks about being in sackcloth and ashes because of dealing with some dramatic problem, usually a great loss, in this life.
Job experienced that. He experienced great loss. In Job 1, Job experiences the loss of all his children, his wealth, everything he owned or had. He experienced great loss and in verses 20 - 21 he says those famous words, “Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshipped. ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’”
Job was wrestling with great loss, and he showed that by doing what people of that time did, he tore his clothes, shaved his head and likely sat in ashes and put some over his head. He took on the look of a person in mourning.
Today we would probably just stay in bed and cry all day and maybe not come out of our home for days. We would hide. Either way, people mourn and hurt deeply when they experience times of great loss. Maybe you have been there, or maybe you are there right now. It hurts. No one can fault anyone for experiencing pain when going through the hard times of life. No one thinks going through those times is easy. Life can be hard.
What is interesting to me is that Job goes through sackcloth and ashes again in chapter 42 verse 6. But this time, he is not facing some new time of hardship. His present hardship is not quite over, but there is nothing new to warrant a new dive into sackcloth and ashes.
So, what is it that prompts Job to put on the sackcloth and ashes once again? This time it is that he recognized his own pride and sin. He was showing repentance for his sin.
After going through almost all the book of Job and listening to the heresy of his friends who told Job he must be a great sinner because God punished him. The idea being that God always blesses you if you do good and always punishes you if you do bad and since Job had bad things happen he must have done great evil. But Job had not. He was just a normal guy who loved the Lord and tried to walk in his faith. After dealing with the false teachings of his friends, God finally speaks to Job. He doesn’t really say much except to ask Job if Job was smart enough to understand the deep things of God. After all, Job was questioning why bad things happened to him, a deep theological issue.
When Job realized what God was doing, showing Job how much greater God is than any human, Job realizes he should have just trusted God. God is far greater than Job, or any of us. What we need to do when facing hard times, is realize that God still loves us and that we may, or may not ever understand the hard things of life. But God is still good! We can rest in knowing that in spite of how things look sometimes, God is still good, and He still loves us.
Pastor Gary.