The Gospel According to Job

By confronting God as I did in the Bible, I inadvertently created an Ego crisis in Almighty God’s life that became the turning point in its whole Gospel Story! When God introduces Himself to us in the Old Testament, He does so by giving us His name. He is the Big ‘I-AM’ of the Bible! He apparently wants His Sovereignty to be understood by whatever His Ego Decides to do. I imagine you can get a pretty inflated opinion of Yourself doing whatever You want to do without any questions being asked. “Consequently, my challenge of God’s fairness in how He was treating me and my family was not only new to God but made Him realize that He had no idea what it meant for someone -- other than Himself -- to bear His Image. We weren’t just another planet He could spin in an assigned orbit for His amusement. Nor could we be used as stakes in a bet to reassure His Divine Ego. I don’t know if God’s wager meant that He had a gambling habit or an insecure Ego, but whatever it was; God gave a ‘wink and a nod’ to whoever it was that was messing up my life. His Ego’s behavior, His need to win a bet!!!!! -- such pettiness -- was, and still is, I think unbecoming to Someone of His stature. It is ungodly! Shame on Him! “Well, ‘Shame on me,’ my friends from Church were quick to reply! In order to keep God’s hands clean, they apparently felt it necessary to locate the reasons for my innocent suffering in some hidden “nastiness committed behind my bathroom door.” Everything was all my fault! “I don’t know why it is that Religion feels it necessary to locate the blame for-- even innocent suffering -- at our door-step, while ignoring the Sovereignty of God. Maybe, they are afraid that if we aren’t to blame for all the ills of this world, perhaps Life is just governed by Chance and nothing more than a sick joke told by Random Chaos – a god whose face is too horrid to behold! “My challenge of God, therefore, made I-AM look at Himself and His wager -- and for the FIRST time in His Eternity -- God was confronted with His Ego’s Arrogant Ignorance! He realized that He had no idea what His desire for companionship meant, nor what a real relationship with His Image in us required of Him. “I think it was in one of your television series on the Cosmos that Carl Sagan observed, ‘We are the only way the Universe has of understanding itself.’ Similarly, because God has Decided to create us in His image, WE become the mirrors in which God sees and understands Himself. By looking at His Image in me and my challenge of His ungodly behavior, God not only saw Himself, but He didn’t like what He saw! “Ironically, it was my humanity -- created in the Image of God’s own Ego -- that was daring God to take the mask of His Omnipotence off, leave the safety and security of Heaven, and enter the fray of human Reality. His Ego needed to find out what it was like to be human. Which is why God Decided He needed to, not only find out what it was like to bear His Image as a human being, but Apologize to us for Ego’s arrogance. His Son, Jesus, is that Word of Apology made flesh! “His Decision constitutes what the Apostle Paul sees as God’s Act of Reconciliation in Christ. As Paul sees it, “God was in Christ, Reconciling the God world to Himself.” God does not merely forgive our sins -- indeed, He does not even count them against us -- because He, Himself, understands and has taken responsibility for His role in creating the problem of our alienation. Christ’s death is, therefore, an atonement for God’s Sin as well as ours. Neither we, nor God can escape the consequences of Sin’s Seriousness. Jesus becomes not only our Savior, but God’s as well! “Thus, my Gospel is not only Good News for the world but also Good News for God as well. Just as a Composer cannot truly appreciate his or her music until they hear it performed by a Symphony Orchestra, so too, I-AM does not know the effect on us of His Decision to Apologize until He sees it reflected in our Jesus Story. Similar to my original challenge to God, therefore, the Church’s Jesus Story must become the mirror in which God again sees and understands Himself -- but now -- as He wants to be seen and understood. God has entrusted Himself and His Ego’s Apology to our interpretation of His Decision in Christ. He is as dependent on us as He was on Mary to give birth to Jesus. We are the ones who must make His Decision public. Once again, the Great I-AM of the Bible is gambling on us. He is staking everything on our ability to get the Story right -- to make known His Act of Reconciliation to bridge the gap between Heaven and Earth -- and give Him back His Soul’s Sincere Desire; namely, the Companionship with us that He had originally longed for in “The Beginning.” How the Story of I-AM’s Decision to Apologize is told becomes incredibly important to Him! The GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOB, understands what is required of a Gospel Story when God and Man take each other seriously.