“Look at the monster Behemoth,” God told Job. “He eats grass like a
cow. His tail stands up like a cedar. His bones and legs are like iron
bars….”
What is this creature that feeds on the grass of the hillsides and
hides among the reeds in the swamp?
A friend told of the opportunity she had to determine what the
storytellers were trying to describe.
Her family set up their tent near a well-worn animal trail near an
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African waterway, and settled for the night.
As the sun set, the ground started to shake. “Behemoths” rose from the
water and marched to a near-by meadow.
Again, just as the sun rose, the grazing animals moved back and
vanished in the depths of the river.
How magnificent the hippopotamus.
“I created him,” God reminded Job, “and I created you.”
Those few chapters that describe the story of Creation leave me
awestruck.
“Were you there when I made the world? Who closed the gates to hold
back the sea when it burst forth from the womb of the earth?
“Job, have you ever in all your life commanded a day to dawn? Have you
ever visited the storerooms where I keep the snow and the hail? Have
you ever watched wild deer give birth?”
Job’s eyes and ears were opened to old sights and sounds made new. He
was lifted beyond his own suffering and despair.
It was not his to know all the answers to what caused his pain but it
was his to seize the opportunity to understand the world in a new way.
The images God gave him were like a textbook on hope. He would carry it
close to his heart, and it would feed his spirit.
Can we do the same as we prepare ourselves for the times ahead?
Joyce Sasse is a retired United Church minister and author who lives in
Pincher Creek, Alta.
