This is a video preview of the last vignette. Me and Boulder's pre-eminent expert of gospel voice, Mr. Fred Peterbark, will begin the Vignette with a truly inspirational rendition of "It is Well With My Soul", text by Horatio Spafford. This silent film will proceed, and will be accompanied by an ensemble of fantastic musicians, with whom I am so fortunate to be collaborating. Towards the end of the film, there will be a short dance by the spectacular singer/actor/body-worker Garrett Gene Smith, who will be playing Job throughout the show. Biographies will be posted shortly.
TEXT to the FILM
Is it well with your soul? How can it be well or even more well with your soul today? Do you think you’re alone in what you are going through? You are never alone.
Job’s story is mirrored in all who experience suffering of any depth, regardless of generalized labels such as Good and Bad, Right and Wrong, Virtue and Evil.
Imagine all who have succumbed to natural disasters – Phuket in 2004, dust storms and drought in the 30s in America, Katrina in 2005, the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, the Shaanxi earthquake in 1556, which killed 830,000 people, and countless more. How many of them eventually recovered? How many didn’t? Many Jobs were there.
Afterwards, when situation improved, can you imagine the singing? Can you imagine the dancing? Can you imagine the joy?!?
Job was perfect and upright. Was Job innocent? Christianity dictates that all are sinners, but our sins were nailed to the cross along with Jesus. Jesus’ sacrifice for the sins of humanity is like Job’s sacrifice for God. William Blake draws this conclusion in his illustrations. Can a person ever truly be innocent? Are babies innocent?
In the Qur’an, Satan visits Job and his wife in the form of a man. He reminds his wife, who also remained steadfast in her faith, about her prosperity before the affliction. She immediately bursts into tears, and asks Job to pray to God for their wealth. Job reminds his wife that the affliction has not lasted that long relatively. He then tells her that he will be her with 100 strokes for complaining. Fortunately, for Job’s wife, after the doubled return of their wealth, Job felt horrible about the oath to hit his wife. God revealed to Job that he does not have to beat her, but gently hit her with 100 blades of grass.
Is affliction a sign of sin? According to Job’s “friends” and some modern mystics, YES. The mystical approach to Job views Job as a heretic. According to this approach, Job assumes he is perfect in chapter 3, and therefore God has no right to punish him. And Job’s “friends” constantly claim that God would not have punished him if he were truly “perfect and upright.”
Jesus had another approach. When Jesus encounters a blind man, someone asks Him, “Who sinned? This man or his parents, that he is blind?” Jesus replies, “It was not this man nor his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him.” Then Jesus heals him. How is your soul now?
Consider this: Theodacy is a study of how divine attributes are vindicated in establishing or allowing the existence of physical and moral evil. In essence, where was God’s holiness and justice when Satan was allowed to afflict Job?
Rabbi Harold Kushner has written that the greatness of the Job story lies in its focus on three propositions that can not be true at the same time: first – God is all powerful; second – God is just; and third – God let a good person, Job, suffer.
Think upon your suffering. Have you ever thought of it as God letting you suffer? Have you thought of your suffering as some power greater than you looking down upon you and not helping you along? Have you felt like Job?
David and Nancy Guthrie are both carriers of a recessive gene for Zellweger Syndrome, a horrible disorder. The odds of carrying this gene are 1 and 160. The odds of two carriers meeting and falling in love are 1 and 100,000.
While they may not be “perfect and upright”, and while they didn’t lose everything as well as become physically afflicted with boils, their daughter Hope lived only 199 days. She was too mentally damaged to feel the physical agony she was in every day. David immediately underwent a vasectomy. Yet, Nancy became pregnant with another boy, who was born with Zellweger Syndrome.
Fortunately, their friends did not leave them or treat them badly, like Job’s three friends. However, many of them said they wouldn’t judge David and Nancy if they decided to abort the boy, a thought that never crossed the minds of this questioning, confused, yet faithful couple.
They felt like Job. Questioning, wanting answers, yearning for a direct confrontation. Yet, through the frustration, they remained steadfast and optimistic. Regarding Job, Nancy writes: “He was blessed through his brokenness, by his restless pursuit of God. He had a new, more intimate relationship with God, one he never could have found without pain and sorrow.”
Viktor Frankl knew suffering. He was a neurologist, a psychiatrist, and a Holocaust survivor. His contribution to existential therapy focuses on man finding meaning in all forms of existence. He writes, “An active life serves the purpose of giving man the opportunity to realize values in creative work, while a passive life of enjoyment affords him the opportunity to obtain fulfillment in beauty, art, or nature. But there is also purpose in that life which is almost barren of both creation and enjoyment and which admits of but one possibility of high moral behavior: namely, in man's attitude to his existence, an existence restricted by external forces. A creative life and a life of enjoyment are banned to him. But not only creativeness and enjoyment are meaningful. If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.”
Dr. George Samuel knows this full well. Three of his four children died from cystic fibrosis. He lost his wife, Elizabeth, to poliomyelitis. Three months after his wife died, his mother died. Three months after that, his father died.
He says, “Repeatedly I was personally able to celebrate the certainty of our hope in Jesus. Because of the certainty, I am able to set the priorities for today and look forward to tomorrow.”
His son Johny, who died of cystic fibrosis, yet lived much longer than expected, was a true scholar. For the most part, he was in too much pain to physically write himself, and asked his father to dictate his thoughts. Throughout Johny’s suffering, he authored five books. He affirms, “What happens to us is not as important as what happens through us.” He further acknowledges, “The empty tomb is the birthplace of eternal certainty.”
Albert Snyder is the father of fallen Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder. While he didn’t lose everything, the grief felt by the death of his son was met with evangelical Christians protesting at the funeral. Much like the illogical accusations of Job’s would-be comforters, the Christians from the Westboro Baptist Church believe that Lance Corporal Snyder’s death came as a result of America’s tolerance for homosexuality, despite the high number of hate crimes, anti-gay demonstrations, and legislation like “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” that was still in place at the time. Job has words that echo what Matthew could and probably would have said to these would-be comforters, if Matthew were able to address them.
“If I speak, my pain is not relieved; and if I refrain, it does not go away. If only you would be altogether silent! For you, that would be wisdom.”
In the same way that Job wished for his accusers’ hearts to become pure, in the same way he held no grudge against them, Windy Miller held no grudge against those who murdered her two sons and stuffed them in a trash bag, and ultimately in a shopping cart. “What can I do?” she said. “I’m not at liberty to do anything and I’m not a violent person. I’m a modern-day Job. You can take my children. You can take whatever. I’m still going to praise the Lord.” … and she still does … How is your soul now?
Horatio Spafford also praised the Lord, despite his tragedy.
A lawyer, Horatio dealt mostly with real estate and had much money invested in this market in Chicago. He lost most of his wealth during the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. His only son also died around this time. After the tragedy, despite his own losses, he devoted his time to assisting others in their grief and sudden poverty.
Two years later, he decided to take the family on a vacation: him, his wife, and his four daughters. Eager to begin the vacation as soon as possible, he sent off his family on the vessel the Ville du Havre, while he remained behind to finish up some business. He promised to meet them in Europe in a timely manner. The Ville du Havre, en route to England, crashed into an English iron ship, the Loch Earn, off the coast of Newfoundland. It sank within 20 minutes.
Horatio received the horrible news. And, after thinking the worst had happened, he received a telegram from his wife:
“Saved Alone”
He lost his four daughters – Maggie, Tanetta, Annie, and Bessie. But his wife, Anna, managed to cling to a floating piece of the wreckage. She was one of 47 survivors. Horatio immediately left to join his wife in England. It is thought that he composed the words to one of America’s most beloved hymns on this journey.
When peace like a river attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.
Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.
My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, oh my soul!
For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life,
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.
But Lord, ‘tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
The sky, not the grave, is our goal;
Oh, trump of the angel! Oh, voice of the Lord!
Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul.
And Lord haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.
And now, I say to you:
When light seems so far from the bridge you want to cross,
And life's hassling you for the toll,
Just pause, breath, and say that there is a better way,
And be glad, oh, so glad, for your soul!
Is it well with your soul? Let it be well …
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