"I made the behemoth," God says — probably the hippopotamus. The creature is of no particular use: "Can anyone capture him when he is on the watch, With barbs can anyone pierce his nose?" The ancient world considered the hippo a chaotic monster that had to be destroyed — but not God. "He ranks first among the works of God." It's as if God is saying, "Best thing I ever did. I had my 'A' game going the day I made the behemoth."
God takes pleasure in wild oxen that will never plow; the wild donkey that will never be tamed; mountain goats that give birth in secret places man will never see; the leviathan that no one can catch. "Nothing on earth is his equal."
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God creates, cares for, gives to, and delights in animals that don't appear to be good for anything. Why should God love a world like that? Anne Dillard writes, "Because the creator loves pizzazz." He revels in the beauty of the least strategic creature. What God is really telling Job is, "I'm worth it. Life, following me-it's all worth it. Don't give up. This pain is not going to last forever. I am the kind of God who is worth getting close to."
That is because God is gratuitously good — and uncontrollably generous — and irrationally loving. He just gives for no reason at all. It's his nature.
"God loves pizzazz." Maybe that's why we're here.
Made to Charm Him
My favorite author writes,
And when I begin to think about God's wild extravagance, his wastefulness, his passion for the unnecessary and the excessive and the completely useless, I am struck by a thought so wonderfully freeing I can do nothing but laugh. What if that extravagance extends to me? I am not a soldier for God, or a valued servant in the kingdom. I am a jester! I am the celestial equivalent of a peacock — a tiara — a talking doll. We were not made to serve God. We were made to charm him.
Job never does find out about the conversation in heaven. In that sense, his story is our story. On this earth we live on the lower stage. Winter comes, and we don't know why.
But Job finds out about something better. He finds out who God is.
"My ears had heard of you
but now my eyes have seen you." That's enough.
God knows. God cares.
When God himself came to the earth, he came in winter. Jesus, like Job, was known as a "man of sorrows." He was acquainted with grief.
Where was God? He was on the ash heap. He, like Job, was so torn by suffering that no one recognized him: "We considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted." He himself would go through the winter of the absence of God: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
On the cross is the ultimate paradox: God experiencing the absence of God so that he can draw close to us in our loss and grief and even in our God-forsakeness.
