Suffering is one of the most perplexing of human experiences. If only bad people suffered as a punishment for their badness and if good people were rewarded in this life for their goodness, there would be no problem. Justice would be served. But the fact is that often it seems that the good suffer while the bad do not.

The Book of Job addresses this apparent injustice. Job represents all good people. His story is not factual. Rather it is like the parables which Jesus told and is intended to have a universal application. The details of Job's trials are not important. The author intended that we should identify ourselves with Job and adjust the specifics of the narrative to our own circumstances.

Job after suffering almost every form of devastating adversity does not arrive at a clear understanding of or a neat solution to the mystery of human suffering. Under God's promptings he comes to a blind act of faith. He concludes that he, a mere mortal, does not have the right to call into question the wisdom or the justice of an all wise and all good God.

His conclusion is all the more striking when we realize that this book was composed at a time when the revelation of a perfect life after death was not part of Israel's religion. We are called to less of a blind trust in God than was Job. Even though we must accept God's wisdom and justice, we have come to believe that through Jesus Christ we have the promise of everlasting life where every wrong will be righted and every tear washed away.