The Third Sunday Before Advent Year C

The Third Sunday Before Advent

Job 19.23–7a
2 Thessalonians 2.1–5, 13–17
Luke 20.27–38

The book of Job has always inspired strong feelings – hardly surprising, as its themes are suffering and justice. At the heart of the many paradoxes that belief in the God of the Bible presents us with is this one: that God the Creator is utterly loving and yet the world contains suffering and evil. Job is not an ‘answer’ to this problem – by their very nature, paradoxes are not susceptible to resolution, except by being proven not to be paradoxes at all. But what Job does try to do is to suggest that there are ways of living with this paradox that are religiously and humanly creative and truthful...