The church doesn't know what to do with Jesus

Premise: Elihu is a type of the soulish church (as opposed to the true Church/bride of Christ). And Elihu doesn't know what to do with Job. As Job is a type of Christ (true suffering servant, afflicted without cause, interceding for others), Elihu reveals much about the church throughout the past 2000 years.

Elihu bursts on the scene from nowhere as a response to Job's tragic affliction, just as the soulish church shows up as a cultural response to the incredible circumstances of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. Every spectacular (and supernatural) phenomenon draws a crowd.

Elihu's first response is burning anger. Three times in 32:2, and once in v. 5, he is described as burning with anger. Although he is never mentioned as an observer, apparently he accompanies Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar at the end of chapter two when they meet to console Job. Or maybe not; maybe he showed up later because 2:11 is explicite that Job's three friends — not four — made an appointment to meet.

Although there's no evidence for his presence during the three cycles of the dialogues, he knows what the friends have said to Job, and he's enraged that they haven't proved their claim that Job was wrong in asserting his innocence before God and man. He also knows every detail that Job has claimed, that the friends have refuted unsuccessfully. More rage. Nobody has a clue, he says.

How is this like the church? From the beginning there has been a soulish  church that doesn't know what to do with this suffering servant, this sacrificial lamb. Jesus just doesn't get it right, and needs some extra help to understand what justice and righteousness really look like. Jesus should be doing something about the evil in the world, rather than just taking the hits he takes without pronouncing judgment on the perpetrators. 

Job's friends are getting a taste of what Jesus struggled through alone in the garden of Gethsemane on the night he was betrayed: "Why is this happening? can't you do this another way? how about I pass on this horrible sacrifice I'm being asked to make?" Jesus did this in a couple of two-hour sessions in the early dead-of-night hours on Good Friday, whereas Job is engaged in a series of arguments with his friends about a similar trial; in each case, God is silent. Not forever, but for now.

Jesus' disciples slept through his struggle, while Job's friends cut him no slack and attacked him for his self-righteousness. Today I see some parts of the church struggling with Jesus' passivity — their misunderstanding of his meekness and complete submission to the prophetic purpose of his atoning death, which was the essential prerequisite for his triumphant resurrection. Their struggle sometimes takes the form of rejecting Christ's strategies of listening for the Father's words, watching for his direction, and being willing to die to our agenda so we can adopt his. Like Pastor Dave said today at church, some people know more than God.