Loading...The past due notices on bills were coming in the mail;
The medical problems that were the reason for the bills
were still problems;
The job hours had been cut because of budget cuts
(with the specter of lay-offs out there);
The kids were struggling in school with grades and friends;
And, the spouse had filed for divorce!
These circumstances, while real and heart-breaking, are not quite
what Job experienced.
And, they may not exactly describe what you may have experienced (or are experiencing).
And, they aren’t really what the hypothetical widow in the made up question that the Sadducees put before Jesus in the Gospel story.
But, you might know something of these circumstances in the opening example. Or, something akin to what Job’s life.
And, while you know that “Easy Street” is a big lie that we’re fed by society at large, there may still be a part of you that wishes that Easy Street was true. Or, at least, that it was a little bit more true than it is.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
You may have asked the “why” question
(Why is this happening to me?!?)
or have want to ask it.
You may have just put your head down to power through whatever is going on,
and ended up worn out and worn down.
You may have worked harder and harder
trying to get ahead or, at least, catch up.
You may have begun to lose hope and slip into despair.
The light and joy may have begun to fade to darkness
and the loss may have overwhelmed you
so that you begin to think you’re in a living death.
Then you raise your fists and your voice with Job:
And say both
that God has walled up the way so that you cannot pass
and set darkness upon your path
and broken you down on every side
and not answered when you cry out to God (Job 19: 8, 10, 7)
AND, at the same time, proclaim
“I know that my Redeemer lives
and that at the last he will stand upon the earth;
and after my skin has been thus destroyed,
then in my flesh I shall see God,
whom I shall see on my side (Job 19:25-27a).
Job both clings to God and accuses God.
He has a paradoxical, yet valid, stance of faith.
Job is crying in lament and shaking his fist at God.
As do many of us.
But, our echo of Job, including the words we borrow from Job,
is not the only affinity we have with him:
Even in the midst of his overwhelming despair and loss,
he does not give up on God!
Even in the midst of what feels like death,
Job declares that his Redeemer lives and that he will see God.
All is not lost.
There is hope.
There is reason to hope.
And this is our song, too.
As people of faith, as the beloved of God,
we sing of life – eternal life – in God.
We may not know what “resurrection” means, nor what it will look like.
After all, Jesus refused to answer the question posed to him by Sadducees.
And Scripture does not offer us a definitive answer.
But, we DO know that our Redeemer gives us life.
In the midst of despair, we have hope and we have reason to hope
because again and again,
God has brought us
from slavery to freedom
from exile to homecoming
from brokenness to healing
from loss to grace
from death to life.
And because we know this truth deeply in our bones, in our minds, and in our hearts, we live as people of hope and reconciliation even in the broken world of violence, hatred, and plain ol’ meanness!
Because we know the truth of God’s love
even when we are grieving and in the depth of loss,
we live as people who lift up our heads and speak (or whisper)
the hope we know in Christ.
Because we know the truth of God’s love
we sing our lament and our joy in song:
I know that my Redeemer lives!
What comfort this sweet sentence gives!
He lives, he lives, who once was dead;
he lives, my everliving head!
He lives to silence all my fears;
he lives to wipe away my tears;
he lives to calm my troubled heart; ...
I know that my Redeemer lives!
(Samuel Medley)
Amen
