Tying Loose Ends...afterthoughts on today's sermon: job 19:23-27

Today’s sermon entitled, “An Easter Faith” was based on Job 19:23-27. The challenge our text posed was how to reconcile Job’s words with our Christian identity. After all, when we read/hear Job we do as Christians. Yet that does not mean we ignore the immediate context set before us. Listen to Job’s words:

“Oh that my words were written!
    Oh that they were inscribed in a book!
Oh that with an iron pen and lead
    they were engraved in the rock forever!
For I know that my Redeemer lives,
    and at the last he will stand upon the earth.
 And after my skin has been thus destroyed,
    yet in my flesh I shall see God,
 whom I shall see for myself,
and my eyes shall behold, and not another. 
My heart faints within me!
  










What appears to be taking place with Job is he is having a vision of hope when he says, “I know my Redeemer lives.” Job is speaking with the inner eye of faith informing his speech. Hope has come alive in him. Who is his redeemer that he speaks so surely of that he knows? It is he who will be raised up (our English version says stand upon) on the earth. After his skin is destroyed, whether in or out of the flesh, God knows, I shall see God (1 Cor. 12:2). Job has discovered the Truth. He had been thinking and believing of God only in this life and not beyond. Christians have been gifted with the Revelation to know that this life is not all there is. God is Lord here and hereafter. This is what Job learns, but only fleetingly. It escapes him and life forges ahead. How Job’s heart faints within himself because the momentary Revelation of the hope is only glimpsed at from afar. We who know God in the person of Jesus Christ have been drawn near. An Easter faith lives with the promise of all things made new. Hold on Job; hold on church; to the hope of Jesus Christ. We are almost there. Come Lord Jesus, come. Amen.

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