Easter 2024

Easter
April 9, 2024
Mark 16:1-8

Easter Sunday
March 31, 2024 A+D
Job 19:23-27

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Job’s bold confession, “I know that my Redeemer lives,” is one of the most important passages in all of Holy Scripture. His example of where to find comfort in the midst of scoffers is maybe more necessary in our age than it has ever been before.This great confession, “I know that my Redeemer lives” should be on our lips every day.

The book of Job begins with God holding court. He praises Job as righteous. Satan, the accuser, challenges God. He claims that Job does not love Him but only acts like he is righteous in order to manipulate God to get what he wants. Satan says that if God were to let Job suffer and not reward him, then his true character would emerge and it would show how shallow and self-serving Job really is. God accepts the challenge. He hands all that Job has over to Satan and Job’s famous misery begins.

On the surface the question is about justice and suffering. Job is innocent, but he suffers horrific loss. His friends believe that God’s justice means that anyone suffering deserves it. They accuse Job of being wicked because they believe that God punishes the wicked and rewards the righteous. This is the modern idea of reincarnation or karma. According to such teaching you shouldn’t feel sorry for those who suffer because they deserve it and God is getting even with them for what they did in a past life. According to them, you shouldn’t feel sorry for the baby born disfigured and in pain because her mother is drug addict who poisoned her in the womb. That baby deserves it. Can you see what a horrific, satanic doctrine this is? It is judgemental in the worst sense of the term and it poses as wisdom and charity, while claiming that Christianity and its offer of free forgiveness is bigoted and oppressive.

Job hates it. So should we all. Job chafes under their accusations. They are unfair and unreasonable. At times, under this pressure and in his weakness, Job gives in to despair. He is suffering terribly. He finds no comfort from his friends and his theology isn’t holding up. He even curses the day he was born, claiming that God had punished him without cause, and despising God’s most precious gift, life itself.

But while he waffles, sometimes even blasphemes, Job doesn’t lose faith. In the middle of it all, he claims not innocence but hope for and an eager expectation of a Redeemer. He says:

25 For I know that my Redeemer lives,
And He shall stand at last on the earth;
26 And after my skin is destroyed, this I know,
That in my flesh I shall see God,
27 Whom I shall see for myself,
And my eyes shall behold, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me! (Job 19:25–27 , NKJV)

He is a man of two minds: part of him is angry at the wickedness in this world and is exhausted with pain and sorrow and disappointment at the seeming arbitrary reality of evil. Yet the other part still holds on to the hope that God is good and all powerful and wise. That part, by the gift of the Holy Spirit, knows what is real and eternal. There is a Redeemer, God in the Flesh, the living God as a living Man.

Then a a new friend arrives. He is the a young man Elihu. He is angry with Job because Job justified himself rather than God. He is also angry with Job’s friends because they had condemned Job. Their theology doesn’t simply fail, it is dead wrong. It is not man’s place to condemn men. They should have seen in Job’s sorrows and opportunity for service not a time to feel superior. Elihu explains that God can use suffering to expose pride and take away idols. It is not just punishment. It can be a chastisement, a rebuke and warning, a setting of boundaries to keep His servants safe. God is love and moves purposefully. We cannot see t