Our Sermons

Bible Passage: Job 19:23-27
Pastor: Pastor Nathan Berg
Sermon Date:  March 31, 2024

The words to one of the most beloved of all Easter hymns, words that Handel put to music in his oratorio, Messiah, words that you will see on at least one gravestone in a walk through a cemetery come from perhaps an unlikely source. These words that have framed the resurrection of Jesus that gives our faith meaning and purpose and value, these powerful wonderfully comforting words were first written in the Old Testament. And they were spoken by a man named Job. Here’s what he said:    “Oh how I wish that my words were written down. Oh how I wish that they were inscribed in bronze, that they would be engraved in rock forever with an iron tool and letters filled with lead. As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the end of time he will stand over the dust. Then, even after my skin has been destroyed, nevertheless, in my own flesh I will see God. I myself will see him. My own eyes will see him, and not as a stranger. My emotions are in turmoil within me.” Where do we find them and what prompted Job to utter these words?

We find them in the book of Job, named for the man who spoke these words. While we don’t know much about Job, he is mentioned by both the prophet Ezekiel in the Old Testament and James in the New Testament. He seems to have lived around the same time as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But Job is not a member of Abraham’s family–not a physical descendant of God’s chosen people. He is an emir or prince who rules over a large area in Uz, probably somewhere in northern Arabia or Edom. And we’re also not sure who wrote down Job’s story. It could have been written by Job himself. The Jews ascribe the book to Moses. Martin Luther figured Solomon wrote it. Others have even suggested Ezra. But we don’t know and it doesn’t matter. The book of Job is clearly part of the Old Testament books at the time of Jesus, which he very clearly called the Word of God. And that’s good enough for us! And it’ sin that spirit that we take it in our hands, and God granting it, into our hearts on this Easter morning. 

Job is described as “blameless and upright,” a man who “feared God and turned away from evil.” But that doesn’t mean that Job was sinless. That Hebrew word translated as “blameless” means complete. Job’s faith was not compartmentalized. It was not a “Sunday-morning” faith, forgotten as soon as the last hymn is sung. It touched every area of his life. He is a God-fearing man who longed for the coming of God’s promised Messiah, the one he calls his “Redeemer.” Job’s very existence emphatically reminds us that there were pockets of believers in the One, True God outside of the people of the promise. He lived a blessed life from the Lord.

Yet, when Job spoke his famous words about a living Redeemer, all was not well with Job. Amid a great debate that rages between him and his three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, Job speaks these words. He speaks when he is hurting, where there seems to be no clear light at the end of the tunnel. Perhaps you can relate. But how bad was it for Job? In one fell swoop, Job lost his flocks and herds, all his servants and all ten of his children. He lost his personal dignity and his physical health. He lost a reputation built up over a lifetime because of the dark suspicions of his closest friends, who now whisper poisonous guesses as to why all of this has happened to Job. In his grief and pain, Job parks himself on a heap of ashes out at the county landfill. His wife tells him to curse God and die–in essence to commit suicide. Yet, twice Job reaffirms his faith in God: “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. May the name of the Lord be blessed.” And again, “If we accept the good that comes from God, shouldn’t we also accept the bad?”

But the path becomes long and hard for  Job. His three friends maintain that all of this has come upon Job because of some secret sin he is hiding. Confused and in pain himself, Job demands a personal meeting with God to tell him why all this has happened when he has been “blameless and upright” all his life. But what neither Job nor this three friends can see is that backstage, in the unseen spiritual realms, Satan hurled down a challenge to God regarding the faith of God’s man, Job. Satan maintains that if God were to kick out every earthly support and prop, if Job were deprived of all earthly loved ones, wealth and health, then he would surely curse God and renounce the faith. “Job is a self-serving hypocrite, loyal only because he’s got it so good.” Satan wanted to destroy Job’s faith. God, on the other hand, allowed these things to come upon Job to strengthen his faith, to create in Job a humble faith even amid screaming tragedies Job could not understand.

“Where is God when it hurts? Why do I suffer for doing good? Why do some suffer so much more than others? And why do the people who ignore God’s will for their lives seem so often to get away with it or have it easier than me?”  All of us have asked those questions at one time or another, in the secret chambers of our hearts, when we’re suffering. And that’s what makes the book of Job a timeless classic. We can all relate. Haven’t we demanded answers from God and seemingly failed to receive them? So finally, when God himself speaks to Job, and he doesn’t answer Job’s questions, we realize that there might be something to this. God is God. He doesn’t need to answer our questions especially when he’s told us both in Job and elsewhere in the Scriptures that he’s always working for our good. The answer he gives Job in the end, the answer is not one of reason or philosophy. After all, what comfort is logic to a man wracked with pain? Job teaches us that God loves us even when we hurt, even when he allows hardship to come into our lives. We learn that God is fair even when we cannot understand him. We see how high and wide and deep is the truth that “the righteous shall live by faith,” not by brains, not by bitterly challenging our Father but by believing that nothing can touch us that has not first been cleared by our God, who loves us more than we love ourselves, who understand what we truly need more than we do ourselves. 

It’s in the midst of all his struggles and sufferings that Job soars to the pinnacle of this faith in the famous verses before us. “Oh how I wish that my words were written down. Oh how I wish that they were inscribed in bronze, that they would be engraved in rock forever with an iron tool and letters filled with lead.” And sure enough, the following words have been engraved on countless gravestones down through the centuries. And when the writing on these stones has faded, the words of Job will still be there–written in the sacred Scriptures for all time–a word that shall never pass away:  “As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the end of time he will stand over the dust. Then, even after my skin has been destroyed, nevertheless, in my own flesh I will see God. I myself will see him. My own eyes will see him, and not as a stranger. My emotions are in turmoil within me.”

“I know that my Redeemer lives!” There are a lot of things that you and I don’t know. There are so many things that we cannot be certain of. Our lives are often a riddle with questions unanswered, a puzzle with pieces left out and scrambled. And who can make sense of it all? Who can make sense out of half-finished chapters of a human life–things we should have done and didn’t, things we wanted to do and couldn’t, dreams we did not accomplish and jobs we could not finish. Who knows?

But this one thing I know. Of this one thing I am certain. My Redeemer Lives. Death is not the end. Jesus will stand upon the very dust of my grave and when my skin has been destroyed, he will surround me with skin again. And in my flesh, glorified, changed, fit for life with God in heaven, yes–but in my flesh I shall stand up again–I shall see God with my own resurrected eyes. My emotions are in turmoil within me! How I long for that day to be with Christ forever!

The word Job uses for “Redeemer” is a very special word on the pages of the Bible–the goel–the kinsman-redeemer–a close relative who takes your side, who comes to your aid and defense, one who is your advocate, one who is your kin–one who became your flesh and blood relative, who took on human flesh and blood himself to redeem you–to buy you back for God. Jesus is the only one who fits this word “Redeemer”–a living Redeemer and not a dead hero–a Redeemer who was dead and is alive again and who says, “Because I live, you also will live”—who says of every believer–”I will raise him up at the last day.” Jesus is our goel–our Redeemer–our Defender and Brother who came to give us life again.

“Where is God when I’m hurting?”–Job wondered, we wonder. To answer that question today, people are told to look inward–to their own wrestlings and strivings. Or they’re told to look to Biblical examples of others who have triumphed over trouble. Or they’re told to surrender their lives over to Christ, to invite him into your heart so you can live the victorious life. But all of this is inadequate. It puts the cart before the horse, treats the symptoms rather than the disease. By nature we are dead in our trespasses and sins. Corpses can’t triumph, surrender, or live victorious lives. We broken-down sinners need rescue before reform, resurrection before rehabilitation. I can’t wrestle my way into feeling redeemed. I don’t need to know why one storm strikes my life and another passes by–or why a different storm beats against the house of my neighbor or even why God takes me down one path and not another.

 I need to know that my Redeemer lives. I need to know that when the serpent stuck his head out of the hole on Good Friday, Christ crushed that head with his cross and sealed the deal by rolling away the stone on Easter morning. I need to know the glorious good news set down in the Gospels. Here is Easter. “When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so they could go and anoint Jesus. Very early on the first day of the week, at sunrise, they went to the tomb. They were saying to each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance to the tomb for us?” When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. He said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him.”

Over all that is sad and ugly and broken and wrong, over every sick bed and cemetery lot, over every war and disaster, this I know–Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! I know that my Redeemer lives–and that over the graves of those I love, and over the dust of my own grave the Son of God shall stand. And the bones of Job long lost in a near eastern cave shall rise–and you and I too–like Spring after Winter, like the sun on the leaves–shall rise the voice of him who said, “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” I Know that my Redeemer lives! Amen