Oh, that my Redeemer lives! He does!

     It is with a bit of trepidation that I enter the pulpit this morning and preach on the Gospel according to Job.  Visitors are wondering if I have lost my mind.  I may have.  I do take seriously, though, Jesus’ claim that all the Scriptures are about Him.  So, in a real sense, even the Old Testament books point to His redeeming work and purpose—the Good News, to use the language of the New Testament.  My trepidation is two-fold.  First, I spent some significant time this week in Birmingham considering and reflecting on homiletics.  More importantly to each of you gathered, I spent a significant portion of my time reflecting on my homiletics, or preaching if you prefer.  Preachers like Vaughn Roberts of St. Ebbs in Great Britain and Dr. Robert Smith of Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, and others in between, reminded us of some basics and shared more of their own reflections about what works and does not work in this age.  With three days of intense study, y’all know you are in trouble!  I’m fired up!  With our patronal season and Christmas right around the corner, I am in a good spot spiritually, but y’all might not be there with me.  So, there’s some concern.

     It’s good that most of us gathering are laughing.  I understand that some of you really value my preaching.  Some of you share your thoughts and reflections; others of you share what you think are distractions as constructive criticisms.  8 o’clock Adventers, in particular, are great about offering constructive criticisms.  “I wish you’d said more on this and less on that.”  “Could you explain ______ better?”  The Liturgy of the Word is supposed to be important.  It is during that part of our gathering that God begins to prepare you, to teach you, for the work He has in store for you in the future.

     The other cause of my trepidation, though, is the clear sense I had to preach yet again on Job.  This will be the third time this year that I have preached on Job.  Those new to Advent may not know this, but in a prior life, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away to use the language of the upcoming Disney channel launch, I did a MA in religion at the University of Dallas.  My MA thesis in religion was on the book of Job.  I spent way too much time studying the book, dissecting the book, looking at the bark on each of the trees in the forest we call Job.  Sometimes, my sermons on Job can be exciting to me but bore folks in the pew to death.  That is not the trepidation today, though.  Not at all.  I have that calm confidence from knowing this message I have is from God.  I am so calm and so confident that I am certain more than one Adventer needs to hear this sermon.  But that means we will revisit the discussions from earlier in the year, when quite a number of Adventers asked me to consider a Bible Study on Job.  I was too busy then.  With Tina gone now, though, there’s no chance . . . unless y’all pack the Tuesday evening Bible Study and convince them to move on to Job after we finish with Luke.  But seriously, there is nothing more frustrating and worrying as a pastor than hearing that your flock has a bit of a hunger, but there are limits to what can be done.  And so I know, if I preach this sermon faithfully, and if it is from God and for a number of Adventers, I will be disappointing them again if I discern I just do not have the time to teach Job.  So yes, there is some trepidation about this.

     Now, that all being said, I am always available for questions.  If you are one of those kinda wishing I would do that class, read the book on your own.  Read a chapter a day.  Read a story a day.  I’m always willing to answer questions as they arise.  It is a rich book, an important book, and I wish we spent more than three or four weeks in it during our three-year lectionary cycle.

     Our assigned passage today takes place in the middle of the book.  To remind you about the story of Job, the story begins with Satan, whose name means accuser in Hebrew, in the heavenly council, challenging God.  Satan, we learn, has been going to and fro’ over the earth.  God asks if Satan has considered Job, His faithful servant, Job.  Satan downplays Job’s faith and righteousness.  Job only worships You because You bless him.  Eventually, God allows Satan to have his way with Job.

     Satan has Job’s family killed, Job’s flocks—we should think wealth—pillaged and stolen, and Job’s health taken away.  To make matters worse, of course, all these catastrophes cause Job to lose standing, to be shamed really, in the eyes of those whom he loved and respected and who, in turn, love and respect him, at least until now.  His wife will give him that wonderful advice to curse God and die.  We understand her pain, right?  She has just lost her children and grandchildren?  She has lost the family farm and all the wealth.  God has done nothing to help her or her husband or her family as the invading army and bad weather accosted them.  Job has done everything asked of him by God and what does he, or she, have to show for it?  Similarly, Job’s friends know he has sinned terribly against God.  They KNOW that God only punishes those who sin.  If we experience terrible things in life, it’s because God is cursing us.  Conversely, they believe the corollary to be true as well: If we are blessed, God is clearly pleased with us.  In reality, their comfort, their sympathy is an accusation.  “Job, buddy, this is all your fault.  You need to confess your sins to God.”  When Job protests his innocence, the friends are, at first, shocked, and later, angry with him.  In fact, our passage today is part of that initial protest made by Job that he has done nothing wrong.  He has made the appropriate sacrifices.  In fact, he has made sacrifices on behalf of his children in case they forgot a sin.

     There is, following our assigned passage today, a back and forth between the friends and Job.  God blesses those whom He loves and curses those whom He hates.  Since Job is clearly cursed, God hates him for his unrepentant sin—that will be the argument of the friends who are trying to help him.

     Job’s continued protestations of his innocence eventually cause what we might charitably call righteous anger on the part of his friends.  They truly think they know God and His ways.  Worse, they think God needs defending against the accusations made by Job.  Poor Elihu, the youngster of the group.  He makes the most passionate, the most sincere, the most angry defense of God and His ways.  And Elihu is so misguided that his argument prompts God to appear in the whirlwind among this human gathering.  How would you like to be making your best, most passionate defense of God and be so wrong that, as a result, God appears and thunders “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?”  Would that more of us thought that might happen if we misrepresent Him and his ways!

     What follows is a question and answer with Job that drives some commentators nuts.  God reminds Job, and the friends, and us, that we cannot apprehend Him unless He condescends to reveal parts of Himself to us.  God fashions the stars, the earth, and all that is contained in the sky, on the earth and seas, and under the earth.  He plays with leviathan like a fisherman plays with a guppy and leads behemoth around life a puppy dog.  God is orders of magnitude beyond us, and we can only discern what He reveals to us.  Put simply, we only know what we know about God because He wants us to know it.

     Job, of course, realizes the truth of God’s statement and says he spoke of things he did not understand, of things beyond him and too glorious.  That personal encounter with the Lord has reminded Job of all that every bit as much as God’s questions.  In what absolutely tickles me when I read it, God tells the friends that, unless Job makes a sacrifice on their behalf, His wrath will consume them and their families.  They are each to bring Job seven bulls and seven rams and ask Job to intercede on their behalf.  I chuckle at this because I wish, sometimes, God still did this.  I loathe poor counseling during times of mourning or lamentation.  Every time I hear someone say “God needed another angel” or “they are in a better place“ or “they deserved that natural catastrophe because people there sin against God” I wish and pray that God would do the whirlwind thing again.  Can you imagine how much pastoral care would improve?  But, then I come to my senses and realize the whirlwind would likely be following me around in the world, and so I give thanks that Jesus bore the consequences of my sins on that Cross two thousand years ago.

     Really, that’s what this book is about.  Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ.  That’s why I said it was a Good News book of the Bible.  As Episcopalians we cannot read this passage from Job 19 and not hear our Burial liturgy.  God knows we do so many funerals nowadays that this is etched in our collective memory.  It serves as the source of the middle paragraph of the beginning of the service, when the priest stands at the back of the church, asks the congregation to stand, and begins with the words . . . “I am Resurrection and I am Life.”  I see the nods.  It’s only been a couple weeks since Joan’s funeral, so we should all be familiar with the beginning of the liturgy.

     Job’s longing desire is the same of all of us who follow God, who claim Him as Lord of our lives.  He and we want to be vindicated, honored, recognized for our choice to follow God.  We recognize that we live in this world where death happens as a result of sin, but we believe, we truly believe, that Jesus has destroyed death.  Those in the world outside these walls either wonder or mock us for believing that we can believe we will live forever and yet still die, that we can sing an alleluia at a grave, all the while proclaiming a God, a Lord, who has the power to prevent all bad things from happening.  In many ways, that is the fundamental cognitive dissonance we have in their eyes.  You claim God has power over all things, even death.  Then why does He not do something about the bad things, and death especially? 

     I see the nods.  You’ve heard the questions, the agonizing “why’s?”  Hell, let’s be perfectly honest, we’ve all asked them.  Like Job, we have all wondered why the bad things have happened to us or why God did not intervene.  If He has power and loves us, should He not?  Ah, but see, now you know the voice of the accuser, of Satan.  What happens?  If God does not act, what does Satan whisper?  Is God real?  Does He really care about you?  Is He really worth worshipping?  I can take your pain away.  I can help you numb it.

     Heck, I am the professional Christian among us and I ask the same questions and I hear the same whispers.  Day after day, week after week, month after month, I have stood faithfully before each of you proclaiming God’s love and redeeming power to you.  In one sense, it’s an easy job.  I cannot go wrong proclaiming His promises to you.  But then life and death and pain and suffering get in the way.  Do you have any idea how agonizingly frustrating it is to know that God could wipe away the suffering, the pain, the tears of those entrusted to your care and yet Him not?  Do you know what it is like to pray over the dying entrusted to your care and see one raised to health and another allowed to die?  Can you imagine the experience of praying faithfully for someone entrusted to your care to be healed, knowing God could with a mere thought erase their hurt, only to see Him withhold that grace time and time again?

     In one sense, the answer to our pain and hurt is the same answer given to Job.  We cannot know the purposes of God unless He chooses to reveal them to us.  You cannot know the purpose of your suffering, the complete and fullest picture of the purposes of your suffering, unless God makes it known.  That’s a large part of why I pray that He give us eyes to see and ears to hear how our suffering glorifies Him.  Take a couple deaths in my tenure here.  David Kline’s funeral was literally standing room only and included atheists and people of other faiths.  David’s witness, and Mary’s after his death, caused people to re-examine what they believed or what they were told about God apart from their faith and witness.  Joan Vollmer’s has been one about dwelling, which is precisely what she most wanted.  She wanted me to get through to her friends and family that dwelling with God was, well, orders of magnitude above and beyond what we could ask or imagine.  It’s not a hotel room in a mansion.  It’s not just an eternal church service.  God took a bridge game illustration, as crazy as it sounded, and ran with it in the hearts and minds of those who heard it.

     Hanging over the wonder and witness of His faithful servants at Advent and over the promises this priest declares is that problem we call death.  Every single person who has reached out to me because of those funerals has eventually gotten back to the “but” of death.  I could worship his God, Father, but why did his God let Him die?  I so want to believe, Father, but why let Joan die?  Why not heal her and let me see the miracle?  Why not save David from the accident and let me hear of the miracle?  Oh, that my Redeemer lives!

     Though Job lived however many years before Jesus of Nazareth, and though he had no real understanding of a Redeemer who would die on a cross for him, Job had complete and utter confidence, faith, in God.  God knew that.  That’s why, in the heavenly council, He pointed out Job to Satan.  Job trusted that one day, long after his body was destroyed, he would see God face to face, as a friend, as an advocate, and his eyes would behold Him.  God is every bit as much just and holy and righteous as He is love.  We forget those attributes, and so the world never hears them, or seldom hears them.  We need to hear them more so that we can share that glorious news around us.  Jesus’ death and Resurrection teaches us that God has the power to redeem all things in our life; now, we just wait on the fulfilment of His promise, assured of His power to keep them, and of His will to do them.  Put in simple English, God will vindicate and redeem all our suffering.  Period.  The end.  That means, all of us who are baptized into the death of His Son will be raised into His Resurrection with Him.  But the Gospel is like a gem.  There are many sides, sparkling facets, to that grand promise.

     Take, for instance, God’s dealings with Satan.  Was Job’s suffering only for our benefit, or was there a lesson for Satan?  Can you imagine that God so loved Satan that He tried to get through to him?  Why would He not?  He was the glorious angel called Light.  In the end, of course, Satan made his choice to reject the love and worship of God, and God allowed that choice to stand.  But what happened as a result?  He was expelled from the heavenly councils.  When you and I eventually stand before the throne in judgment, who stands there to accuse us?  Nobody!  Job’s prayer has been answered.  When we appear before the Maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen, we will see our Advocate, Jesus Christ the Righteous, and no one, no one will be there to accuse us!

     You see, Jesus has already conquered the Accuser on the Cross.  What is one of the chief weapons of the Accuser?  Put it like this: when you were a child and mom caught your hand in the cookie jar and slapped it, what did you feel?  A slap?  Sure.  Yep, that would be a shocking rather than hurting pain.  But let’s talk emotions.  What did you feel getting caught?  That’s right, ashamed.  Some of us grew up in a culture that valued honor more than our culture does today.  How many of us were more worried about mom or dad finding out than we were about the punishment, if caught?  Shame was a powerful tool.  Mom’s and dad’s parented some of us to fear them more than getting a tongue-lashing or paddling at school, to fear their consequences more than a police officer’s ticket for speeding or a crash, and heaven help you if you were caught a bit too amorous in your making out!

     We laugh, but it’s a rueful laugh.  Shame was and is a real feeling.  We hate to let loved ones down.  What will they think of me now?  How much more so, do you think, does Satan use that when we think of our Father in heaven?  I mean, those of you who have argued with me these last five years that your sins are the exception to God’s redeeming power, what is Satan’s real hold over you?  Shame!  You fear you disappointed God and, as a result, His promises are not extended to you.  How many times have I told you that you are not alone?  Last week, we read the story of Zacchaeus, who heard the whispers.  Before that, we read the story of the tax collector and Pharisee.  Anybody remember the story of the Prodigal Son?  We are all ashamed when we dwell on our sins; we all are certain we have let God down.  But the glorious news is that He knew we would!  And still He went to that Cross for us, and still He willed Himself to hang there and die there!  You know why, because He took that shame to the Cross with Him and nailed it there, too!

     We don’t talk a lot about the Crucifixion and Passion the way we really should.  It’s hard.  I only have so much time of your attention, and the Easter season brings a number of visitors.  But Jesus came into the world in a shame culture.  The spitting, the beard pulling, the crown of thorns, the soldiers’ mocking—all of that was a shaming of Jesus.  Who do You think You are to claim to be the Son of God?  And the Crucifixion . . . y’all know He was nailed to that Cross naked as the day He entered the world, right?  These paintings and sculptures that show Him with a tunic covering His genitals are fanciful.  He was nailed naked to that Cross to show just how impotent He and his friends and culture were to do anything about it.

     Part of it we understand in a deep level.  When Adam and Eve sinned, what was the first thing they did to hide from God.  Right, covered themselves with leaves.  What was the first thing God did for them after telling them they were banned from His presence in the Garden?  Gave them skins to cover their nakedness.  There’s a reason we cover up, ladies and gentlemen, it’s to hide our shame.  Add to that understanding the Roman worship of sex, whom they called Venus, and you can well understand why they nailed their victims naked to crosses, exposing them, humiliating them, laughing at and scorning them.  You are so weak, you should be ashamed of yourself!

     Jesus took even that shame upon Himself, though He’d done nothing wrong to deserve it.  He understood that shame needed to die every bit as much sin and all the other things He took upon the Cross for our sake.  As a result, Satan holds no power over us.  Oh, Satan is still about the world going to and fro’ and sowing doubt and animosity where he can.  He tries and tries to convince us that our Father does not really love us, that our Father is ashamed of us, that we are unlovable.  I’m certain he is engaged in spiritual warfare we cannot see.  But his weapon we call shame died on the Cross on Calvary.  And as a result, we have no reason to feel shame when we approach our Father in heaven.  Like Job who came before us, and all the saints about whom we read, we need only approach God in joyful thanksgiving, grateful that His Son took our deserved place and our deserved punishment, that He might see His righteousness in each of us!  Like Job and all those saints who have come before, we stand before the graves and we stand before the calamities of our lives, confident that He will redeem us, that, in truth, it is His nature than He can do nothing other!  And you and I live in this reality each and every time we gather here!  We are giving joyful thanks for what He has done for us and what He promises He will do for us!  And just to be clear, He is not now nor is He promising to shame us!

     See what I mean?  I was fired up this week.  Without raising your hands though, who needed to hear this reminder?  Who needed this teaching?  Who among us is afraid they needed it because someone in their life has been caught up in shame to the point they cannot hear the story of God’s love for them?  My guess is, given your attention for these last few minutes, nearly all.  We are not alone.  Remember those inscrutable purposes and suffering statements I made near the beginning, how neither Job nor we can really understand God, except for what He reveals to us?  Yes?  Does Job ever learn the purpose behind his sufferings?  Does Job ever learn that Satan uses him as a test case on humanity?  No.  He doesn’t.  Though we may think of Job as a paragon of righteous suffering, never once does God share with Job the manifold purposes of his suffering.  Oh, Job understands better now that the whirlwind has appeared that he was telling the truth, but he has no idea that God could use his suffering to reach us seven thousand miles away and three thousand years later.  Nor does Job have any idea that his suffering was, perhaps, an incarnated sermon for the accuser.  Knowing that, do you not feel your burdens lifted?  The same God who used Job to teach His people about unjust suffering and, yes, messianic suffering, has His hand, His eyes, and His heart upon you and upon me.  And just as it was enough for our brother Job in his trials, so must it be for us.  But one day, one glorious day, Job will be proved utterly and completely correct.  One day, we who call Him Lord will stand upon the earth, in the presence and glory of our Redeemer, and we will see Him with our eyes!  No matter life’s vicissitudes, no matter our deaths, no matter what happens in the intervening time, at the end, we shall see Him on our side, just as He always was and is!

In Christ’s Peace,

Brian†