Life Sunday Job 12,10 2008
Life Sunday
Job 12:10
January 20, 2008
“In the Hand of God”
The Book of Job is about life and death, about the cosmic battle between the Creator of all life and the ruler of this world who wants to destroy life. The fate of man, embodied in Job, is at stake, for the battle is being waged over Job’s life. His love for God is being tested. Satan is the one who attacks Job, and the real issue is whether Job is willing to let go and completely trust in the mercy of God. Will Job finally place himself in the hand of God? Job’s suffering shows him that his own life and the lives of all people are in the hands of God. In the end Job understands that God desires to, and will restore his servant. Job’s suffering proves that no one can restore life, make life whole and right except God Himself. To do this God will become human, endure suffering as we do and then, through His suffering and death on the cross make all things new.
Trusting in the mercy of God. That is Job’s dilemma. That is our dilemma. That is the dilemma facing all human kind since the fall of Adam. Jesus told the parable of the Prodigal son to show how it’s all about mercy. Hanging in the Hermitage museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia, is one of Rembrandt’s final paintings, a portrayal of the parable of the Prodigal son from Luke 15. On the left hand side of the painting the waiting father, old and tired, has his hands draped over the back of his youngest son, the prodigal one. This wayward son is on his knees in repentance, partially barefoot, bedraggled and broken. Rembrandt bathes this merciful father and his repentant son in light, with the brightest part of the painting illuminating the father’s face of mercy that washes down and covers his prodigal son with light. The embrace of his son by the father shows that they are almost inseparable, as the light of mercy encompasses them both.
The father’s two hands are laid over his son’s back so that the father and the son are one. The hands express, physically, the father’s love and acceptance of the son. The hands of the father express His mercy to his prodigal son. This son of his was lost and is now found. He was dead and now he is alive! The broken, prodigal son is in the hands of his merciful father, and through those hands he now has life. He was dead but now he lives.
We are all prodigals. And to each of us the Father says: “Let me embrace you with My merciful hands. He reminds us that He receives us all by grace, costly grace, the grace that is given through the death of His son as the price that gives life to the world. To us God our Father says, “See My pure grace and mercy hanging on that tree outside Jerusalem where the gift of life to the world was given by the shedding of the blood of Jesus. He reminds us that because of Christ’s cross, there is nothing for us to do, for Jesus has done it all.” Jesus died for sinners—for you, for me—and that’s it, period. That’s God’s gift of the grace and mercy, pure and simple. This is the Father’s most beautiful mercy, and it all comes from His hands. Everything comes from the hands of our Lord and God. His greatest gift is life.
Life is a gift. This is always true. But living in this sinful world, life itself can seem like a curse. We know and understand this. We have all felt life’s joys. We have all felt the sadness and the sorrow of sins cursed effect. Job understood this. He could say, “your hands fashioned and made me like clay,” in the next breath he also says, “and will you return me to the dust?”(Job 10:8). Even though he could say, “you have granted me life and steadfast love, and your care has preserved my spirit” (Job 10:12), he will also say, “if I sin, you watch me and do not acquit me of my iniquity, if I am guilty, woe to me!” (Job 10:14-15a). Then Job looked to God for salvation. He believed in that salvation even in the midst of his suffering.
Trusting that all life is from God’s hand—that is the dilemma for our culture today. The question comes to modern man, “Are humans only the offspring of chemical reactions and the division of one celled amoebas? Or did God create us, does He care for us, does He even love us? We know the answer don’t we. Still, we are faced with a challenge. We may take it for granted that God created all life and all life comes from Him, but do we really believe that He is in control of our lives. What we see everyday on the news, in our own lives, is pain and suffering, and our human nature wants to stop it. There is nothing wrong with this. However, there are some things that we are not to take control of. We are not to control whether life ends before birth as is the case with abortion. We are not to think that we can or should control death, deciding when life is to end or whether it is worth living. Life is so precious to God that all life, even that which we think is pitiful, is worthwhile in the eyes of God. When things go wrong in our lives, when there is an unwanted pregnancy, when there are decisions to be made about an elderly parent with Alzheimer’s who is facing major surgery or death, when we question whether we should use a feeding tube or give hydration, when we find ourselves confronted with the capacity to end suffering by ending life, it is at these moments that we remember that our lives our in the hands of a merciful and loving God.
Like Job, like the prodigal son, we must come to that point when we realize that we are not in control, that God created life by His hands and that He is the author and giver of life. And that this life, with it suffering is sanctified by our Lord himself who suffered like us and died like us. We remember that suffering and death came into our world because of sin. Jesus Christ redeemed us from this curse, through His death reversed the curse, bringing life and immortality to life through His resurrection. The Bible speaks to us, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.
God is in control. What He does and how He does it, or why He allows something to happen is beyond our comprehensible. Who of us can claim to know the mind of God. God has revealed His will to us in His Word. He calls on us to listen and obey and to believe in His Word. God spoke to Job and He speaks to us and calls us to an absolute trust in Him as the Lord of all life, to trust that all life comes from His hands.
He Calls Us and Holds Us with His Hands
“I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you.” (Isaiah 42:6a)
In the midst of his suffering, Job still believes that God will deliver him, that there is a reason for his suffering, and that God will continue to hold him in His hand. Job realizes that he must simply trust God, place himself in God’s merciful hands, and look for God’s righteous judgment in an unknown and unknowable future for the incomprehensible suffering he is experiencing now. In the midst of all of this pain and anguish, Job announces a most powerful statement of his hope for the resurrection: “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” (Job 19:25).
Life and death, suffering and deliverance were the issues for Job and they are the issues for us. We may not be always be consciously thinking about them, but they are always there for us, and we cannot escape them. At times, they consume us when we become ill or near death, or someone we love or know is critically close to death. At times, life brings us intense joy, like at a birth of a child. At times, life brings us intense misery. But we are not alone and yes we can have comfort.
Our God is merciful. Christ is merciful. We are given the gift of life. In this world we suffer and die. Yet our God has the final and everlasting word. Our God is the God of the living. By His Spirit He not only calls you and gives you life, but holds all of you in His merciful hand. With the same hands that He created you, with the same hands that HE stretched out on the cross to redeem you, with these merciful and loving hands He promises to protect and guide you, these hands He extends to us all, supporting us when we choose life, forgiving us when life overwhelms us and when, in error, choose death. He still chooses life for us, a life that comes from God’s mercy, and extends to us from our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen
Rev. Dr. Arthur A. Just, Jr