Job 19:23-27 April 8, 2012 – Easter Sunday Page | 1
Hi Kids,
[show a pencil with an eraser.] What is this? [Point to the eraser] What is this pink end of the pencil used for? It erases a mistake on a paper [erase a pencil line on a paper]. If I write something with this [show a permanent marker] marker, can I erase it? No because it is a permanent marker. Why do we write things with a permanent marker, like say your name on the tag inside your jacket? We want the words to last forever so that everyone always knows the jacket belongs to you.
[show a board with “I know my Redeemer lives” written on it] Let’s pretend this is a rock with this message written on it in permanent marker. If the rock is outside all the time, the rain, sun, wind and snow in time will erase the words. How can we make the words stay? We can chisel them into the rock like this. [chip out a letter with a chisel]
This message says, “I know my Redeemer lives.” [ask children to repeat it] The man who first spoke this message wanted it chiseled in rock so that it would last for the people to be born to hear and believe it. [Show a Bible] What is this? How long will the teachings in the Bible be read by people? Until Judgment Day. God wrote this message [hold up the board] in the Bible so that it would last forever [open the Bible to Job 19].
Who is our Redeemer? It is Jesus. What did he do on Easter? He rose from the dead. He lives.
Fellow Redeemed who look into Jesus’ grave and rejoice that he is risen,
What do Samuel Medley and “Duke Street” have in common? If you put together the poem written by Samuel Medley around 1775 with the tune “Duke Street” composed by John Hatton in 1793, you sing the hymn as we know it, “I Know that My Redeemer Lives.” In 30 of the 32 lines of one of our favorite Easter hymns, we sing “He lives.” Walk through a cemetery and chances are you will see “I know that my Redeemer lives” on at least one gravestone. George Frederic Handle used the verse in the third part of his famous “Messiah” oratorio titled “The Hope Of The Redeemed.” As the conclusion to the sermon series “Jesus – Name Above Every Name,” we choose today, JESUS IS MY LIVING REDEEMER. We study this with two parts: 1. Easter is permanently recorded with the Bible; 2) My resurrection is certain too.
So where did poet Medley get his idea for the message “I know that my Redeemer lives?” It was first professed by the believer named Job who quite likely lived some 4000 years ago. Yes, these words are recorded in the Bible in the book that bears Job’s name who is the principle figure. And yes, Job is a real person verified by the prophet Ezekiel in the Old Testament and by James in the New Testament. We now read Job’s words which have framed the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We read them from the English translation by the Lutheran, William F. Beck:
“23 Oh I wish my words were written, I wish they were inscribed on a scroll; 24 Or engraved on rock or on lead with an iron stylus. 25 I know my Redeemer lives and will at last stand on the dust. 26 Afterward my skin will surround this body, and in my flesh I will see God. 27 Whom I myself will see, my eyes will see one who is not a stranger. My heart faints within me…”
We can be sure that when Jesus said “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me” (John 5:39), he included Job’s profession of faith. And just as God is eternal, all his word is eternal. He forbids us to add any of our teachings to the Bible or subtract anything he has written. Throughout Jesus’ ministry his message that he came to save sinners didn’t stop at his death as payment. Jesus’ strength to endure the suffering to come, the “bruise to his heel” revealed in the Garden of Eden, was his certainty that he would rise again in triumph as the “crushing blow to Satan’s head.” Jesus was absolutely certain of what Job had said, “I know that my Redeemer lives.” Easter is permanently recorded with the Bible.
Job is described as a man who is “complete and upright.” He was a mature believer whose heart was right with God. Job was not sinless as his life showed. But, he was right with God through faith in God’s merciful forgiveness promised through the Redeemer God would send. Job was not a Sunday-morning Christian who dropped his faith going out the church door and talked and acted unchristian for the next 6 days. He was not an Easter Christian who said to himself after the last hymn, “this will satisfy God for a while again.” No, Job’s faith touched every area of his life all the time. He “held God in awe and shunned evil” continuously. He was genuine and honest in all his dealings with others. We see Job as a God-fearing man who longed for the coming of God’s promised Messiah, the one he calls his “Redeemer.”
The circumstances under which Job said his famous words about a living Redeemer were not pleasant. Job speaks these words when he is hurting, when there seems no clear light at the end of the tunnel. 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. In his grief and pain, Job parks himself on a heap of ashes out where everyone burned their trash. His wife tells him to curse God assuming that God is at fault. Twice Job reaffirms his faith in God: “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away,” he says, “may the name of the Lord be praised.” And again, “Shall we accept good from the hand of the Lord and not trouble?” His closest friends whisper poisonous guesses that all of this has happened to Job because he is hiding some horrible sin and God is punishing him.
Job himself, confused and in pain, demands a hearing with God, a personal meeting, an answer for why all this has come upon him when he has been steadfast in the faith all his life. But, what neither Job nor his three friends can see is that all of this has come upon Job by the permission of God Himself to prove to Satan that faith in God’s promises and loyalty to him can withstand and triumph over Satan’s temptations.
Amid all his complaints, Job soars to the pinnacle of this faith in the famous verses before us. Job wants what he is about to say written down and preserved for future generations. And sure enough, it has 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 times – a word that shall never pass away.
The word Job uses for “Redeemer” is a very special word on the pages of the Bible. Sometimes it is translated as the “kinsman-redeemer.” This is what Boaz was to Ruth in that book of the Bible. The “kinsman-redeemer” was a close relative who takes your side, who comes to your aid and defense, one who is your advocate, one who did everything to claim something of someone from another’s authority and servitude. If you had to sell the family property, or yourself into slavery in time of need, this redeemer bought back your freedom or your means of living for you.
There is only One who fits this word “Redeemer” to buy you back from the curse of the law and return you to God. It is Jesus. He is our kinsman – one who became our flesh and blood relative. He took on human flesh and blood himself to redeem you. He is 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 Redeemer – our Defender and Brother who came to give us back life again. We say with Job, “My resurrection is certain too.”
“I know that my Redeemer lives!” There are a lot of things you and I don’t know. There are so many things about which we cannot be certain. Our lives are often a riddle with questions unanswered, a puzzle with pieces left out and scrambled. There are all of the “what if” questions. And who can make sense out of the half-finished chapters of a human life – things we should have done and didn’t, dreams we wanted to do and couldn’t, and jobs we could not finish. But this one thing I must know. Of this one thing I must be certain. “This I know,” says Job, “that my Redeemer lives.”
Death is not the end. There is One who shall “stand upon the dust” of my grave, the dust from which Adam was formed. This brings us to v. 26 which has a word that can be translated as “surround” or “destroy.” Either translation fits Job’s declaration. The Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Old Testament Hebrew made 200 years before Jesus, Luther, and Beck chose “’surround’ me with skin” based on the context that Job is talking about resurrection and reconstructing the body again with skin and eyes. The NIV, KJV and other English translations pick “destroy” assuming that the verb form demands this. “Destroy” sets up a contrasting backdrop for the resurrected body that will come forth and see God.
All translations continue with “In my flesh” – glorified, changed, fit for life with God in heaven – “in my flesh I shall see God.” I will see God with my own resurrected eyes – not through the eyes of “a stranger” – nor as a disembodied spirit floating about – but “with my own eyes … how my heart yearns within me” – longing for that day to be with Christ!
“There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men. The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said.” (Matthew 28:2-6)
Over all that is sad and ugly and broken and wrong, over every sick bed and cemetery plot, over every war and disaster, this I know – that Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! I know that my Redeemer lives – and that over the grave 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 sun when the rain clouds pass – shall rise at the voice of him who said, “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” “In this flesh I then shall see, Jesus Christ eternally!” “I know that my Redeemer lives!” Amen.