DAY 181

HOLDING ONTO HOPE

Job 17, 18 & 19 and Acts 10:1-23

Today the reading from Acts of the Apostles sets us up for one of the most profound moments of the New Testament. I am going to comment on it tomorrow, but the reading today sets the stage. In the Old Testament Job’s saga continues, today he writes some of the most powerful words ever written…so powerful they are said at every funeral that the uses the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer.

Our reading opens with Job describing his attitude: “The graveyard is ready for me.” He has had enough and he believes he is going to die. He goes on to lament about how he is treated, but (and this is a big BUT) he refuses to hope that he will go “down to Sheol.” In Sheol there is no hope

Bildad apparently has not heard Job’s cry for a better friend. He cannot help but challenge Job. In Bildad’s mind Job is an unrighteous sinner and Sheol is his destination. “Surely such are the dwellings of the unrighteous, such is the place of him who know not God.” To say to Job that he “knows not God” is a strong and rather disheartening statement. Job has been saying all along he does know God, he has been saying he thinks he is innocent, but he is willing to have his sins exposed to him. In other words he is seeking God in order that he might repent and be restored. Job’s friends will have none of this; there is no mercy for Job in their minds.

Yet mercy is exactly what Job cries out for: “Have mercy on me, have mercy on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me!” Job knows however that his friends have abandoned him. What does he do? In one of the most poignant chapters of Job, as he believes he is about to die, he turns to God. He cries out: “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 puts his full trust in God. “I know that my redeemer lives.” Wow! Do you think you could say that after all you ever possessed had been stripped away and your children killed? In the midst of suffering Job is holding onto God; as he faces death he is clutching onto his relationship – for his not without hope.

A little note: Hope is not the same thing as Wish. Hope is something you confidently believe will happen. In the winter I hope for summer. When a loved one is a long distance away you hope you will see them again. You don’t hope you will win the lottery, you wish it. A wish is something you might like, but have little reason to believe will happen. Job has HOPE – and so do you and I when we trust God.