My Redeemer Lives!
Job 19:7-19:27
Have you discovered that nothing which you call permanent really is permanent? Lots of things are called permanent, many things are described as lasting, but they aren’t. Not really.
Not long ago I wanted to mark two plastic containers so that I could be sure they would stay permanently marked. I made sure that the marker I used said “permanent” on it. A “permanent marking pen.” I diligently wrote on those containers with that permanent marking pen, making the labels clear, and filled them from my kitchen, one with chicken broth, the other with left-over chicken gravy. But I didn’t count on the fact that either of those liquids spilling out over the permanent marking was enough to make it less than permanent. I wonder, if chicken fat is strong enough to eat away permanent black ink? Nah, we won’t go there.
Lots of things are called permanent; many things are described as lasting, but they aren’t. Not really.
I officiated at three weddings this summer. Two weddings were people who do not attend church on a regular basis. Yet I was surprised when they chose the traditional wedding vows, the ones that include the words, “till death us do part.” Do we really expect permanence in these relationships today? One of the grooms and I chatted a bit before the ceremony and he told me about an acquaintance of his who had been married five times, and one of those marriages had lasted a grand total of thirteen weeks! I thought, “What a strange thing to be thinking of on your wedding day!”
Lots of things are called permanent, many things are described as lasting, but they aren’t. Not really.
That doesn’t stop us from trying to make things look permanent. We put makeup on corpses, so that we can fool ourselves into thinking they are living; but they are not. We build monuments to great men, hoping to perpetuate their memories, but I can show you a District of Columbia storage yard cluttered with statuaries that nobody wants on the streets any more. And if you are not convinced yet about permanence, think about that trip we women have made to the beauty shop again and again for something called a “perm,” which is short for “permanent wave.”
We would like to think that some things are permanent, but experience shows us something else. In Marc Connelly’s play, “Green Pastures”, the angel Gabriel, having been sent by God to report on how things are down below, comes back to heaven and offers his own version of the six o’clock news. “God,” he says, you know that earth you made, and it was so fine, you called it very good? You know that world you created, and you said, now that’s a good job? That will last a whole eternity? Well, Lord, I have to ask you. Do you know what’s happening down there now? Why, Lord, everything not nailed down is coming up loose!”
I suspect that the angel Gabriel was not the only one to figure that out. We know very well that we live in a world that’s coming up loose, falling apart. The world is changing rapidly, and it’s all we can do to figure out where we are, much less peg ourselves down and stay anchored. Finding something that you can hold on to and be sure of is getting harder and harder to do.
But don’t you want to? Don’t you just get hungry for some things you can count on, some things you can be sure are always going to be there? Don’t you thirst for some permanence? We all have longings for a time in our past. Some of those longings are so we could change ourselves at that point in time; others long for a day gone by because they don’t want things to change. I’d like a little of both—I’d like to go back to those precious years when my two children were growing up. Those two brought so much joy to my life. I would like to go back and find things as they were then. But I’d also make some changes if I could go back, wouldn’t we all? I’d stop what I was doing more often to share in my son’s silly jokes, to play dolls with my daughter.
Wouldn’t it be nice to know that some things don’t change, some things are sure, some things can be counted on? I want stability and permanence in my life; don’t you want that too? Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s play, Death of a Salesman, says, “I feel kind of temporary about myself.” We feel that too. We need to know that something lasts.
And so we work very hard at creating stability. We work very diligently at doing things that we think will come close to giving us staying power.
For example, we work at our achievements. We labor to accomplish something. A best selling book, a cure for cancer, a mightier machine, a smarter computer, we want to achieve something that will last. But even the best of our achievements are doomed to temporariness.
Remember the movie, “Titanic?” We heard all the bragging about how the engineers had built an unsinkable ship, and had loaded it with all sorts of expensive decorations, china, and fancy draperies, confident that it would float the sea lanes for years and years. But an iceberg spoke a ravishing “hello” on the very first voyage! The unsinkable, permanent “Titanic” fell fathoms into faultiness. Our achievements are not permanent.
We work at building wealth. If you are even a little past living from paycheck to paycheck, when you see the Dow Jones climb higher and higher, maybe you have dreamed of building a fortune. Now most of us live where there is always more month than money, but even we have let ourselves dream about investing or winning the lottery, or a rich and forgotten uncle dying and leaving us a huge estate.
I met a woman last weekend who shared her story of retirement. She and her husband, a retired Brethren pastor, dreamed of the day he would retire and they wouldn’t have to move any more. They built a new home in Peru, Indiana in 2001 and prepared to spend the rest of their lives there. But in the spring of 2003, a tornado ripped through their end of town and destroyed their home. They were able to salvage most of the contents, but the house—what remained--had to be demolished and they found themselves moving yet again.
Stock markets crash; the cost of living inflates; illnesses become catastrophic; obligations get out of hand and even retirement isn’t permanent for some people. More and more people find themselves having to maintain jobs after they are 65. And then there is that strange thing in the human heart that always wants more; no matter how much we have, we want more, and we take risks to get it, and risks can mean losses. We can’t count on material wealth being permanent.
Some try to achieve permanence with their accomplishments, others with their wealth, and still others with their reputations. Their legacies. Some try to be the best at whatever they do, so that from here on out they will be remembered for their uniqueness. Olympic stars train for years in order to become the record holders in their sports. Musicians practice endlessly in order to give the definitive performance of some concerto. Artists labor with infinite care to create a masterpiece that will inspire others for ages to come.
And, Lord help us, even preachers, poor misguided souls that we are, will hunch over our computers far into Saturday night, trying to hammer out immortal words that you will remember at least until after Sunday dinner! Some of us try to achieve permanence just by being good at what we do, but guess what! The downhill record you just earned was beaten by the next skier down the slope, who shaved a massive eight-hundredths of a second off your record! Guess what! Tomorrow’s newspaper music critic liked your performance last week, but loves the one given by that young prodigy who just showed up out of nowhere. And that masterpiece, like Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper,” falls prey to the ravages of time and temperature. And worst of all, preachers find out that not only do people usually not remember what they say, but if they remember anything, they get it wrong anyway!
Guess what! Every human achievement, the best things that we can do, are temporary. They are fleeting. They are here today and gone tomorrow. Our search for permanence defeats us at every turn. It seems there is nothing we can do that will last forever. Nothing.
In the Bible there was a man who faced this reality wholesale. Everything he had accumulated was snatched from him in a series of deathblows too horrible to wish on your worst enemy. This man’s name was Job. Job had been healthy, wealthy, and wise. He had it all, his reputation was widespread. He had accomplished everything he ever set out to do. But everything vanished overnight. His wealth was destroyed, his family was snatched from under his eyes, his health eroded, and even his sanity was questionable. Job saw in a twinkling of an eye just how fast things can be removed. They don’t last at all.
Job’s friends counseled him just to give up. His wife urged him to curse God and die. His advisors told him it was useless, it was his fault, just surrender to the inevitable. But Job wouldn’t give up. Job believed that there had to be something permanent, and that somehow God was going to provide that. Job, tormented though he was, expressed his hope, recorded in Job 19:23-27:
O that my words were written down! O that they were inscribed in a book! O that with an iron pen and with lead they were engraved on a rock forever! For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side…”
“I know that my Redeemer lives and that at the last he will stand upon the earth .. then in my flesh shall I see God…” Job’s heart cried out for stability, and he felt, intuitively, that someday God would put someone here who would bring him back from the precipice, who would rescue him from falling off the edge, someone who would stand forever. “At the last he will stand,” this Redeemer.
In ancient Israel, a redeemer was a family member who bought a slave’s way to freedom or who took care of a widow. This Redeemer, in Job’s mind, would be more than a human accomplishment. He would be God Himself. A God who would do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. This Redeemer, in Job’s heart, would be more than some vague ideal. This Redeemer would be a person who would get down in the trenches with us. He would be on our side. He would be personal, one whom our eyes would be able to see.
And most of all, this Redeemer, as Job struggled to see Him, would be one who would deal with the biggest permanence issue all, with death. This Redeemer would confront the harsh truth that you and I, here in this room, are going to be witnesses to the fact that nothing is permanent, because, unless they have somehow changed the rules, I confidently predict that the mortality rate for those of us gathered here will be exactly 100 per cent.
You and I have to live with the notion that we ourselves are not permanent. I told a bunch of children about this once, and their response was, “No way! That’s not fair!” I agree. Death for all? That’s not fair! But true. But true. Still Job dares to think that this Redeemer might mean something more than that. “After my skin has been destroyed, I shall see God.” Tennyson the poet said of us, “[We think] we were not made to die.” Job dared to think that too.
But what confidence he had! “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last” .... when everything else goes, wealth and health, wisdom and reputation, everything ... “at the last he will stand…”
I find it interesting that the word, “Redeemer” is not mentioned one time in the New Testament, only in the Old Testament. Why? Because when Jesus came, He was and is the Redeemer! Just like the “redeemers” in Old Testament times who took on responsibility for providing for a widow or freeing a slave, Jesus bought us to be His own. And by His death on the cross, he has redeemed us from sin and hopelessness.
There is something permanent. There is something that will stand the test of time. There is something everlasting. We must never take this gift for granted!
I have good news today. There is a Redeemer who at the last will stand, and he is Jesus Christ, raised from the dead. There is a Redeemer who is permanent, who is down in the trenches for us. There is a Redeemer who knew loss and tasted death, just as we must taste death, but who defeated death and is alive for us. There is a Redeemer who can give us what we most desire, what has eluded us for so long. Jesus Christ the risen Lord.
There is no sin so bad, no sin so great, that Jesus isn’t willing to forgive and forget it! There is one thing which will stand forever, and that is a living and vital relationship with this risen Savior. Accomplishments, wealth, reputation, you name it, it will go. But one thing and one thing only will stand forever; Job named it, “I shall see him on my side, and my eyes shall behold him.”
The Apostle Paul described it: “the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” And, in fact, Paul even writes off everything else, he says that everything we try to build up and hold on to is just so much garbage in comparison. “Whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him.” (Philippians 3:7-8)
My message is really very simple today. The good news is quite straightforward. If you want something permanent, I offer you a living, vital relationship with Jesus Christ. If you want something that does not dim with age or decline with passing years, I hold out to you: knowing Christ. Not knowing about Him, but knowing Him personally. Not just having information about Him, but fellowship, friendship with Him. Not just a nodding acquaintance, but a deep, daily, abiding, moment-by-moment presence.
If you want to know that your life can be more than temporary, if you want to beat that 100% mortality rap, then I call you to Paul’s words, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection.” “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection.” I can stand here and say also, that everything I have, everything I have ever accomplished in my life, none of it can compare with knowing Christ and having him as my big brother.
The Redeemer of whom Job speaks, He is beside us, He guides us and strengthens us, He forgives us, He loves us, He fills us with His life. Trust Him, believe Him, let His Holy Spirit fill you. He lives.
Though every human institution will die and every cultural achievement will vanish, though the earth itself may be on the way out, at the last He will stand. When Calvary was over, He stood; when Rome fell, He stood; when slavery was happening and freedom was unsure, He stood; and when the world is shaky and wars are breaking out all over, the President of the United States may not stand, and the United States itself may be shaky, but He who came forth from the grave, He will stand. And we who know Him, personally, will stand with Him, stand when everything else is gone.
Christ is alive, not just the destroyer of death, but also He is life, He gives life, He invites us to life. I want you to know Him and the power of His resurrection. It is the only thing that is permanent, the only thing you can count on forever. Everything else will crumble. Everything else is throwaway. It’s not worth the bombs it would cost to blow it up. But at the last Christ will stand. I want to be there. I want you to be there too.
For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth…Amen.
BENEDICTION: Our Redeemer lives! Jesus has inscribed these words with an iron pen on the rock of God’s Holy Word. We have the promise of eternal life and standing with our Brother Jesus at the last. Amen.
