Before Easter Morning

Some thoughts on Solomon’s “Who knows if the human spirit goes upward?” (Ecc 3:21)

Not from Solomon, but from a deeper wisdom, comes Job’s resurrection faith:

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,

and my eyes shall behold, and not another.

My heart faints within me! (Jb 19:25-27)

It comes in the midst Job’s inexplicable suffering. When his comforters pile on with wisdom’s diagnosis of his suffering: “If you knew wisdom, you would know that God is calling you to repent of your sin” (Jb 11:6). We shouldn’t be too hard on Job’s comforters. Who could have known what was going on in the courts of heaven? We who have read Job know about that troubling wager between God and Satan; but, neither Job nor his comforters know anything about it. Nor, apparently, are they ever told.

In the midst of all that, Job finds his way to some deeper understanding—that he knows something wisdom of itself does not know. Not even Solomon. He knows, must be by faith, that his “Redeemer lives.”  We can hardly read or hear these words without hearing that rising melody of Handel’s Messiah: “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.” And then the refrain from First Corinthians: “For now is Christ risen from the dead, the first fruits of them that Sleep”. From Job to Christ.

Elie Wiesel, one of those remarkable holocaust survivors who found comfort in Job, concluded his Nobel Peace Prize with these words:

Let us remember Job who, having lost everything—his children, his friends, his possessions, and even his argument with God—still found the strength to begin again, to rebuild his life. Job was determined not to repudiate the creation, however imperfect, that God had entrust to him.

It doesn’t get us to Handel’s “Christ is risen…”; Nevertheless, it’s good, isn’t it? We do well to “remember Job.”