Rambling for Kirwan Uniting Church's Keep in Touch newsletter 29 March 2020

In two weeks, it will be Easter. Among the bible texts that we turn to, is Job 19:25, “I know that my Redeemer lives”. We might even dig out the Messiah CD or .mp3 which we played during the Christmas season, fast forwarding to the lovely soprano aria. But there’s more to Job’s story than his firm assurance that “in my flesh I shall see God”.
The internet abbreviation, TL:DR stands for “Too long, don’t read” (or “didn’t read”).  Lots of us append that to the first 18 chapters of Job, particularly chapters 1 and 2 when Satan tells God that, first, Job only trusts Him because he (Job) is well off, and then, after Job loses all of his wealth and family, that second, Job still trusts God because he has his health. In the story, one of the oldest parts of the Hebrew bible, God allows Satan to take away Job’s health, too.
We are in a better position, unfortunately, to have insight into Job’s predicament as we isolate ourselves for self-protection and community protection for the duration of the COVID-2 pandemic. Chapter 19 v13: “He has put my family far from me, and my acquaintances are wholly estranged from me”. It’s against that backdrop that Job cries out his defiance to Satan, (never mind TL:DR for now):
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,
and my eyes shall behold, and not another.

“whom I shall see on my side”. Where have we heard words like that? Yes, Romans 8:31 – 39 (TL:DR 😊 Look it up yourself). “If God is for us, who is against us?” And, “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth”, nor a novel coronavirus, “nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

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