Come face to face with God.

As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives
and that at the last he will stand upon the earth.
After my awaking, he will raise me up;
and in my body I shall see God.
I myself shall see, and my eyes behold him
who is my friend and not a stranger.

If those words sound familiar, they should. And not just because you just heard a very similar translation of them a few minutes ago. This more poetic, and I think better, translation of Job 19:25-27a is in our Book of Common Prayer in the opening anthem of the Burial of the Dead.

It may - should - also be familiar in a much deeper way. Job is old. Scholars think it is not only the oldest book in the Bible but may well be the oldest piece of literature that we have. It is so old that we don’t even know how old it is. It is far older than writing on paper. (Which is why he speaks of carving his words into rock and filling the grooves with lead to preserve them.) It is older than Judaism, older than Abraham. We don’t know how old, but more than 3,500 or even 4,000 years.

One way to think about that is to realize that it was so important that every generation from then until now has preserved it.  It was preserved across not only thousands of years but across cultures and wars and famines and plagues and natural disasters.

It is so old and so important that when people hear it for the first time, most often they know it – and not as a piece of literature. Most have probably never read it. They know it as a stirring of the soul.

Job, this oldest of books, asks one of the oldest and hardest questions of faith. How can a just, good and loving God allow the suffering of the innocent? Job is described as innocent, so we don’t get to explain it away as “no one is perfect.”

Bishop John Howe described Job 2:3 as the hardest verse in scripture.

Have you considered my servant Job, there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil? He still holds fast his integrity, although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason. (Job 2:3)

Job loses his children, his cattle and other livestock, everything except his wife. He’s then struck with loathsome sores. His friends come and try to convince him to confess his sins – but he doesn’t have any. His wife tries to convince him to “Curse God and die” just to end his suffering – as well as hers.

But Job holds fast to his integrity and simply wants to ask God why. He is absolutely miserable. What he asks in the verse immediately preceding our reading this morning is, “Why do you, like God, pursue me? Why are you not satisfied with my flesh?” (Job 19:22)

And so, Job wants to see God.  He wants to see his redeemer face to face. He wants to know why he has suffered. He has the absolute confidence of faith that once he sees God, all of his questions will be answered. He will be fully satisfied.

If you get quiet and search the depths of your heart, the depths of your soul, the depths of your very being, I suspect you resonate with Job. His story is so old it is embedded in our very being, whether we have read it or not.

His suffering is our suffering. His questions are our questions. And when all else is stripped away, what we desire most is to see God, to see our redeemer, and not as a stranger.

We tend to think about heaven in ways that are very comforting to us – to be reunited with loved ones, many of us hold a fond hope that beloved pets would be with us as well. We might hold visions of endless green hills and other beautiful vistas. We tend to think of the Kingdom of God as this whole mess we live amongst set right. There is good reason for that, I’m not trying to crush such dreams, but we do need to put them in proper order under God’s promises and God’s will.

Does seeing God mean Job will see his children again? Does that mean he will see his beloved pets again? Maybe, if it’s God’s will. Either we’ll have such things or we won’t want them because we have him, face to face. He is the goal. 

This is why the Sadducees are not just wrong, they are horribly, awfully, despicably wrong. (Luke 20:27-38) They said there was no resurrection. They come to Jesus with this intricately devised riddle that is also absurdly and ridiculously misdirected. It intentionally distracts from the true promise and will of God. Who would do that? Who does that distraction serve? If someone is urging you down the wrong path, whom are they actually serving, whether they know it or not?

As important as marriage is, like every other mortal bond, it simply isn’t relevant in the Kingdom of God. It’s not like that. We won’t be like that as children of the resurrection. Scripture gives us hints and a few, very few, descriptions that defy our limited understanding anyway. So let’s keep this clear:

Believe in Jesus, follow Jesus, serve Jesus and you will see God. Face to face, as a friend and not as a stranger. Forever.

AMEN!