In our reading from Job this morning, Job is asking the question that often comes so easily to the door of our lips: “Why?”
Job can’t figure out why the God he worships now suddenly seems to be his enemy. He can’t figure out why the God who, like a potter, formed Job out of clay now seems intent on smashing the work of his hands. Job can’t figure out why the God who clothed him with flesh and bones now seems determined to destroy his body and bury it in the darkness of a tomb.
We can relate a little bit to Job, can’t we? Haven’t we sometimes too from time to time felt that God was treating us like an enemy? Haven’t we also asked why God would give us children who grow up and walk away from the Church? Why God would give us marriages that ended in betrayal and divorce? Why God would give us bodies riddled by sickness and pain? Why God would give us minds plagued by anxieties and depression?
If you continue to read the book of Job all the way to the end, you find that God never gives Job an answer. And that’s because answers don’t fix the problem. Answers don’t drive out our despair. They don’t heal our pain. They don’t give us hope. Instead, God gives Job something even better. He gives him a promise. He gives Job the faith to look past the unanswered questions and declare that, no matter what happens, “I know that my redeemer lives.” (19:23-27) God grants Job the blessing of seeing beyond his immediate sorrow to the joy of what God has promised to all who belong to him: resurrection, eternal life, and unending joy in God’s presence.
Your redeemer lives. Jesus Christ lives. And because he lives, you too have something better than answers. You have the promise that just beyond this vale of tears is an inheritance that is so wonderful and so joyous that St. Paul—upon getting a vision of it—wouldn’t even attempt to describe it. You have the promise that you will one day close your tear filled eyes and open them in the very presence of the one who will reach out and wipe your tears away forever.
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