5th Saturday (March 23). Now my eyes see you

Prepare to Listen.  I know that my Redeemer lives.
 
Prayerfully Read Job 19:23-27
23‘O that my words were written down!
   O that they were inscribed in a book!
24O that with an iron pen and with lead
   they were engraved on a rock for ever!
25 For I know that my Redeemer lives,
   and that at the last he will stand upon the earth;
26and after my skin has been thus destroyed,
   then in my flesh I shall see God,
27whom I shall see on my side,
   and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
   My heart faints within me!
 
Prayerfully Wonder and Reflect
Usually in Holy Week the focus is on Jesus’ trial and crucifixion.  However, since Handel’s Messiah, concludes with pieces about Christ’s triumph, we’ll focus on that from now through Easter.
 
The soprano sings, “I know that my Redeemer liveth.”  These confident words in Job are surrounded by words of lament for the total forsakenness Job experienced.  God had taken everything from him and then remained silent.  His friends repeatedly accused him of great sin and demanded he repent.  In his despair Job made this hope-filled claim: “I know that my Redeemer lives.”  He didn’t have resurrection in mind.  He hoped for the vindication of his innocence in this life.  But that doesn’t mean we can’t now read into these words the story of Jesus’ resurrection and be encouraged in the hope of our own resurrection.
 
What Job most desired was to see God in the now.  Three times in vv. 26 & 27 he states this.  He wanted to see God, not after his death, but “in my flesh I shall see God,” and “whom I shall see for myself,” (a more accurate translation than the NRSV’s “whom I shall see on my side”).  He wanted to see God for himself, because seeing is more visceral and real, harder to doubt than hearing.  And for this seeing, he said, “My heart faints within me!”  Such was his longing to see his Redeemer.  At the end of Job, when God finally spoke and revealed himself, Job testified, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you” (42:5).  The suffering, despair, loneliness of the past was over, Job was vindicated, and could say, now my eye sees you.
 
What does your heart faint for?
 
Prayerfully Respond
Lord, I pray that I may know you more clearly, love you more dearly, and follow you more nearly, day by day.  Amen.  (From the Prayer of Saint Richard of Chichester.)
 
Live obediently.  Know with certainty your Redeemer lives.