Whispers of Christ

“Man who is born of woman is few of days and full of trouble. He comes out like a flower and withers… Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? There is not one… so a man lies down and rises not again… All the days of my service I would wait, till my renewal should come… For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth.” – Job 14:1-2, 4, 12, 14; 19:25

I love the honesty of Job’s words. They’re not polished or edited; they’re not logical or organized. They are words from the heart. Today we read, “I was at ease, and he broke me apart.” His grief has become a part of him: “I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin.” He feels poured out and torn apart: “He slashes open my kidneys… pours out my gall upon the ground.”

Part of it seems to be too that he is grieving the grief. There should not be this kind of suffering without answer or hope. He sees plainly now that man has no answers. We are all fragile and unclean, we have no answer for death. It’s almost as if he is longing for something, whispering of someone. He is waiting, all his days he would wait, for renewal. This word “renew” literally means “to change clothes.” It’s as if Job is waiting for the day when he can rise up off the ground, and have his dust and sackcloth and ashes gone, not just from his skin but from deep within where his grief has gone, to have healed and restored all the things in him that have been slashed open and broken apart.

But we have this. Peter tells us we have a living hope, an inheritance that is “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading” (1 Peter 1:4)—that is free from death, free from impurity, free from the ravages of time. Our hope is a person: it is Jesus, who is man born of woman, bearing a life full of trouble, yet living forever, so that we can. It is Jesus who lives a clean life so that our uncleanliness can be covered over. Who lies down in death yet rises again. Who we call Redeemer, and who will one day return to stand upon the earth he will make new.