Sermon: I know that my Redeemer liveth

May the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts be now and always acceptable in your sight, O Lord our strength and our redeemer.

(Job 19. 21-27a)

I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.

I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another.

We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.

Many of you will recognise those Scriptural sentences as forming the opening words of the Order for the Burial of the Dead in the Book of Common Prayer.  The rubric directs that they shall be said or sung by the priest and clerks in procession either into Church or to the grave-side, followed by Psalms 39 and 91.  They reveal Archbishop Thomas Cranmer's genius in the combination of texts from both Testaments, embracing the objective theological statement of John 11, I am the Resurrection and the Life, with the subjective confession of personal faith from Job 19, I know that my Redeemer liveth, and the sobering words of 1 Timothy 6 about the nakedness of both birth and death, We brought nothing into the world and it is certain that we can carry nothing out, with further words of faith and conviction also from the mouth of Job: the Lord giveth and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord.

For some of us the evocative choral setting of William Croft comes to mind; but the middle sentence, from Job 19, set for this morning's First Lesson, will surely recall for us Handel's magnificent soprano aria from Messiah, where the music underlines the strength of personal testimony, I know, and where we see a similar combination of an Old Testament text, this time with words of St Paul, For now is Christ risen from the dead, the first-fruits of them that sleep, from 1 Corinthians 15. 

You would think that these time-honoured words from the Prayer Book and further immortalised by Handel, would form the basis of our present Anglican convictions about life after death.  But if you look at the sentences at the beginning of the contemporary Common Worship Funeral Service, then Job 19 is conspicuous by its absence, relegated as it is to a bank of supplementary texts. However, even that is better than Common Worship's predecessor, The Alternative Service Book of 1980, where Job 19 didn't get a look in at all.

Why? Well, apparently the issue was that the Hebrew of Job 19: 25-27 is notoriously difficult.

So, I know that my redeemer liveth, can be simply, ‘I know that my vindicator exists';

that he shall stand on the latter day  upon the earth is literally, ‘afterwards he shall stand  upon the dust';

Yet in my flesh shall I see God, can be ‘yet without my flesh shall I see God';

Whom I shall see for myself, can be ‘whom I shall see on my side';

And not another can be ‘and not as a stranger'.

And that is just some of the possible renderings.  The objection is that the Book of Common Prayer and the Authorized Version of the Bible have read into this text a later and specifically Christian view of the resurrection of the body, seeing it as a simple prophecy of Christ.   Therefore, out of sensitivity to a difficult text, we should be cautious in how we use it, even to the point of excising it from our Funeral rites.  So the New English Bible translates these verses thus:

            But in my heart I know that my vindicator lives

            and that he will rise last to speak in court;

            and I shall discern my witness standing at my side

            and see my defending counsel, even God himself,

            whom I shall see with my own eyes,

            I myself and no other.

No hint of any resurrection of the body there! In fact, any reference to death or of skin being consumed has been carefully excised, and replaced by legal imagery.

Let's consider this passage in its context.  The story of Job is of an upright, righteous man who suffers grievous personal affliction, one series of disasters upon another.  We find him on a dung heap, a broken, wretched man, stripped of his livelihood and prosperity, grievously bereaved, covered in sores, full of disease.  The theological orthodoxy of his day, stated that prosperity was a sign of God's blessings accompanying righteousness of life; misfortune and affliction were signs of God's curse, his punishment because of unrighteousness and unconfessed sin.  This orthodoxy is represented by Job's friends, his so-called comforters.  The cycle of speeches, growing ever more intense, sets out Job's clear convictions about his innocence, and his friends' increasing exasperation at his refusal to admit his sin, accept his punishment, repent and find mercy.  Job curses the day of his birth, yet refuses to curse God, but demands an umpire, to judge between him and heaven, and prove his vindication. He rails at the lack of justice; he lays the cause of all that he has suffered and is suffering at the door of heaven itself: as today's reading began:

            Have pity on me, have pity on me,

            O you my friends,

            for the hand of God has touched me.

            Why do you, like God, pursue me,

            never satisfied with my flesh?

And so Job wishes that an abiding testimony could be made:

            O that my words were written down!

            O that they were inscribed upon a book!

But he goes further than a mere flimsy, perishable record:

            O that with an iron pen and with lead

            they were engraved in rock for ever.

Because, even though Job was staring death in the face - emaciated, wracked by disease, he still had an abiding conviction.  There is a vindicator, a redeemer, one who will champion his cause.  Even if Job dies, and like all flesh become dust and ashes, even if his flesh is consumed: this vindicator, this redeemer will stand upon all this dust, upon all these ashes.

Who can this vindicator be?  Well, Job is clear, this vindicator is none other than God himself; even if Job dies, seemingly unvindicated, one day God will arise, but Job doesn't leave it there: God will not vindicate him in Job's absence - but remarkably, Job will see him, and I want you to notice how insistent he is about this seeing, an aspect about which there is no doubt in the text:

            then I will see God

            whom I shall see on my side

            and my eyes shall behold.

And it doesn't matter whether the Hebrew means ‘in my flesh I will see God' or ‘without my flesh I shall see God' - the point is I shall see him. And he will vindicate me. So I don't think the New English Bible is right - there is something in this passage that seems to transcend death.

Today is All Souls' Day; it is a day to remember in God's presence those whom we love but see no longer.  It compliments also our national remembrance in this season of poppies and as we look forward to next Sunday, Remembrance Sunday, and Armistice Day on the 11^th.  And it is against the backcloth of yesterday, All Saints' Day, and the triumph of the saints who share the life of heaven.

And even if Job 19 falls well short of a later doctrine, both in Judaism and in Christianity, of the resurrection of the body, then it does prepare the way for such a doctrine, for we see it as foreshadowing that more perfect revelation that we know in Christ, when human being did gaze upon the face of God and will do so again.

And so we need as Christians to be strong in our conviction about life after death, not only because it reminds us of our ultimate salvation, but also because of the countless millions of Jobs in the whole theatre of human history, whose words were never written even on paper let alone on rock, and who were never vindicated, but who are held in divine memory, just as surely as we remember today those whom we love but see no longer, whose lives lie hidden with Christ in God, and who will be vindicated

And whatever issues or hurts or unfairnesses and misunderstandings we carry with us as part of out own human narrative, we know that they will be resolved and transformed by joy once and for all, when we see that face:

            then I will see God

            whom I shall see on my side

            and my eyes shall behold -

when we see the glory of God and the love of God in the face of Jesus Christ, whose face we shall of course recognise, because we have seen him, so often, so, so often in the faces of those who bear his image, in expected and unexpected places, and we shall see his smile, and we shall know that our Redeemer lives.

So I will stick with the sentences of the Book of Common Prayer. Certainly in these days of economic storm and tempest, I, we need to be reminded that we brought nothing into the world and it is certain we shall take nothing out, but more than that, on this day of resurrection, objective truth, I am the resurrection and the life meets subjective conviction, and so despite some unintelligible Hebrew, we fill out Job 19:

I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another.