DEATH and RESURRECTION TUNNEL

DEATH and RESURRECTION TUNNEL 

We talked recently about the crisis in life. I said that if a person or a community goes through death and resurrection a proper or biblical way the level after the resurrection is higher than the one they entered the tunnel of death.

Job goes through his trials and tribulation and loses everything. But at the end of the story, he gets everything doubled (cp. Job 1:3 vs. 42:12).

Jesus, being God incarnate, was able to teach like no other, heal people like no doctor, even raise people back to life. Yet, after His resurrection He comes back to His disciples in a glorified body – walking through the walls, this was the body He was accepted into heaven at Ascension.  

Leo Tolstoy presents the similar idea in his “War and Peace.” He describes the return of Russian people back to Moscow (beginning of chapter 14, vol. 4, part 4). Here is the excerpt:

Within a week there were fifteen thousand inhabitants back in Moscow, within a fortnight  twenty-five thousand, and so it went on. The total rose and rose until by the autumn of 1813 the population exceeded that of 1812. (Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace, trans. by Anthony Briggs, New York, NY: Viking, 2006, p. 1236). 

Crisis belongs to life. We almost die taking the final exams before graduation. We came to the school as students, and leave – if everything, all the trials and tribulations, were passed properly – as graduates: bachelors, masters, or doctors.     

Overview of the Bible: Job

 

Book of Job    

Title: Job – “persecuted one”

Date of writing: Patriarchal times, period of Solomon, prior to the Exile.  

Date of Narrative: Either patriarchal times, or times of the period of kings. 

Structure:

a. 1 – 2, Job un-created (formless, empty, dark)

  b. 3, Job curses his beginning

    c. 4 – 26, Job and three “friends”

      d. 27 – 31, Wisdom above the earth

    c’. 32 – 37, Job and Elihu

  b’. 38 – 42:6, God “breaths” a new life into Job

a’. 42:7-17, Job re-created (formed, filled, glorified)

Main themes:

As usual – struggles of life of an individual are picked as the main theme. But…

Challenges of leadership. Who is Job? And term “friend”.

Scapegoat theology and sociological functions.

Living by faith – the dialog between satan and God is hidden from Job during the whole time. He – Job – needs to operate based on what he believes, and not what he sees. (2 Cor. 5:7)

Main Characters: The LORD, sons of God and satan, Job, his wife, his children (boys and girls), his friends: Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, Elihu.

Reflection in other parts of the Bible:

The answer of the LORD (38-39) is built upon the theology of creation.

Prophet Ezekiel (14:14,20) mentions Job as a righteous man in the context of the speeches against Jerusalem (14:12-23). Which means that the story of Job was well known prior to the destruction of Jerusalem.

James (5:11) brings up the example of Job as a steadfast man in the midst of the suffering.    

The idea of doubling. At the end of the story all the “stuff” is doubled, the number of children stays the same though (cp. 1:2-3 and 42:12-13). Jesus uses the same principal in the parable of talents (Mt. 25:14-30). Yet, it should not be applied woodenly as a health/wealth theology.   

Lutheran teaching:

Apology of Augsburg Confession V(III):77/198 teaches that the godly person should learn to seek God’s will rather than the rewards: “This can be seen with Job, Christ, and other saints…”

Formula of Concord, Epitome I:10 affirms that the human created nature and the nature corrupted by the original sin can be separated only by God, and only after/through death in the blessed resurrection (Job. 19:26-27).  

Lutheran hymnody:

LSB 461 – I know that my Redeemer lives.

Relevancy of the Book:

All of us have a fare share of troubles, losses, and rejections. The Book of Job is a sobering reminder that the life on earth is not an ideal – paradise-like – place. We keep our hopes and expectations high for the time when all fears, anxieties, and pains will be gone. While we are here, we can learn from the steadfast Job whose life and experience point to the ultimate rejection, betrayal, and death of Jesus by His friends, community, and the world.  

The book also teaches an important lesson against heath/wealth theology – Job did not “deserve” the pains and turmoil he went through. Then we see ourselves or our friends experiencing the hardship of life we need “to weep with those who weep” (Rom. 12:15b), not engaging ourselves into a quest of looking for a hidden sin.          

Memory verses:  

19:25-26 “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will stand upon the earth/dust. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God”