from the earliest days

One of the things I've committed to doing this year is reading through the Bible. It's been awhile since I've done it. Last year I spent a lot of time reading the Psalms, which was perfect for the tumultuous year it was, but I've missed the rest of it.

I found a plan for reading through the Bible chronologically, that is, as the event occurred in real time. I've never read through it this way before, and it's very interesting. There you are, reading about Abraham being born, and all of the sudden, you're being told the story of Job. The Psalms are interspersed with the tales of the kings of Israel, and even a few of the prophets and a bit of the story of Moses.

Anyway, I'm in the middle of Job now, the oldest book of the Bible, and what's striking is how, even there, in the earliest of times, those following God longed for the resurrection of the dead. Longed for it, and connected that longing with God's love of His people. How can you read these lines and not feel heartstruck?

But man dies and is laid away;
Indeed he breathes his last
And where is he?
As water disappears from the sea,
And a river becomes parched and dries up,
So man lies down and does not rise.
Till the heavens are no more,
They will not awake
Nor be roused from their sleep.
Oh, that You would hide me in the grave,
That You would conceal me until Your wrath is past,
That You would appoint me a set time, and remember me!
If a man dies, shall he live again?
All the days of my hard service I will wait,
Till my change comes.
You shall call, and I will answer You;
You shall desire the work of Your hands.

Job was, among other things, a prophet. Because isn't this exactly what happened? God did set a time, and then remember him. And the security of Job, to be able to tell God, "You shall desire the work of your hands."

I often think of the ancient days a some entirely foreign time. Something unrelated to me, thinking that of course people were different then. But then I read the words of Job, the oldest of Biblical writers (or dictators, I suppose), and find that he expresses my heart's longing more eloquently than anyone alive today.

There is something in that continuity that expresses, not the universality of human hope, but the constancy of God's love. Because neither Job nor I would have known that we wanted life after death unless God had put it in our hearts to want it, and then answered that desire in a way that no one but Himself could have. In order to share that life after death, He became a man. A man who could die, but who also could, like no other man, rise from that death back into life, because He was also God. Because He became like us, He was able to die. And because we are like Him in sharing death (because He was willing to become like us), we're able to follow Him through that death into His own Life. He made a way, a road, where there was no way, and no road. He made Himself the road.

And to think that Job saw this, or some shadow of this, so long ago. And then saw the thing itself happen, centuries after he had died. Can you imagine? I don't understand everything about the harrowing of hell, or where the righteous dead were before Christ came to earth, but don't you think Job recognized it when it happened? Can you imagine being him, and seeing Christ rise triumphant?

"You shall desire the work of your hands."

He did. Praise Him!

peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell