OUR LORD WHO HIDES US FROM WRATH

In the book of Job chapter 14 verses 9 - 14, Job compares a man to a tree and declares that whereas a man passes and is no more, a tree that had been cut down, at even a hint of water, may send forth new shoots and revive its life.  The passage reads this way;

...yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth shoots like a plant.

But a man dies and is laid low; he breathes his last and is no more.

As the water of a lake dries up or a riverbed becomes parched and dry, so he lies down and does not rise; till the heavens are no more, people will not awake or be roused from their sleep.

“If only you would hide me in the grave and conceal me till your anger has passed! If only you would set me a time and then remember me!

If someone dies, will they live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait for my renewal to come.

Job, having suffered a set of life-shattering calamities,  asks God to kill him so that he may be hidden from the Lord's anger that he believes is the cause of his suffering. Job suggests that God could keep him dead for a period of time and then remember him and bring him back to life once His anger has passed.

Having said this however, Job wonders if death is a one-way street and that if he were to die, he might never return. 

Job offers a solution to God by saying he would hand in the chips of his life of hard service in exchange for his revival from death.

Job's profound soliloquy summarizes the necessity of the gospel which is the story of our Lord Jesus suffering and dying on a cross to pay for our sins so that we may be shielded from the wrath of God and be brought out from under death and into life.

Job, in his desperation, tried to concoct a workable escape plan from his painful and grievious condition  and saw death as the ultimate hiding place from the anger of God but he realized that if there was a chance that he would live again, it would have to be at a price. 

The  price that Job suspected was necessary  was far more than his own life of hard service; It was the painful and grievious death of the perfect and sinless Lamb of God who, having lived a life of hard service to people, gave Himself up to die on the cross for all mankind.

Bless the name of Jesus our Saviour whose salvation hides us from God's wrath and gives us new life out of death.

Amen.