Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“For I know that my Redeemer lives,
and that at the last he will stand upon the earth;
and after my skin has been thus destroyed,
then in my flesh I shall see God . . .”
NL Daily Devotion for Sunday, June 21, 2020
by Dr. Kimberly Leetch, Clergy Stuff
Main Idea: Job’s story affirms our own ponderings about death and what is beyond this life.
Up to this point, Job had been consumed with the fire of his faith—not questioning God, but questioning his own existence. Here Job wondered about his nonexistence— what becomes of him after death?
Jewish tradition placed the dead in Sheol, a place of darkness for all—righteous and unrighteous—where people were cut off from life and even from God. It was where life ceased to be—at least until God would redeem all of humanity. Such an idea, that there is no life after death, would place that much more importance on the things we do in this life, for beyond this life there would be nothing else.
For Job to ponder, then, his nonexistence as a response to his suffering was a testament to how desperate he had become for his suffering to cease. Still, Job remained faithful to God, asking that God send him to Sheol to cease his suffering and remember him when he was gone. Perhaps one day they could be reunited and God would remember his faithfulness.
If you are reading this, you are likely living in a culture and religion that resists the idea of death. We fear it, likely because what is beyond death is primarily unknowable, and we fear what we cannot fully grasp. We have rituals and rites to acknowledge death, but then we often pretend it is behind us. Many who have lost loved ones have commented that within days and weeks, the rest of the world seems to have forgotten their loss and moved on. Death can be quite isolating for those left behind, and terrifying for those facing it ahead.
Christians do have a word to say about death, however. We know that death is not the end. We will never be able to describe in vivid detail what the beyond is like, but we can make the bold promise that it is not the end of all things.
In Love Wins, Rob Bell suggests that there is no biblical concept of hell, and that the redemption promised by Jesus is an extravagant gift for all, not dependent upon our ability to be good people. Whatever you may think of Bell’s theology, this concept is solid, and sits comfortably in the theology of mainline Christianity. How might our congregants live out their days on this earth devoid of the threat of hell?
With heaven in the future, might we respond by living boldly, extravagantly generously, and ridiculously lovingly?
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