I Know That My Redeemer Lives! Blessing the Lord with Job.
Sermon for the Resurrection of Our + Lord 
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, South Dakota, April 5^th, A+D 2026

Audio of the sermon is available HERE.   

“Oh that my words were written!  Oh that they were inscribed in a book! Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever!   For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth.  And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.  My heart faints within me!”

Christ is Risen!

   We don’t know for certain when the Book of Job was written, or who wrote it down.  The events are very ancient, most likely taking place sometime during the 400 years that the sons of Jacob, the budding nation of Israel, was living in the land of Egypt.  If Job himself is the author, then this book is the first book of Scripture ever recorded.  Moses in the book of Genesis would record history back to the Creation, but he did not begin writing his five books until after he led the Exodus of Israel from slavery in Egypt, 1,446 years before the birth of Christ.  Suffice it to say, the Book of Job is very ancient. 

    Considering how old they are, it is remarkable that Church continues to sing these most famous verses from Job, every Easter Day, and anytime that we wish to shout from the rooftops the Good News of God’s victory for us, revealed in the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.  Mary’s son, and also God’s Son, Jesus died on a Roman cross and suffered under His Father’s anger against human sin, in order to pay our debt in full, and so free us from slavery to sin, death and the devil.  But now He lives again, my Redeemer lives!  While he does not describe all the details, Job was already celebrating the Resurrection nearly 4,000 years ago.     

   Job’s triumphant declaration shows us that the Gospel, God’s good news of a Savior, first announced to the Serpent who deceived the man and the woman in the Garden, this promise has always been taught and believed. 

   Many more details would be revealed over the next 1,000 years after Job, then the full story in the New Testament.  But in its essence, the Gospel has never changed.  This morning we will walk through Job’s glorious words, and see how well he prophesied the salvation of Christ, even though he had never heard any of the books of Moses or the Prophets.  

“Oh that my words were written!  Oh that they were inscribed in a book! Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever!   

   God’s people need books.  Well, we need a book.  I like books.  I’m very partial to hymnals and history and good novels.  But the Book we need, truly the Book that inspires every other good and useful book, is the Holy Book, the Bible of the Old and New Testaments, which tells the story of God’s love for mankind.  The Bible tells of the Lord’s goodness, our rebellion, and the great work of God to overcome our rebellion and bring back into His glorious favor, forever, a work accomplished in and through Jesus Christ. 

     We do not know if Job’s parents and grandparents had ever written down the promises God made to Adam and Eve, and to Noah, to Abraham and all his faithful descendants.  But whether these pre-Biblical materials existed or not, Job knows we need the Word written down.  For Job knows better than most how hard it is to continue trusting God when suffering and trouble come.  Future generations he knew, would need the Promises and Wisdom of God recorded, written down, so they could believe, and pass on the faith to their children. 

    The Book of Job and the Books of Moses are the earliest existing books in this salvation literary tradition.  Today, we are remarkably blessed to have plentiful Bibles in faithful translations, which deliver God’s saving Truth to us.  If we today are neglecting the Bible, from which we hear the saving voice of God, then we are greater fools than Job’s three worthless friends.  For the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword.  God’s Word always achieves the Lord’s goals when it is spoken into this broken world.  The Word of the Lord gives life, and endures forever. 

   So, as we gather to celebrate this Easter, let us also re-commit ourselves to being regular hearers and readers of the Bible, so that through the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit can make us both believers and doers of His powerful, saving Word.  If you are not quite sure how to do this, let me know.  It would be my privilege to help you be better connected to the Spirit’s Word of Life.    

   Job continues: For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. 

   I know.  Job’s faith is personal, as saving faith must be.  The Church’s opportunity to preach the Gospel is tremendous today, because we 21^st century people are so isolated, so alone.  Our fenced yards, climate-controlled homes, and glittering screens with endless entertainment act as walls, separating us from each other, and from God.  It is not hard to find a family with each member lost in their tablet or cell phone, even when everyone is “all together” in the same room.  The Devil probably never imagined we would, with such intense focus, voluntarily pursue his goal of isolating us.  To be sure, it makes the evil one smile that we are so alone, isolated one from each other, just as we are by nature isolated and estranged from God. 

   Sin separates.  Saving faith, then, has to be personal.  As I am an isolated sinner unto myself, God must set me free, before I can begin to be truly united, to Him, His Church, or to any other person around me.  To reunite a soul with Himself, God must come to each individual with His Word of truth, which corrects, and forgives, and reconciles.  The Holy Spirit seeks to unite the sinner with the Father, through the blood of Jesus.  This is the only way. 

   At the same time, the Lord joins the new believer to His Church, the Body of Christ, made of many human members, the House of God, built of living stones.  Because God never intended man, woman or child to ever be alone.  We were created for community.  And so, individual soul by individual soul, God seeks to save each one of us, and graft us onto the living tree of His family. 

   I know.  Job knew the facts of God’s salvation.  Did he know all the details, almost 4,000 years ago?  I cannot say.  But He knew enough.  He knew that sin separates us from God and brings death.  And Job knew and believed that God had promised to send a Savior, the Seed of the Woman, to reverse the destruction Satan had wrought. 

    Job believed the facts; Job trusted the facts.  Saving faith includes knowledge, assent and trust.  The Devil knows the facts, and even concedes that they are true.  But he gave up trusting in God at the beginning.  He and his fellow fallen angels can only hate the LORD, and try to keep human souls from knowing, from assenting, and most especially from trusting in the Promise of God.  This is the great war that Jesus fought in His life, death and resurrection.  God grant us all true knowledge, assent and trust of the heart in the victory of Jesus. 

   I know that my Redeemer lives.  Saving faith is faith in a person, a particular Man, who is entirely unique.  Jesus Christ is our Redeemer, who has purchased all of humanity, bought all us out of slavery to sin, death and the devil. To be able to do that, Jesus is not just a good man; He is God Himself.  And, despite Satan’s lie, and our fallen expectations, God is always seeking the good of the other.  God is always ready to give of Himself, even make immense sacrifices, for the good of others, of you, and me, and every other man, woman and child.  The Redeemer redeems by self-sacrifice.    

   Self-sacrifice for the good of another is the height of virtue.  The self-sacrifice of mothers is why we celebrate them with their own special day every year.  Now, I hope you celebrate your mother a lot more than that, but at least our nation still sets aside one day to honor moms.  We honor moms, and dads, and firefighters and soldiers, organ donors, and, I hope, trash-collectors, who rise early in the morning to pick up our smelly garbage, allowing us all to keep our homes and neighborhoods clean.  Self-sacrifice for the good of others deserves praise and honor. 

   And no other self-sacrifice can compare to the work of our Redeemer, Jesus.  To redeem us, to undo all that Satan and we sinners have done to destroy our relationship with God and each other, Jesus entered into our broken, messy, smelly world, and lived a life of perfect love and obedience.  Then our Redeemer died, even though He was innocent. 

   Jesus the Righteous One stepped into our unrighteous shoes, volunteering to be called and treated as the sinner.  He gave Himself into the Cross, paying for our sin, dying our death, and thus He robbed Satan of his power to accuse us.  Your sins are forgiven, in Jesus.  This is the self-sacrifice that saves.  This is the Truth that saving faith believes and trusts.   

   At the last he will stand upon the earth.  Is Job here speaking of the Incarnation, the glorious fact that God’s Son became a human being in order to save humanity?  Or is Job speaking of Christ’s glorious return on the Last Day?  How about both?  They go together, to be sure. 

   The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.  God the Father’s eternal Son entered into the Creation that He made, in order to redeem it.  If God only saved from afar, if He only sat in His glory, inaccessible to us sinners, decreeing this or that to be the way of salvation, how would we ever know or believe He is truly our Savior? 

   But this is not the God who is revealed in Jesus Christ.  God’s Son came and lived, breathed, ate, drank, got tired and slept, just like you and me.  He suffered, like us, but infinitely more.  He is the God willing to get down and dirty, to get bloody and beaten, in order to make salvation concrete, approachable, tangible, for us. 

   God did not simply declare victory from afar and call it good.  In His essence, He truly hates sin.  So, to remove sin forever, He took it onto His own shoulders, into His own body, so that we can know and believe that He has truly destroyed the power of sin, for us. 

   Did Job understand that salvation would come through the death of the Redeemer?  That is hard for us to know.  This is just the first book of God’s Word, recorded for us.  There is much more revelation to come.  Suffice it to say, the Redeemer would come and stand upon the earth, a man, come to save.  The Lord’s servant, Jesus, Son of Mary and Son of God. 

   And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.  Now Job is certainly talking about the Last Day, the final coming of Christ, riding on the clouds of glory, coming to usher in the new heavens and new earth.  And after my skin has been thus destroyed.  Job understands sin, and its consequence, which is death.  “In the day that you eat of [the fruit of the forbidden tree], you will surely die.” 

   Adam and Eve’s disobedience brought death.  First, spiritual death, that is, alienation from and enmity toward God, the foolish cutting off of themselves, and us, from the Source of life and every good thing.  Their sin also introduced the death we tend to think about most, physical death.  They did not die right away, but they were on their way to the grave, as we all are from our first breath.  But that is not the worst part, not even close.  Sin also brings eternal death, a wretched existence, forever separated from the LORD of life, eternally dying, unable to escape.   

   To save us sinners, this is the fate, the punishment, this is the horror that Jesus faced on the Cross, for us.   

    To help us bear this terrible truth, before He went to His Cross, Jesus gave us previews of the blessed life, of heavenly life, previews of His victory.  In His ministry, He healed diseases and maladies that had no cure.  He taught with clarity and authority like no prophet ever had.  He fed hungry people, in their bodies and in their souls.  Jesus loved, selflessly, consoling the downtrodden, calling them to find rest in Him.  Everything good, every promise of paradise, is foreshadowed in Jesus’ ministry. 

   In a smaller, but similar way, Job was richly blessed.  At the beginning of his story he seems to be the richest and most faithful man alive.  Then, after a time of trials and doubts, Job comes through God’s correction to be restored.  And then Job was doubly blessed.  His former 7,000 sheep became 14,000, likewise with his donkeys, and camels, and wealth, all doubled. 

   In place of the ten children he lost, Job received ten more children.  Which was still a doubling of Job’s children, for in this we see a sign of the gift Jesus came to give the world.  Yet in my flesh I shall see God.  All who trust in Jesus, in His self-sacrifice, and His glorious resurrection, in His free forgiveness, all with this true faith will also rise again, glorified body and soul reunited, to live in glory forever.  Job would be united with all twenty of his faithful children, and so will you and me, through faith in our Redeemer.   

   This is what we celebrate today.  This is the meaning of the Cross, and of the Resurrection of our Redeemer, Jesus of Nazareth.  In Christ, evil has been defeated.  In Him, free forgiveness for all your sins, and the sins of the whole world, has been earned.  And in the Resurrection, Jesus victory is revealed: Resurrection Joy! My heart faints within me!

   Almost 2,000 years before Christ died and rose, Job saw with the eyes of his heart, and believed.  God grant each of us today faith like Job’s, that we see, and believe, and rejoice,

in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.