The simple fact that Job cries out with such adamant faith, “I know my Redeemer lives!” from atop his ash heap is reason enough for us to stop and ponder this passage of scripture. Here is a man whose life literally has turned to ash--he has lost his family, his health, his home, everything, in one calamitous series of events. Yet, in the midst of it all, he holds dearly to his faith that God is present, that God will redeem him from his sorrow, and that he still has reason to hope, no matter what else is happening.

It borders on the absurd.

But, then again, life often does that.

On certain levels, human beings are piteous creatures, ill-equipped for life on earth. Little things bring us to a standstill. We break easily. Our bodies fail us. Our minds do, too.

As I always do when visiting somewhere, I find a local bookshop and browse, not one of the giant chains, but a truly hometown enterprise. What a local bookseller stocks will tell you what his or her friends and neighbors are thinking about. Beaufort, South Carolina has a real gem. This store featured a prominent stack of fiction by the front door, dominated by two shelves of Low Country authors. Ah, neighbors checking on neighbors to see who wound up in the latest potboiler! But then right behind this case was one filled with self-help guides and health books--diets to add years to one’s life; quick diagnostics before going to see the doctor; better brains through roots and herbs, that sort of thing. And on the back side was a section on faithful living--how faith can bring one health, wealth, and settledness. Uh huh, right after seeing if there is reason for a libel suit, the next major item on the agenda is preserving this old shell of ours, through reason first, then faith second, so the bookseller seemed to say.

It does not take a genius to figure out that we worry a lot about our existence. Ironically, we worry about being happy; and we worry that something is going to strike us down before we’re ready, before we’ve had time to be and do all we want to. Then, later, we begin to worry about going too long, about having a pile of empty years--how do we preserve our sharpness, our involvement, our activity, right up until our last moment? So many live with so much uncertainty.

How could Job remain so adamantly certain, especially when one considers how disastrous his life turned out to be?

Here, in an interesting twist, we find ourselves with Jesus and the Disciples in the moment that Luke captured. It is a simple conversation. Rumors are flying around about Jesus of Nazareth, wild rumors that cover the gamut from affirming that he is indeed some new enlightened rabbi to the wildest of all that he is John the Baptist, returned from the dead! Jesus waves all of them off. Instead, he focuses right on the Disciples themselves--Who do YOU say that I am?

It really doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, does it? What matters is what we think. When all is said and done, what do we believe? What stands at the core of our faith? Who do we say that Jesus is?

Job atop his ash heap makes his profession of faith--I know that my Redeemer lives. He knows that God is present, with grace and power that can overcome even the greatest waves of darkness that life can throw at us. He knows that God’s power is ever-present and is omnipotent--there is nothing that can stand in the presence of God, thwarting God’s will for those whom God loves. Further, Job knows that he is one of those whom God loves--my Redeemer lives. He knows that he is a child of God, and as such knows that God will not abandon him to rot upon his ash heap. God made him, God loves him; therefore, there is hope.

What an astounding affirmation and one that could very well serve as a response to Christ’s question.

Compare Job’s statement to the responses of the Disciples gathered around Jesus. Most reveal themselves to be nowhere near the faith professed by Job. They harbor uncertainties and doubts. They are not quite ready to make their stand on Jesus of Nazareth.

One really can’t blame them for their reticence. There does not seem to be enough evidence for them to make any such bold proclamation. And the truth of the matter is that there still isn’t. I grow weary of the news and I know a good many of you share my weariness. In the last few weeks, we have seen more evidence than we will ever need that the world continues to be anything but an irenic kingdom created by God. Violence sweeps across the globe. A mall shooting barely registers the same week another college campus gets blindsided by random violence, neither event garnering more than inside-the-paper coverage because they have become part of the fabric of the world, just one more sad event in a veritable flood of similar happenings. And on goes the drumbeat. The world marches like a drunken Viking leaving all sorts of wreckage as it goes. Where is the evidence of God? So, the Disciples, along with a good many of us, are slow to affirm anything.

Except Peter.

Peter blurts out his confession--You are the Christ! It is as if his mind shorted out and his mouth involuntarily belches out a credo. Sometimes that is simply the way it is with faith. Sometimes it requires that we stop reasoning and rationalizing to just leap out there on a limb and say what we believe, evidence be bunked! The world is crazy enough and dark enough and hopeless enough. Enough already! There must be reason to hope; there must be some flash of brilliance within the dark; there must be, or else we are all doomed.

This lay behind Ebenezer Scrooge’s great cry of anguish when all he finds are greed and avarice in answer to the death of a man he suspects to be himself --There must be someone who feels something at this man’s death!, he cries. There must be someone who cares, someone who feels the grief at his loss. The alternative is simply too horrifying to consider.

Peter answers for all of us--You are the Christ! There is no real reason to believe it to be so, but there it is. He alone of the Disciples sees the truth as Job saw it. Their Redeemer lives.

I could have chosen any number of stories from the Bible to show how God responds to such cries of faith, but I picked one from Exodus, namely because there could be no more hopeless situation than that of the Hebrews in the land of Egypt. They are broken, beaten, and have ceased to be anything resembling full human beings. They are chattel in the hands of an empire. Yet, God acknowledges them. They have done nothing, they can make no grand gestures, they are beyond all hope, but they believe. God hears them. God knows them. God comes to them. Their Redeemer lives.

Those shelves in a quiet bookstore in a unobtrusive corner of the world revealed more than anyone might have guessed, including the bookseller. They revealed human beings at odds with life itself, worried, fretting, and uncertain, willing to stake their claim to whatever offers hope. God hears them, sees them, and, as God has done since human beings first breathed, God comes to them. God comes to all who profess their need of God and grace. God comes and God abides.

This is the good news offered in Jesus Christ and it is good news proclaimed directly to all of us.

Hear and believe.

I know that my Redeemer lives.