Job 1:13-15, 18-19 “One day when Job’s sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother’s house, a messenger came to Job and said, ‘The oxen were plowing and the donkeys were grazing nearby, and the Sabeans attacked and carried them off. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only who has escaped to tell you!’ … While he was still speaking, yet another messenger came and said, ‘Your sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother’s house, when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on them and they are dead, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!’”

Job’s story reminds me of a line my Russian history professor kept repeating through the course. “Just when you think it has gotten as bad as it can get, it gets a little worse.” One man can’t finish telling his bad news before the next one comes and interrupts him with more. At first, it might be hard to imagine how anyone could suffer a more painful day of loss than Job. His suffering seems extraordinary.

But what happened to him was less rare in the scope of his loss and depth of his pain than we might wish. To quote from Wesley, the hero of one of my favorite movies, The Princess Bride, “Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.” Maybe we won’t suffer loss as bad as Job’s. Maybe we will suffer worse. My point is, that’s not what makes the suffering of God’s people extraordinary. Many, many people suffer more than we do.

No, while our suffering, real as it might be, is mostly ordinary in terms of its scope and depth, it is extraordinary in terms of its purpose. As people of God, our suffering has meaning and purpose that cannot be applied to everyone. Here we have to pick up some of the context of Job’s story I did not read before. Do you remember why the Lord let this happen to him? Satan came to God and questioned Job’s godliness and faithfulness, denied it really. He accused Job of being a fair-weather fan. The only reason he was so good is that God had blessed his life so richly. “Strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face,” the devil claims. So the devil has a purpose in our suffering. He wants to see us fall. He wants to ruin us spiritually.

That being the case, should it surprise us when so many of the ungodly people in our world do so well? The world’s wealthiest are not Bible-believing Christians, by and large. The celebrities and the business moguls are rarely people of faith. They live and talk like the spiritually dead people they are.

This all makes perfect sense. The devil has no reason to make their lives uncomfortable, other than to satisfy his twisted pleasure in human suffering. He doesn’t need to ruin these people spiritually. They are already ruined. He is happy to encourage them on their present path toward hell. So let’s not envy them, or worse yet, aspire to be like them.

God’s purpose, however, makes our suffering extraordinary. He allows it for our good. In Job’s case, the Lord was actually defending Job’s sullied reputation. He let him suffer to let his faith and witness shine. At first, we see, that faith shined brightly.

More than this, the Lord uses our suffering to train and discipline his people. By discipline we mean more than the kind of “correction” a parent applies to a child though pain of one sort or another, a divine spanking. Sometimes that is involved as well. But this is discipline more like the kind a coach uses to train his players. Or think about the child learning to ride a bike. The training wheels were necessary at first. Eventually, they become a crutch and get in the way of improvement. They may mask the level of mastery our cyclist in training has achieved. So off they come.

The many blessings with which the Lord had surrounded Job in his life were like training wheels for his faith. It was time to take them away, and see how far Job’s faith had come, and let it grow and strengthen without the soft life that propped it up before. This is what makes our suffering extraordinary as God’s people. God is working great things for us, even when the suffering tests our limits. It is why, even at its most difficult, the life we lead is an extraordinary life.

2 Kings 2:11-12 “As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind. Elisha saw this and cried out, ‘My father! My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel.’ And Elisha saw him no more.”

People don’t like to talk about death. They don’t even like to use the word. We avoid saying things like, “My father is dead.” We find ways to say it more softly.

When I make hospital calls, I come to remind the person in the bed that God loves them, in spite of the disability of the moment. We talk about God’s promises and power. We pray for healing.

But the day comes when that conversation has to change. It is increasingly clear, or likely, that the patient isn’t going to go home well. We have entered the last stretch of this earthly journey. The finish line is close. We can’t pretend. The time has come to prepare our dying friend to face death well. The time has come to prepare their family and friends, too.

As you may know, there are two people we know of whom God took directly to heaven alive. One of them we have here. Elijah never died. God took him body and soul in the whirlwind. Elisha and the fifty prophets watching from across the Jordan river saw the miracle.

We might think, “But when the people we love die, there is no miracle to see.” It is true there isn’t anything miraculous to see with our eyes. Labored breathing, a slowing heartbeat, the death rattle, and then utter motionlessness–these are far too ordinary, depressingly unmiraculous things to see at the end.

But if we see with eyes of faith, if we believe what Jesus tells us, the angels come. The soul, the real personality of our limp and lifeless friend, steps out of that body, free and unaffected by the years of physical decay, and the unwholesome appetites of a heart infected with sin. A door opens between earth and heaven. The angels carry that soul into the presence of believing friends and family, some who made the trip many years before. Jesus himself is there, with his Father, keeping that soul safe until the day he returns to restore the body and unite it with the soul again.

That is a miracle. And it happens every time a believer goes home. And we can see it in our hearts, if we can’t see it with our eyes, because Jesus gives us eyes of faith. See it, believe it, and you will face death like God’s servants Elijah and Elisha, and uncountable others the angels have carried home.

Deuteronomy 4:1 “Hear now, O Israel, the decrees and laws I am about to teach you. Follow them so that you may live and may go in and take possession of the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you.”

Some people are worth listening to. Your doctor is generally someone worth listening to. Take ALL the medicine in the bottle until its gone, even though you feel better, and you won’t end up with a relapse twice as bad as the original illness. Take it easy for a few weeks after surgery, even though you feel no more pain, and you won’t land yourself back in the hospital with complications.

Your parents–your parents are people worth listening to. How many of us had parents who told us not to jump on the bed? But how many of us banged our heads on the headboard, the floor, or a sibling because we were jumping on the bed?

The Lord God is one person always worth listening to. Others occasionally steer us wrong, even the doctor, even our parents. But when we listen to the Lord, we always come out smelling like a rose.

One reason to take God’s word seriously is that he takes it so seriously himself. It’s not so obvious in our English translation, but the word “decrees” literally refers to something carved or etched into something solid. That makes us think of the ten commandments which were carved into stone. What was God telling us about how he felt about his commandments when he chiseled them into two sheets of rock? They could have been written on scrolls like the rest of the five books of Moses. But even after Moses broke the first set of stone tablets in the golden calf incident, the Lord insisted the commandments be carved into stone again. In stone they would not fade, they could not be erased, and they could not be changed. We still use the phrase “set in stone” to refer to something which cannot be changed. God is serious about his word!

If there was any doubt about that among his people, look at the conditions he placed upon following his commands. First, he says follow them so that you might live. By “live” he is not talking about having an enjoyable lifestyle, a desirable standard of living. By “live” he means the difference between life and death. He was giving his people a choice: “Follow my commands, and I will permit you to stay alive. Break them, and I will wipe you out.” God means serious business!

Then the Lord conditioned their earthly happiness upon keeping his commands. He told Israel to follow them “so that you may go in and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you.” The last time Israel had a chance to take possession of the promised land had been forty years earlier. When they disobeyed him, they ended up wandering in the desert for forty years. Again, when God says, “Listen,” he wants to be taken seriously.

The Lord is no less serious about his commandments today. They are not “voluntary initiatives,” as one humanist has called his set of ten replacements. Choosing to break what God has commanded still invites his anger. Those who insist on living in some sin only add to their own misery and that of those around them. The Lord designed each commandment to take care of us in some way. Breaking them may result in short term pleasure, but it leads to long term pain.

Though we take God’s word seriously, none of us keep his commandments perfectly. All must confess their failure. For Jesus’ sake the Lord does not condemn us. As Paul preached to the synagogue in Pisidian Antioch: “Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses” (Acts 13:39). God’s word also teaches that he is loving and forgiving. That makes us desire to take his word all the more seriously and keep his commands. People to whom God has revealed himself as their Savior and Redeemer find in him the power to do so.

Listen, and Live!

2 Kings 2:1-3 “When the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal. Elijah said to Elisha, ‘Stay here: the Lord has sent me to Bethel.’ But Elisha said, ‘As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So they went down to Bethel. The company of the prophets at Bethel cam out to Elijah and asked, ‘Do you know that the Lord is going to take your master from you today?’ ‘Yes, I know,’ Elisha replied, ‘but do not speak of it.’”

There are a lot of things going on here. Everyone knows something big is about to happen. No one seems to know exactly what to do about it. Should Elisha leave, or should Elijah and Elisha stay together? Should we be talking about what’s going to happen, or shouldn’t we?

It’s hard to tell what everyone is thinking. Does Elisha want to stick close to Elijah for himself, because he can’t bear to leave him, because he wants every last moment with his friend he can get? Or does he stay with Elijah to support him, because what is coming seems a little scary, and he doesn’t want Elijah to face it alone? Does Elijah ask Elisha to stay behind because he wants to spare Elisha the trauma of thinking about this all day long, and having to see Elijah’s final moment? Is he trying to help him get started on resolution and closure? Or is he personally burdened by the grief he senses in Elisha, and he doesn’t want to drag this around with him his last day? “Just leave me alone.”

How to act as death approaches confuses us. Family members get on each other’s nerves. Selfishness often rises to the surface. The emotional pain makes some people bossy. Others withdraw into themselves. We are tempted to believe the worst about others. It’s sad that at a time when both the dying and those around them may need each other the most, we easily end up pushing each other away. Just when “Love your neighbor as yourself” is most needed, it suddenly becomes all about me.

If we are going to face death like God’s servants, this is what we can take from this part of the story: This is the time to support each other. Maybe that seems too simple. But this involves a facet of the gospel we don’t talk about so much. It is important at a time like this. Regardless of the current condition of our earthly families, God has made us part of a family of faith. Jesus died to cleanse us of our sins and to make us his brothers and sisters by faith. That makes us brothers and sisters to each other as well. One of the prayers in the funeral liturgy reminds us of the blessing when someone dies. “In our earthly sorrows, help us find strength in the fellowship of the church…You give us family, friends, and neighbors to help us when there is loneliness now and in the days to come.” We are not alone. That’s good news.

I don’t know the reasons Elisha stuck so close to Elijah, or the reasons that Elijah kept asking him to stay behind. But God had given these two men to each other as brothers. It was good for them to spend these last hours together until the chariot and whirlwind came. Maybe Elisha didn’t want to talk about what was going to happen to Elijah later that day. But God kept sending him prophets to prepare him. He wasn’t going through this grief alone.

You and I are unsteady, imperfect disciples. But we are forgiven, and we are a family of faith. We are God’s gifts to each other. Be who you are. When you or facing your own death or that of someone you love, face it like God’s servants, and support each other.

Mark 2:27-28 “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

You have been working 16 hour days, 7 days a week, for several months. You finally collapse in sickness and exhaustion. You go to the doctor. He takes one look at you and says, “My friend, what you need is some rest! Just look at you. And if you are going to sleep properly, you need to get some more exercise. It’s no wonder you haven’t been sleeping. Your body is all out of shape. You need to eat more carefully, too. No more Doritos and Coke for lunch, or pizzas delivered to the office while you are working. While you are at it, take more time to be with your family. A hobby might not hurt, either. It helps reduce your stress. Then you can get some sleep.”

The doctor’s observations may all be good advice. But how much help will they be if the 16-hour work days continue? The doctor has added hours of work to an already overburdened schedule. The result will be less rest, not more.

Even in the perfection of Eden, our Lord never designed us to work without end. We need rest. So he prescribed the Sabbath Day, a day to put work aside, a day for God himself to serve our souls with grace and love.

The Pharisees of Jesus’ day tinkered with God’s prescription in ways similar to the doctor’s well-meaning advice. They added long lists of Sabbath rules to make sure people “rested.” But the more people focused on rules, the less rest they got. Even worse, the less they were able to see the Savior to whom the Sabbath points.

God did not create the Sabbath so that we had a rule to keep. He gave this law so that it might keep us. On the Sabbath he led people to hear him speaking in his word. They responded with their prayers and praise. He gave their burdened souls rest from guilt and sin. They found God’s Sabbath Rest not by what they did to keep it, but by what the Lord himself did for them. They stopped all their doing, and all their busyness, and he himself had the opportunity to serve them.

Today we find our Sabbath in the person of Jesus. He supplies us with rest from our sins and rest for our souls. The Sabbath was the long shadow of Jesus cast across centuries of promises (Colossians 2:16-17). It directed God’s people to the full and final rest his life and death would provide. We no longer have to set aside all work on Saturday or consider it our holy day. The Apostle Paul tells us not to let anyone judge you in regard to keeping the Sabbath.

But we still hear echoes of God’s will for us in that law. When we set aside our work to hear about his love, he still keeps us today. He still wants us to gather with other believers, and do so often. We don’t do it to save ourselves by keeping a rule. We encourage and edify each other with the word. The Lord speaks to us and saves us through that word. “Let us not give up meeting together (Greek, literally “going to synagogue”), as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another,” Hebrews 10 urges. Let us find our Sabbath rest gathered with others for worship. There we still find Jesus, and rest for our souls.

Numbers 19:2-6, 9 “Tell the Israelites to bring you a red heifer without defect or blemish and that has never been under a yoke. Give it to Eleazar the priest; it is to be taken outside the camp and slaughtered in his presence. Then Eleazar the priest is to take some of its blood on his finger and sprinkle it seven times toward the front of the Tent of Meeting. While he watches, the heifer is to be burned– its hide, flesh, blood, and offal. The priest is to take some cedar wood, hyssop and scarlet thread and throw them onto the burning heifer….A man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and put them in a ceremonially clean place outside the camp. They shall be kept by the Israelite community for use in the water of cleansing; it is for purification from sin.”

According to a Jewish legend, King Solomon was able to explain the reason behind all the laws of Moses, but this one had him stumped. Whether or not that is true, the key to understanding this sacrifice and the water it produced is to realize that it is a picture, a prophecy, of the work our Savior has done for us.

First, there was the sacrifice. A completely red heifer, a young cow that has never given birth, without any spots or any blemishes, is an extremely rare and special animal. Only seven to nine of these animals have been identified and sacrificed since the time of Moses. They brought a high price from the temple treasury when one was found. The last one was over 2000 years ago. Today’s Jews are eagerly seeking an animal like this because these purification ceremonies are necessary before they begin building a new temple. Decades of searching have not turned up a suitable candidate yet.

I don’t have time or space to go into all the details of the sacrifice and what they mean. But there are obvious allusions to Jesus’ person and work that are easy to see, aren’t there? Jesus was a unique and rare person not only in his time, but in every age. As the Son of God and only perfect human he was a person of infinite value. His moral record had no spot or blemish on it. Spiritually he was perfect in every way. That perfection, that value, makes him qualified to stand before God as our substitute, not just until our next sin, not just until the next person dies, but forever and for all. Like the red heifer, he did not die because of anything that he had done. He had to give his life because of the sin, the impurity, and the death of others. This is God’s everlasting source of purification for us. Jesus’ death is the solution for our sin and death.

But unlike the red heifer, Jesus’ death was not merely ceremonial, symbolic, or prophetic. It really and permanently removes our sin in God’s site. Our death has really lost the ability to separate us from God any longer. In fact, now it actually brings us closer to him. Here we see Jesus making us clean from the stench of death by applying his death to us.

Does the contrast between our condition and the great value God has placed on us strike you at all? We live in a world that less and less wants to invest its medical or financial resources in dying people. Just kill them, euthanize them, and be done with them already. We live in a throwaway society that doesn’t fix things. It just disposes of them when they break. I once threw away a 2-year-old television, not because it was beyond repair, but because the cost of repair rivaled the cost of a new one.

How worthy of repair could we have appeared to God, slowly decaying with death, thoroughly corrupted by sin? Maybe it seemed worth risking a few expensive cows, but the red heifers didn’t actually change anything. Sin and death remained. That God would sacrifice the priceless gift of his Son to reclaim people who had become spiritual road kill speaks of love beyond our comprehension.