More Than an Umpire

Lessons from Job  (cont.)

Do you ever find yourself talking to yourself?  For me, it goes something like this.  "That was dumb, Dan" or "You idiot".  It is the conversation you have with yourself because at the time there is no one to defend you.  I know if I were driving in my car with my wife and I did something stupid on the road, she would say (after gasping for air), "that's ok, it could have happened to anyone".  Someone to defend us is somehow wired in to us.  When no one is around to comment on us, we comment on ourselves.

Can you imagine being Job?  You have just been blitzed with every kind of worst situation imaginable.  You have lost your family (except for the nagging wife), friends, your possessions, and know your physical being.  There is no one to defend you.  Your friends have now turned on you.  You are out of confidants.  God?  He in Job's eyes is the unapproachable God.  Listen to his words"

For He (God) is not a man as I am that I may answer Him, that we may go to court together.  There is no umpire between us, who may lay his hand upon us both.  Let Him remove His rod from me, and let not dread of Him terrify me.  Then I would speak and not fear Him; But I am not like that in myself.
Job 9:32-35

God is distant.  God is not in relationship with Job, at least not to Job.  This passage foreshadows the necessity of God seeking relationship with man to do two things:

1. Experience what we experience.
2. Pay what we could not pay.

You realize both those things had to occur for God to have a relationship with us, His people.  He had to experience what we have and pay what we could not.  God did precisely that in the person of Jesus Christ.  Jesus is the umpire in that verse - Job is a foreshadowing of what would happen in Christ.  As an avid baseball player, that terminology strikes a mental picture.  It is a close play at the plate and the umpire decides right and wrong.  But an umpire (despite instant replay) does not have perfect knowledge so he makes the call based on his best judgment.  That is what Job's friends are doing.  They were making some pretty bad calls.  But Jesus knows you better than you know yourself and He has perfect knowledge.  And He has perfect intimacy with you and perfect intimacy with God.  He is more than a baby - He is fully God and fully man.  Jesus created His own mother!  Let that sink in.  He knows you and He knows God - He is God.   God feels compelled to judge your sin.  Christ stands there and takes your punishment.  You want to understand God - look to Jesus. 

Job lacked the umpire - the game was being played by an unknown set of rules.  A seeming pawn at the face of distant, unknowable forces.  As is said in the movie Hunger Games, "may the odds be ever in your favor".  We laugh at that but I don't think any of us likes the sound of it.  A random set of rules, an unknowable God.  Are they that different?  God is knowable and may you know Him this Christmas season.