If only . . .
Job calls out, near despair. He has lost his children, his riches, his health. Now if he heeds the less than comforting counsel of his friends he has a fine opportunity to ruin his reputation by confessing how evil he is or by denying that he brought this calamity on himself. If only . . . if only there were a good way out of this mess.
We also are surrounded by trial in which we engage in our speculations. I've endured a few of my own in the past few days myself. If only this had worked. If only I had been able to accomplish that earlier. If only it were this time or that time. But it isn't. As a matter of fact, it's exactly the time it is now, I did and didn't do exactly what I did nd didn't do in the past, you did too, and nothing we do, say, or wish will change any of that.
What hope do we have then? Maybe by chanting, "Yes we can" for a few hours we can figure out what the rest of the predicate of that sentence should be. Maybe we can all just get along. Or maybe not. This doesn't seem too hopeful. Maybe like Job we see we need a mediator between God ans man. We confess God is the Almighty. How does our concern get to his ear?
Thanks be to God, in Christ we have that mediator, the true Man, the second Adam, the one who bore our sorrows and took our sins upon himself. He has heard our cries, he has spoken on our behalf before we ever knew we needed him.
Unlike Job, we are able to look back in history to see the biblical accounts of our mediator, Jesus. And like Job, by faith, every last one of us can look forward in faith and hope to the day when we will stand before the throne of God and see, face to face, the Lord who bears our sorrows. Surely we have a great and mighty Lord!
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