Redeemer or attorney?

All this week I have been reflecting on a wonderful sermon that my priest, Father Stace Tafoya gave last Sunday.  The text was from Job 19, “I know that my Redeemer lives.”

Stace played with the notion that redeemer has multiple meanings in this context.  The common interpretation led composers to include the text in Handel’s Messiah oratorio as a clear reference to a Redeemer or Messiah who would atone for mankind’s sin.

Stace chose to take the interpretation in another, perhaps more literal and immediate direction from Job’s point of view.

Job was looking for someone to defend him against the accusations that his friends and even his wife were making – Job must have screwed up big time to be receiving such harsh punishment from God, since God seemed so hell-bent on taking everything away from him – his wealth, his children, and even his health.  Stace argued that a more literal translation for the word redeemer here is defender or vindicator, or even to put it into very modern terms, “I know that my defense attorney lives!”

Job wanted a defender to stand up for him before God, his wife, and his friends pleading his case that he was innocent and didn’t deserve to suffer all of these losses. 

Another interpretation could be that Job was demanding that God himself come down and explain it all as well – he wanted to hear some rationale for this bizarre chain of events from God’s own mouth and perspective!

As a father who lost a son, I too yearn for God to explain himself - to come down from heaven and defend me to the Cosmos and explain why Daniel died so young and ultimately, how he did not deserve to die and how we did not deserve to be suffering from this loss.  At other times, I completely relate to the notion that I want a really good attorney who can represent me in some cosmic courtroom and argue my case before God that Daniel never deserved to die and we surely did not deserve to suffer this loss.

Of course these are provocative words from me just like they were from Job. Who am I to demand that God give me an explanation for anything, much less my struggle with why He perhaps allowed my son to suffer from an “unjustifiable” and “premature” death?

Yet like Job I yearn to understand and to somehow be reassured that Daniel's death was merely an accident, or has some other purpose or meaning, but was not punishment for some sin or wrong doing.

And like Job, I don't want to give up and "curse God and die."

I continue this slow and painful wrestling match because I want some answers and I want a relationship with this same God - I want to know that my Redeemer and vindicator lives and that, like my dear son, I will see Him one day.

Then, perhaps I will understand what my suffering - and all suffering - was really all about.

But until then, I wrestle and seek a defender.