Job 16 | Wayfarer

Even now my witness is in heaven;
my advocate is on high.
Job 16:19

Job needs a friend.

He certainly doesn’t have a good friend in the trio that have joined him on the dusty refuse heap. As I heard often in Looney Tunes cartoons growing up: “With friends like these, who needs enemies?” Eli, Bill, and Z have been of no comfort to the suffering Job, and in fact they’ve only rubbed proverbial salt into Job’s festering skin lesions with their needless accusations that Job has no one to blame for his suffering but himself.

Along life’s journey, I’ve observed that it’s in life’s darkest moments that you learn who your true friends really are. My friend, Eric, often references “2:00 A.M. friends.” The friend you could call at two o’clock in the morning and say, “I need you” and they wouldn’t hesitate to jump out of bed and do whatever it was you needed. Eli, Bill, and Z feel more like “11:00 A.M. friends.” They’re the friends who show up unexpectedly an hour before noon and stay way longer than desired knowing that you eventually have to offer them lunch.

In today’s chapter, Job once again calls out his 11 A.M. Friends for offering him no comfort. He then repeats his refrain that he feels like God’s enemy. In graphic language, he shares that he sees God like a ravenous lion hunting him down, gnashing His teeth at Job, and tearing at Job’s flesh. He calls God his “opponent” who has “shattered” and “crushed” him. He believes that God has “targeted” him like a sniper or assassin, despite the fact that his “hands have been free of violence” and his “prayer is pure.”

Then, like the hapless Hogwart’s Professor Trelawney, Job makes another incredibly prophetic statement without even knowing it:

“Earth, do not cover my blood;
    may my cry never be laid to rest!
Even now my witness is in heaven;
    my advocate is on high.
My intercessor is my friend
    as my eyes pour out tears to God;
on behalf of a man he pleads with God
    as one pleads for a friend.”

Most scholars agree that the story of Job is ancient, perhaps as old as the Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the book of Genesis. These words of Job’s, however, clearly describe the spiritual paradigm that Jesus introduced on the night before His crucifixion. He told His disciples that He was going to Father God in heaven, and would send to them from heaven the Holy Spirit of God whom He repeatedly refers to as “the Advocate” (John 14-16). The Holy Spirit is my heavenly Advocate, God in me here on earth. Jesus, meanwhile, remains in heaven seated at the right-hand of Father God. He is also my Advocate, as John wrote:

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
1 John 2:1-2 (NIV)

Two things from my meditations in the quiet this morning:

The first is simply the wonder of Job’s cry for a heavenly advocate who would see his tears and plead for him before God as a “friend.” Even this foreshadows Jesus’ very words in the Garden as He shared with the disciples about the Advocate He would send: “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” (John 15:14-16). It’s as if Job was given what theologians call “prevenient grace” to understand that, despite his despair, he literally does have a friend in heaven pleading his case.

I’m glad I have an Advocate both here and in heaven.

The second is another one of my random music connections. It played in my head as I wrote this post. The lyrics seem particularly apt in light of today’s chapter.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Nothing says “Thanksgiving” like a good game of Texas Hold ‘Em!

We used to pull out family photo albums. Now we just pull out our phones and pass around the pics and videos.

Grandma Jeanne

The VW men (L-R): Tim, Tom, Dean, Terry

One of Terry and Bonnie’s two Rhodesian Ridgebacks who joined the festivities.

“Only a few years will pass
before I take the path of no return.”
Job 16:22 (NIV)

Wendy and I enjoyed our Thanksgiving yesterday. We were up early to put turkey in the crock pot and a loaf of bread in the bread maker. We headed to Des Moines with our contributions to the Thanksgiving meal and arrived at my folks’ house just before noon. The house was full. Tim and Kumi drove up from Texas. Terry, Bonnie, and Ellie made the trek from Chicago with their two Rhodesian Ridgebacks in tow. Our nephew Sam had to work the weekend and was unable to accompany his parents out east, so he joined us as well.

This was the first Thanksgiving meal, the first real family gathering, since my mom was diagnosed with early stage Alzheimer’s. Many things yesterday were, to quote the Talking Heads, “same as it ever was.” And yet, beneath the visible surface of our traditional Vander Well Thanksgiving meal, afternoon conversation, and family game time around the dining room table, there had been a major shift in the tectonic plates of life. Some things will never be the same again in this lifetime.

In this morning’s chapter, Job makes his next speech. After dismissing the poor comfort of his friends, Job draws inward and becomes introspective about his plight. He contemplates the reality of the end of this life journey that each one of us will reach. I believe that most of us spend our days filled with the minutiae and urgent details of daily life to the point that there is no room left for looking too far head. The end of the journey for ourselves or our loved ones is not a comfortable subject. There are, however, certain way-points along life’s road that remind us where the path leads. And, having reached the way-point and looking back, we realize there are certain places to which we will never return in this journey.

Today, I’m thankful. I’m thankful for family who gathered and prayed and feasted and laughed and played and hugged and loved. I’m thankful for a lifetime of Thanksgiving memories. I’m thankful for parents whose deep faith leads and comforts them on a the murky path that lies before them. I’m thankful for our daughters, both off on their own journeys, who had good friends and companions with whom to give thanks. I’m thankful for Jesus, whom I follow, who promised “I am with you always – to the very end.”