“Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience. Behold, we count them happy which endure. You have heard of the patience of Job and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is full of compassion, and of tender mercy” (James 5:10,11).
It’s an odd thing to put the book of Job beside the announcement of Christ’s birth in Luke. But it was in the depths of Job’s sufferings that we first read the term “shadow of death.” In his deep grief, he marked the calendar, saying: “Let the day perish in which I was born… let darkness and the shadow of death stain it… let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come into it (Job 3:3-7).
We do the same today. We memorialize dates of sadness and evil, as our calendars attest. Yet into all earth’s sufferings, to those “sitting in darkness and the shadow of death,” came a ‘joyful voice’ shattering this darkness… “Behold! I bring you good tidings of great joy for all people.” Earth has a Savior from it all!
Here is Resurrection power! Good over evil, Life over death, Light over darkness, Hope over despair, Truth over lies, Justice over oppression. He alone gives us new dates, solitary in “great joy”, guaranteeing the end of every evil we endure today. Only in Jesus can dates of mourning be turned to “joy and gladness and cheerful feasts” (Zechariah 8:19).
Job couldn’t imagine great joys awaited. Yet they did. So too, our patient endurance will end in such joys that we are told… “The sufferings of this life are not worthy to be compared with the glory about to be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).
Hallelujah.
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