Scripture Focus: Job 2.1-2
1 On another day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them to present himself before him. 2 And the Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”
Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”
Job 19.25
25 I know that my redeemer lives,
and that in the end he will stand on the earth.
26 And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God;
27 I myself will see him
with my own eyes—I, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!
From John: We return today to this reflection from 2020. Understanding how low Jesus stooped in the incarnation depends on considering the height of the heavens from which he stepped down. May we, as Job did, gaze in wonder and worship. How my heart yearns for him to step down again. Come, Lord Jesus.
Reflection: Greater Footstool, Greater God, Greater Redeemer
By John Tillman
As Job begins, Satan walks the Earth and has power over it. Before Job ends, he declares the promise that the Redeemer will stand upon the Earth to reclaim it.
Job is one of the places in the Bible depicting cultural beliefs about the cosmos that show God as a God of gods, or lower divine beings. When ancient writers thought of “the heavens,” or of the “council of gods” in God’s throne room, or “the mountain of the Lord,” they had images in mind that came from what the prevailing culture believed to be true. Just as we might picture God in a boardroom and angels as corporate officers, Job saw God as a king over other kings, rulers, and powers.
Ancient writers saw the heavens as the floor of God’s dwelling place—the underside of a literal floor through which God could look down. We are not that different from them. Because we, with modern telescopes, can see farther into the heavens than ancients does not make us more intelligent or less dependent on metaphor to understand God’s vastness.
We have found the heavens to be larger than the ancients guessed. Does that mean that the heavens are less of a footstool for our God? No. It means both God’s footstool and God himself are more expansive than we knew.
If we have discovered God’s footstool is bigger than we thought, we must recognize that the God whose feet rest upon it must be greater than even the wisest of wisdom literature could comprehend.
It is this God whom Job proclaims “will stand upon the earth” as his (and our) redeemer. Job, nor we, could have fully imagined the lengths Christ would go to in fulfilling his words.
Christ, who is higher and greater than anyone has imagined, would become less and lower than anyone would imagine to do for us what no one could imagine.
As Job, may we never lose faith in our great redeemer, Christ, who stood upon the Earth.
He stoops down in humility to join us.
He lay down in suffering to die as one of us.
He rose up in victory to assure us.
He enters our lives to transform us.
May we be changed, shaped, and focused as a telescope toward the Heavens, striving to reflect and magnify his image.
Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
Our help is in the Name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. — Psalm 124.8
– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.
Today’s Readings
Job 2 (Listen 2.11)
John 2 (Listen 3:02)
Read more about Humbled by the Heavens :: A Guided Prayer
Extoll the undeniable, wordless speech of God through the wonder of his creation that we can see with our naked eyes, if we will but open them.
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