TODAY’S SCRIPTURE Job 19:25-27
For many years the name Mel Blanc has been associated with characters in Warner Brother’s “Looney Tunes.” Sometimes at the end of a production, you see Bugs Bunny come onto the screen and say, “That’s all, folks!” It is the voice of Mel Blanc. Mel Blanc died recently, and as a way of remembering him, his family put an inscription on his tombstone: “That’s all, folks!”
The question of the resurrection is: Is that inscription true? Is death all there is? Is death the period at the end of the sentence of life? When you die is it really, “That’s all, folks?” Or is death a comma, a doorway to more of life?
The ancient Job struggles through his pain to try to answer that question, long before the doctrine of the resurrection has been fully developed through the resurrection of Jesus. Job is a man robbed of almost everything precious to him, stripped of his human dignity, reduced to suffer in the ashes of pain.
Sitting in total devastation he describes his loneliness: “My relatives have failed me, my close friends have forgotten me…. My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh” (Job 19:14, 20). Perhaps you can identify with such personal devastation, or recently have ministered to someone cut down by the harsh realities of loss.
Yet despite it all, Job comforts himself with these words: “I know that my Redeemer lives!” In Old Testament times, a redeemer was someone who rescues a victim from poverty. Job loses everything –– his flocks, his herds, his children — everything. His many sufferings bring him near the point of desperation; yet rather than giving in to despair, he makes a remarkable statement of faith.
So was Mel Blanc right? Well, maybe for the ending of a cartoon. But the message of the resurrection is: That’s not all, folks. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life!” With Jesus, it’s just the beginning.
Today, I will…consider how God has faithfully delivered me through trials and affirm the resurrection power of Jesus to overcome my greatest challenge.
