The Lord Gave; the Lord Took Away

Blessed Be the Name of the Lord

I was asked to conduct a memorial service for a woman to whom years ago I had ministered in Huntsville, Alabama. Her death was tragic and perplexing.

A Memorial Service Homily

Text: Job 1:20,21 (ESV)

Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped.  And he said, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

1. Job was a blessed man.

• He was a great man. There was no one greater in the time and place he lived.
• He was a wealthy man. Wealth in the ancient world was measured in livestock and servants. Job had a great number of sheep, oxen, camels, and donkeys as well as a large number of servants.
• He had a large family which was considered a great blessing. He had 10 children, 7 sons and 3 daughters.
• He lived an honorable life. He did not worship his status or wealth or children. He feared the Lord. He was a man of faith who lived a righteous life.

2. Job suffered great loss.

• He lost his wealth and children in a single day.
• Raiders took his oxen and donkeys and killed his servants.
• Lighting struck the field where his servants tended his sheep, the pasture was set in fire, and his sheep and servants were consumed.
• Another group of raiders stole his camels and killed the servants who cared for them.
• Worst of all, his children were together in a house having a party and feasting. A tornado struck the house, and all his children were killed.
• This was loss. Job know only that it happened. He did not have any idea why - if there was a why. Job experienced devastating, inexplicable tragedy.

3. What mourned and worshiped.

• Job mourned. He acknowledged the loss, pain, perplexity, confusion, and darkness of his experience.  He tore his robe and shaved his head, both signs in his day of pain, distress, and grief. Mourning is part of life in his present fallen world. Far from forbidding us to mourn, God expects us to mourn. When our Lord went to the grave of his friend Lazarus and saw the grief of Lazarus’ sisters, Martha and Mary, he was deeply moved and troubled in his spirit, and he wept.
• Job worshiped. Job fell to the earth with his face to the ground, and he worshiped the Lord. He mourned in the presence of God. In his grief he acknowledged the Lord. In faith he submitted himself to the Lord.
• There are two possibilities when we are faced with gut wrenching hurt, when we do not understand the Lord or his ways, when life collapses and makes no sense. (1) We can turn away from the Lord, reject him, and even curse him. (2) We cling to the Lord and worship him. We come to him with all our perplexity, our unanswered questions, our brokenness and lay it all before him. Funerals and memorial services are occasions for believers when they take all their grief and sorrow and bafflement, worship the Lord, and say to him, “Lord, we don’t understand. We have never known such pain, but we have nowhere to go but to you. We hold onto you by faith, and we acknowledge that you are God, the God of the Bible, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

4. Job confessed his faith.

• “Naked I came from my mother’s womb and naked I shall return.” All things are loseable. All things are temporary. We had nothing when we came into the world. We will take nothing with us when we die. A question we ought to ask ourselves, and surely it is appropriate in a funeral or memorial service, is, “Why do we hold so tightly to these things we cannot keep? Why do we not seek something that cannot be lost, something that cannot fail us at death? The things of this world are fading away, but the things that are ours in Jesus Christ are substantial and eternal.
• “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away.” “The Lord gave me my wealth and my children. Now the Lord, for reasons I cannot understand, has taken them all away.” It was not the raiders, the fire, or the tornado that took these things away. It was the Lord. It was not chance, not blind luck, not the impersonal forces of the universe, but the Lord who took them. That creates a problem, doesn’t it. Why would God do such things? But, despite the unanswerable questions it raised, it points us to the only possible comfort. We are in God’s hands. And God we know from his revelation in the Bible and in his Son Jesus.
• So, “Blessed be the name of the Lord.” May the Lord be praised. He is God. He is our God. We come before him with reverence and awe - and with trust.

Jesus understands all that we are going through. The night of his betrayal he confessed to his closest friends that his soul was troubled unto death. Later that night of his disciples forsook him. He had to face what lay before him all alone. The next day, he hung on the cross in the darkness and cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He entered into all the darkness of our pain, suffering, and our perplexity with God. And in the darkness by dying for our sins he delivered us from everlasting darkness and brought us into the kingdom of light.

We are not alone. Jesus is with us. He sees. He hears. He knows. He understands. He cares. He helps. And he will bring us at last into his everlasting kingdom where there will be no more crying, no more pain, and no more death.