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 The Bible Gateway Verse of the Day for today is:

"As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and that as the last he will stand upon the earth. " - Job 19:25 (New English Translation)

*^Citation below

It was not difficult for me to consider this text as a Lectio Divina for today! (Lectio Divina is a contemplative process of prayer and reflecting on a single verse.) I have read this verse at many funerals. I know the whole reading. 

“O that my words were written down!
O that they were written on a scroll!
O that with an iron chisel and with lead
they were engraved in a rock forever!"

<Today's Verse>

"And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God,
whom I will see for myself,
and whom my own eyes will behold,
and not another."

From a reader of the New Testament, it is a quick connection to Jesus. We would put this on the list of texts in the Prophets that did not require much explanation to the disciples about how his predicted life's meaning.

The keyword for modern Christians is "redeemer." Yet, from a Jewish reading of the mysterious Hebrew,  Job seems like he is describing a Vindicator or Avenger.  A "kinsman redeemer" seems to be described here. Yet, in an earlier verse, Job says no one is left. It might seem like the Hebrew is describing a "spiritual" resurrection in the word "from" the flesh, as in away from or out of. Job, however, seems to make a bodily resurrection clear in the word seeing which is not prophetic, but literal and physical sight from your eyeball.

To us it all makes sense. Jesus would become Job's brother, and ours. Jesus would be the one to stand with us when no one is left. He is truly the one that will defend us beyond all life, and into the eternal.

It is interesting to read these passages where an inspired connection to the Resurrection is foretold, but not understood by the writer. Being led by the Spirit means at times that we hear/discern things that don't yet make sense. We have to write them down and sit with them. (Maybe don't inscribe it into rock until you are sure you heard it clearly!) It might be troubling or downright confusing. We will often not know where the Easter road leads to until we have arrived. Traveling with Jesus, though, is the best assurance a joyful journey and actually arriving where we need to be.

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*^Image Above- Workers cleaning Israel’s Nitzana National Park as part of a conservation jobs program for the unemployed recently discovered a tombstone inscribed in ancient Greek dating to the late sixth or early seventh century. Almog Ben Zikri reports for Haaretz that the stone’s inscription reads “Blessed Maria, who lived an immaculate life.”