Redemption

Have I said, ‘Make me a gift’? Or, ‘From your wealth offer a bribe for me’? Or, ‘Deliver me from the adversary’s hand’? Or, ‘Redeem me from the hand of the ruthless’?
Job 6:22-23
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Redemption
What does it mean to be redeemed? Simply put, it means to be bought back for a price.  Job first uses this imagery here, but it will soon become a central theme throughout his book.  Job asks his friends a rhetorical question, “Have I asked you for anything?” All Job wanted was understanding and sympathy for his current situation.  His friends could not do that.  This is sadly too often the case when we turn to the world for comfort.  It offers nothing but false hopes and cold accusations.  But we do have a source of understanding and comfort, a source of redemption.  It is found in our Savior, Jesus Christ.  He was like us in everyway except without sin.  He knows our sufferings and pains.  He carried them with Him to His death, and their along side the Son of God, they died.  And today we have a most merciful and loving God who delivers the redemption won for us on the cross through His Means of Grace.  In the cool waters of Baptism, we find relief from a hostile world.  In the soothing words of Absolution, we are given comfort. And in Christ’s true body and blood in His Supper we receive our Redemption.  For the same life and blood of Jesus which were the price paid to buy us back from sin, death, and the devil, are freely given at His altar in, with, and under the bread and wine. An impossible debt paid, a broken relationship restored, so that you might have eternal life, this is the true picture of the cost of redemption.