* Shout-out to Randy Potter for dubbing these posts, Tuesdays With Tony.
In Job 9, Job laments that he cannot approach God to question Him as to why bad things are happening. He goes on to tell how God is so much more powerful, so much wiser and so far above man that there is too much of a gulf that exists between the two. He ends with this:
“There is no arbiter between us, who might lay his hand on us both.” (Job 9:33 ESV).
Job was right. Even when we are at our best, there is too much that will always separate man from God. God is holy and cannot have any fellowship with sin. We are sinful creatures. Isaiah says,
“but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.” (Isaiah 59:2 ESV).
God’s ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts higher than ours. When sin enters our lives, it closes off access to our God. And there is nothing we can do on our own to approach the sovereign Creator of the universe.
Enter Jesus. There was only one way that man would be able to approach a holy God. The Creator would have to do what His creation could not do:
“who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” (Philippians 2:6-7 ESV).
Jesus, who is God, would live as man. Why? First, so He could pay the price of sin for man with His blood. But second, so He could become that mediator who Job longed to have. Jesus was the answer to Job’s prayer.
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15 ESV).
You see, Jesus is uniquely qualified to truly mediate between man and God. He is the only being who can lay His hand on man’s shoulders and say, “I understand you. I know what you are feeling because I have been there.” And He is also able to lay His other hand on the Father’s shoulder and say to Him, “I understand You. I know how You, as a holy God, can have no fellowship with sin. I know because I, too, am God.”
And then Jesus mediates. He pleads our case and presents His precious blood to the Father as payment for our sins. With one hand on each shoulder, Jesus eliminates the gulf that exists between man and God. Our Lord showed His love not only in the sacrifice of His blood, but in His willingness to humble Himself and become man so that He could truly understand us and mediate between us and the Father.
Tonight, when you pray, see Jesus’s hand on your shoulder as you enter the presence of the Father. And see His other hand on the Father’s shoulders as you utter your prayer to Him. Take comfort knowing that you are not alone before God.