How many of us have ever said, “As soon as I get this accomplished, I’ll focus on helping out at the church?” How many of us have ever said, “As soon as I have my degree in hand, I’ll start seriously serving the Lord” or “As soon as our church finds a building (or a pastor), I’ll really get involved?” Or maybe, some have said, “When God answers my prayer, I’ll really serve Him to the fullest” or “As soon as I get over this cold/influenza, I’ll be ready to serve God.” But for all too many of us, that day never comes.
Today, God has directed me to a relatively obscure Old Testament passage. If the Jewish historian named Josephus is correct, this incident takes place before the temple is rebuilt and occurs in the vicinity where that temple is to be rebuilt. All we really know is that the events recounted in our text occur sometime after Nehemiah and Ezra have brought some of the exiles back to Jerusalem and before the temple is rebuilt. It takes place near the Water Gate, not to be confused with the modern US apartment complex of 20th century infamy, an area that is not actually identifiable with any certainty within the confines of ancient Jerusalem. It may have been the outer gate with access to the well of Gihon (as some scholars believe) or it may have been a gate in the temple itself (as others thought). However, since “water” has great symbolic value as representative of God’s cleansing power, God’s life-giving energy, and the presence of God through the Holy Spirit (looking back with New Testament lenses), the event we are considering has tremendous spiritual significance.
A people who have been defeated and have lost everything, return to discover what is left of their homeland in the hands of foreigners and much of the familiar in ruins. With great effort, they begin rebuilding the walls of the city to withstand new incursions and endure the opposition of foreigners and traitors who have their own agendas in play as they try to foil God’s purposes. The people realize that they need some encouragement and help, so they make an appeal. They don’t appeal to the government to help them. They don’t call for Nehemiah himself as the secular leader leading the rebuilding project. They don’t appeal specifically to a particular pulpit celebrity, but they gather together as a group and practically demand that Ezra bring out the book.
Bring out the Book! This is really amazing as we consider how much entertainment and pop psychology passes for preaching today. These people needed something to encourage them and they needed a plan upon which they could rebuild their lives and their futures. So, what did they ask for? They asked, in verse 1 to “bring out the Book.” Let’s pray and then, let’s “bring out the Book” ourselves.
Prayer: Dear God Who Speaks, as our Father You have spoken to us as Creator and Ultimate Authority. You have spoken eloquently as Jesus, our elder Brother because You adopted us and thereby told us how much You love us. As Jesus, You have spoken to us about Unconditional Love and challenged us to demonstrate Personal Responsibility. As Holy Spirit, You have entered our lives and changed them irrevocably for the better. Please speak to us again in this written Word. In the Name You gave us, the Name of Jesus, we pray, AMEN.
And now, because I went to the Book in its Hebrew form and God blessed me in translating it, I want to share my translation with you:
1) And all the people gathered as one man upon the plaza in front (lit. “to the face of”) of the Water Gate, and they kept saying to Ezra the Scribe to bring the Book of the Instruction of Moses which Yahweh had commanded to Israel. 2) And Ezra, the Priest, brought the Instruction (as a result) before (lit. “to the faces of “) the assembly, among man, woman and all with discernment to hear on the first day of the seventh month. 3) And he proclaimed it before the plaza which was before the Water Gate from light [“dawn”] till the division of the day [“noon”] in front of the men and women and those who could understand, and the ears of all the people were focused on [lit. “toward”] the Book of Instruction.
Now, some of you are wondering why I translated the word for “Law” as “Instruction.” It’s because the Hebrew word “Torah” means more than a “law” in the sense of a legal code or piece of binding legislation. The Jews understand “Torah” as meaning a guide to life or instruction for living. A Jewish scholar whom I fervently respect (Rabbi Lawrence Kushner) calls the Torah “The Way of all Being” (Five Cities of Refuge, p. 163) and the Jewish playwright (David Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross) calls it a “good teacher” in the same book (p. 19). The Torah isn’t primarily something that “restricts” us, but God’s verbal instructions to direct us to our best and THE best.
These people were hungry for God’s Word. They were seeking a new identity as God’s obedient people rather than as God’s rebellious people who deserved to be sent into exile. They wanted to know the right way to rebuild God’s capitol. They were so hungry for the Word that they took the initiative in gathering together. I suggest this for two reasons. First, the Bible doesn’t indicate that Nehemiah or Ezra initiated the gathering, and Nehemiah usually let us know when he did something, as in 7:5. Second, the wording saying that they gathered “like one man” (or “one person” if we’re to be more modern) suggests that they all seem to have the same idea.
And they didn’t gather at a particular building, though the fact that Ezra had already built (or had built) a wooden platform would have signaled his intention to preach there. They gathered at a place usually translated as “square” or “plaza,” but the Hebrew noun really means simply “open space.” In short, they gathered where there was opportunity and where there was space available. Shouldn’t that be a challenge to those of us who are more comfortable with institutions and buildings than with the primary functions of a church to preach, teach, and serve?
Isn’t it strange? I’ve been involved in mission efforts where people wouldn’t take us seriously because we didn’t have a building of our own and we were meeting in rented space. But these people gathered in an open space and stood from dawn until noon listening to a priest and teacher read from the Scripture. I’ve heard modern congregations seated in comfortable pews complaining about a 40-minute sermon, but these people stood for hours. What’s the difference? A desire to know what God wanted! These people were hungry to hear from the one book, the one scroll, at their disposal, but we all have multiple personal copies of our Bibles and, very often, don’t use them. What’s the difference? An expectation that God would speak through those words!
But we should want to hear those words! A friend of mine who pastors a new church in Oregon, Dr. Richard Williams, has written a devotional book on Nehemiah. In sharing on these verses, he quotes from the late President Woodrow Wilson and I’m going to take the liberty of quoting from the quotation: “Give the Bible to the people, unadulterated, pure, unaltered, unexplained, uncheapened, and then see it work through the whole nature. It is very difficult indeed for a man or for a boy who knows the Scriptures ever to get away from it. It follows him like the memory of his mother. It haunts him like an old song. It reminds him like the word of an old and revered teacher. It forms a part of the warp and woof of his life.”
If we want power in the church and purpose in our lives, we need a ministry of God’s Word. But it isn’t a ministry conducted in isolation. Notice that everyone who could understand was standing to hear God’s Word. In a time when men and women usually didn’t worship together and children weren’t really considered to count, God’s Word was read and explained to everyone.
And frankly, that ministry of God’s Word isn’t going to happen without a focused emphasis upon God’s Word and a leader who believes God’s Word is a priority. We can build organizations using a sociological bag of tricks and managerial prestidigitation. We can build buildings and budgets if we have the right mix of gifts in exhortation and administration, but we aren’t going to build the ministry of God’s Word without a consistent voice with a love for experiencing and sharing God’s Word. It is popular to minimize the importance of the pulpit, today. We can claim with smug self-confidence that this is the era of multimedia and inductive, discussion-oriented study, but when we see God working in the past and in the present, it is usually centered on a leader who shares God’s Word with a consistent voice after himself (or for some of you, herself) encountering God’s message for him (or her).
Early Israel had its Moses and its Joshua (though each was teamed with priests for other ministerial duties), the monarchy had its prophets from Elijah through Nathan and Gad and on through the writing prophets and the seers of the intertestamental period. The disciples had Jesus Himself, but the early church centered on Peter (and later, James) in the Jerusalem area and Paul (and later, Timothy and others) in the Gentile areas. Certainly, there were other “preachers,” Philip had some dynamic campaigns and John seemed to have been a church planter/missionary/wise man/ seer in his later years. Yet, when things were happening, there was an identifiable “representative” preacher in the midst of God’s People. Let’s see what our text says:
4) And Ezra the Scribe stood upon a raised wooden platform which they built for the purpose* and standing at his side: Mattihiah (meaning “Given by Yah?”), Shema (“He heard”), Anaiah (“Yah answered”), Uriah (“Fire of Yah”), Hilkiah (“Portion of Yah”), and Maaseiah (“Work of Yah” or “God-Made”) on his right, and on his left: Pedaiah (“Yah redeems”), Mishael (“Who is like God?”), Malchijah (“Yah is my King”), and Hashum (idea of “smashed, shattered,” possibly “flat-nose”**), Hashbaddanah (idea of “thought” combined with “judgment?”), Zechariah (“Yah remembered”), Meshullam (“Compensation?”***).
5) And Ezra opened the book before the eyes of all the people because he was above all the people and as he opened it, all the people stood. 6) And Ezra blessed Yahweh the Great God and all the people, as a result, answered, “Let it stand! Let it stand!” (lit. “Amen! Amen!”) with hands upraised. And then, they bowed and they stretched themselves out before Yahweh, noses to the ground (or “land”). 7) And Yeshua (“He saves”), Bani (“Constructed”), Sherebiah (“Burning of Yahweh?”), Jamin (“Right”), Akkub (“Follower” or “Protector?”), Shabbethai (“of the Sabbath”), Hodiah (“Yah is Impressive!”), Maaseiah (“Work of Yah” or “God-Made”), Kelita (“Crippled?”), Azariah (“Yah helps!” or “Yah is help!”), Jozabad (“Yah endowed”), Hanan (“Favored” or “Gracious”), Pelaiah (“Yah is wondrous!”), and the Levites caused the people to understand the Instruction and the people kept standing. 8) And they proclaimed from the Book of the Instruction of God translating and establishing understanding and [so that] they discerned what was proclaimed.
Ezra had a platform built so that everyone could see that he had nothing up his sleeve, so to speak. He wanted everyone to be able to see that his teaching wasn’t coming from himself, but from the Book! This is why it is so important for pastors/preachers/teachers to refer back to the text and let people know where they’re getting what they’re saying. Some pulpit ministers discount the value of dealing consistently with a text. They think it’s repetitive and boring. Well, these people didn’t think it was boring because they stood for hours in order to try to understand what God had for them.
As I think about this wooden platform, I am reminded of Herman Melville’s description of the pulpit in Moby Dick. It’s actually a description of a real pulpit in the Whaler’s Chapel that a Jewish friend went out of his way to show me in New Bedford, Massachusetts. It reads:
Its paneled front was in the likeness of a ship’s bluff bows, and the Holy Bible rested on a projecting piece of scroll work, fashioned after a ship’s fiddle-headed beak. What could be more full of meaning?—for the pulpit is ever this earth’s foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpit leads the world. From thence it is that the storm of God’s quick wrath is first descried, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt. From thence it is that the God of breezes fair or foul is first invoked for favourable winds. Yes, the world’s a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow. (Great Books of the Western World, Volume 48: Moby Dick; or The Whale (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1952 (original, 1851)), pp. 29-30.)
Why is that significant? It is significant because the pulpit was named after a spot at the front of a sailing vessel where a linesman could drop a line to test the depth of the water or watch out for reefs when sailing in foggy or stormy weather. The pulpit was the position of a humble sailor (not even the captain) who served a life and death purpose by calling out potential dangers as opposed to safe sailing. Is there any better description of the preacher today, getting his (or her) sailing orders from God and striving to keep churches and people from ripping out their hulls on the reefs of sin or striking aground in the shallows of arrogance and irresponsibility? God’s people need a real pulpit presence to stand in the prow if they intend to take that passage out into authentic service and a Christian lifestyle. The great British theologian, P. T. Forsyth wrote in Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind (p. 5) that Christianity would stand or fall with preaching. Karl Barth, the Father of Neo-Orthodoxy in his attempt to get away from the mainline liberalism of his teachers, suggested more than once that Christianity without preaching would lose its essential quality and its true nature.
I also see significance in the fact that Ezra is given two titles, sometimes alternating with one another, in this chapter. One title is scribe. Scribe and scroll (or Book) come from the same root, meaning literally “to count.” This is because the first writing was primarily for purposes of keeping inventories, censuses, and keeping track of taxation. To be a scribe was to be one who paid attention to detail. I truly believe this is analogous to the teaching function in ministry, today. The other title is priest. Here is a representative of religious ceremony and process, performing the professional duties we associate with a religious leader. Here is where I believe pastoral care and church administration fit into the ministerial equation. Both functions are needed among God’s People and either function is ignored to the peril of the health of God’s People.
But some will think I’ve overstated my case and suggest that we don’t need pastors or pulpit ministers who are such megalomaniacs, such egotists, that they cannot delegate to others or disciple future ministers. There, I must say that the text itself provides its own corrective. Look at all of the support that Ezra (whose very name suggests “Help” or “Helper”) had.
First, I want you to notice all of the names that have “Yah,” an abbreviation for God’s personal name, in the names of Ezra’s helpers. Some of you may wonder how they dared have an abbreviation for God’s unspoken name in their own names without violating the sacredness of the personal name. Let’s just say that they believed any change in the name removed any power you might have thought you had over God. A change in the name represented a change in your understanding of God.
A friend of mine was attending a Hebrew school in Dayton, Ohio. He was always in trouble and decided to please his teachers by copying from the Torah on the chalkboard. Naively, he copied everything, including the personal name of God. This created a crisis in the school because they could no longer erase the chalkboard without desecrating the name of God. The text with its “blasphemous” use of God’s name sat for two weeks on the chalkboard before a wise old rabbi came up with a solution. He added a vowel point to the name of God, transforming it into a verbal form. THEN, they could erase it.
But what’s really important to see about these names with “Yah” in them. 5 out of 6 men standing on Ezra’s right side and 3 out of 7 on the left (that’s at least 62% of those first mentioned because one name is a short version of a name that usually has “Yah” in it), as well as 6 of 13 in the second list (slightly under 50%) have “Yah” in their names. I dare suggest that, while some of these may have kept “Yah” in the names because of tradition, many of these men had “Yah” in their names because their families had stayed as true to God’s way as one could in a foreign land and expected God to come through for them, someday. The name suggests the possibility of having been “taught” the ways of the Lord by faithful parents. Such names should challenge us to bring up our children in God’s ways.
Yet, it is truly important here that Ezra wasn’t the only teacher/preacher in God’s congregation. The Levites and laypersons (who aren’t even given titles here) supplement Ezra’s teaching, bringing it down to a small group or personal level. I love this model! Wouldn’t it be amazing if a church had small groups discussing the text preached on by the pulpit minister and then, the congregation came back together with questions and sharing? Wouldn’t that be closer to the powerful event described here than what most of us experience Sunday after Sunday? Well, regardless of whether you agree with me about this model, we see that a vital ministry of God’s Word cannot be restricted to the work of the teaching pastor. There must be others to share on a more intimate level.
Yet, the positive result wasn’t immediate. God’s Word can be overwhelming, sometimes. Look at verse 9:
9) And Nehemiah the Tirshathite and Ezra the priest and scribe and the Levites who were causing the people to understand said to all of the people: “This day—it is Holy to Yahweh, Your God, don’t lament or cry BECAUSE all of the people were crying as they heard the words of the Instruction.
Why were the people so upset? Isn’t it obvious that they were sad and depressed over how far short of God’s standard they had fallen? Isn’t it likely that they stood in the very place where God’s temple had once stood and found themselves lamenting what “used to be?” Isn’t it possible that they felt guilty because they hadn’t been able to rebuild the city to its previous glory as fast as they may have expected? Is it possible that they just didn’t feel like they even had the resources to accomplish what God expected of them? Maybe they were already tired from working on the wall and suddenly realized how much more they had to accomplish! Maybe we have a classic case of 5th century (B.C.) “burn-out!” They came together expecting to get a fresh dose of spiritual energy and suddenly discovered that they had a long way to go.
Is that so different from what we often experience, today? Sometimes, God’s Word shows us how far we’ve fallen from the level of God’s plan. Sometimes, we can’t focus on the future for the sake of what Churchill called “history’s flickering lamp” that keeps us stumbling in the past (The Second World War: Volume II: Their Finest Hour, p. 550). Sometimes, we yearn so much for the glory and triumphs of the past that we fail to claim our legacy in the present. Sometimes, we look so closely at what we don’t have that we neglect to examine the resources our Father in heaven wants to provide for us. Sometimes, we allow ourselves to be so exhausted with the most recent effort that we fail to respond positively to the more interesting and vital challenge of the future. That’s modern “burn-out” and it can be seen in churches throughout the world, but particularly where effort has replaced relationship and obligation has replaced praise.
In our text, God’s leaders didn’t allow the depression to stay. They were wise enough to realize that looking backward only accomplishes so much. One purpose of repentance (in the sense of turning around and going the other direction) is that we are no longer looking down the road that leads to despair and destruction. Rather, we are now looking at the road that leads to LIFE (ironically, what Torah, Instruction, or Law meant to the Jews).
10) And he [Nehemiah] said to them, “Go and eat select foods and drink from sweet drinks and send portions to him with nothing ready BECAUSE HOLY is today to our Lord and don’t be sad BECAUSE rejoicing in Yahweh is your fortress (refuge, strongpoint).
God’s leaders instructed the people to celebrate. They weren’t to focus on the negative. They weren’t to allow their regrets about the past to steal their future. They weren’t to allow their failures and lack of faithfulness to destroy God’s plan for future relevance. But if they just focused on the work ahead or how far they had to go, they would have stayed in a melancholic state of sadness. God brings up those things about which we can’t be happy in order to help us put them behind us. We are to let go of our failures and CELEBRATE God’s successes! We are to let go of our weariness and CELEBRATE God’s unlimited creative energy—available to us!
So, how do we accomplish this? The first step is to DECIDE to celebrate. Nehemiah told the people to get special food and drink. As one of God’s leaders on the scene, he was not only giving them permission to celebrate, but he commanded them to ACT. Part of rejoicing is tied up in the planning and anticipation, the preparation actually helps you live out the celebration twice—once in your imagination and once in reality (though memory may give you a third experience). Ever notice how Christmas shopping is sometimes as enjoyable as when the gifts are actually opened? This is because preparing to celebrate is a vital part of the celebration itself.
The second step is to share the joy. We are social beings. Adam had everything possible at his disposal in the Garden, but without someone with whom he could share it, he didn’t have any joy. We even see this in something as frivolous as sports and entertainment. If we can’t be there, we like to have our friends over and watch together. Shared experiences are better.
The third step is to get ready to move on. Many translations of verse 10 emphasize that the joy (or rejoicing) in the Lord is our “strength.” That’s true, but when we look at the Hebrew word, it’s more like the joy of the Lord is our fortress, our stronghold. It isn’t merely a place to retreat to when we face trouble, but a place to mobilize and get back on the offensive. Church is intended to be celebratory. Church is intended to help us put the negatives behind and see what great things God has in store for us.
We can’t stay in a “bunker mentality” and experience the rejoicing to which Nehemiah points us. Rejoice is an active verb that requires a decision and action. Action means to get outside one’s self. A modern psychology book talks about flow. It points out how that life without enough challenges or new things to learn becomes boring and how life with too many challenges and an overwhelming amount to learn becomes frustrating. But when we feel like we’re “mostly” in control and “stretching” just enough to be taking some risks without risking total disaster, THAT’S when we feel like we’re living life to the utmost. That’s why good games have pacing that expand the difficulty as you play, but lets you have a very satisfying victory every once in a while. That’s why good movies aren’t a rollercoaster ride all of the time; they give you some touching moments for catching one’s breath and reflecting on what’s happened, as well as to offer some comic relief to release tension. That’s why God wants us to celebrate His accomplishments in our lives, but wants us to look toward new challenges. It isn’t to make us tired; it’s to add the spiritual endorphins to our lives that allow us to feel good and accomplish His will at the same time.
Joy is really based on relationship. I once saw a poster of a valentine-shaped heart with a castle on top of it. There was a flag with a slogan, oversized and coming out of the top of the castle. The slogan read: “Joy is the banner flown from the heart when the King is in residence.” Well, stupid me, I didn’t realize what it meant until I discovered that, in the UK, one can always tell whether the queen is “at home” in the royal residence when a special flag is flying. In fact, there is even a larger version of that flag for her two (one real and one official) birthdays that are flown when she is “in residence” on one of those birthdays. Now, the slogan makes perfect sense to me. Just as anyone from the lowest peasant to the Prime Minister can know that whether the royalty of Britain are present by looking for a flag, a physical symbol, everyone around us is likely to be able to tell whether God is “in residence” in our lives by our “joy.” How we react to trouble, to challenges, and even to success will signal whether the King is “in residence” in our lives.
If we continue in the text, we get to the end of verse 12 and see that the people celebrated GREATLY because they understood what had been made known to them. In our vernacular, we would say that they partied BIG TIME because they were excited about what they’d learned from God. Sharing and serving, celebration and commitment drive away sadness and renew joy (vv. 11-12).
So, I’ll ask you the same question I asked the children earlier in the service. If “joy” is the banner flown from your heart when the Lord is in residence, can anyone tell that God lives in you? And as a church, if “joy” is the banner flown from the congregation when its Lord is in residence, can anyone see us as God’s “castle?” Get ready to celebrate. Share with each other! Be open to God’s plans. Get outside yourselves. As Paul said more than once in Philippians, “Rejoice in the Lord with all your heart! AGAIN, I say, rejoice!” It’s a decision before it’s a feeling. Ask God for it.
