Sermon by Rev George Hemmiongs
I have great news this morning. Wonderful news. The building project’s over! The work’s finished! It seemed impossible, but it’s happened. The builders have been hard at it, working night and day. Despite all those naysayers, despite all the doubt and objections, the last stone has been laid, the clean up’s done, the job’s finished! If only this were true of our building at Station St! That would be a real miracle, if it were finished this quickly. We still have a while to wait, but this is the message that came to Nehemiah. After just 52 days, the wall around Jerusalem is finished. It was, as we’ve heard a monumental task, plagued with some stiff opposition and no shortage of challenges. But the people have worked hard, and with God’s blessing, it’s all over! You can imagine their sense of excitement and pride. So just as when we finish our building I’m sure we’ll have a big celebration, it’s no different for the Israelites. The wall’s done, now it’s time to party!
So, a few days after they’d gone home for a rest, the people flock back into Jerusalem to celebrate. No doubt Nehemiah has planned all this out. He’s told them to come back on the first day of the new month, and they do. Men, women and children, all those who can understand, come flooding in. Just as everybody got involved in the work, everybody comes together to celebrate. But then they do something surprising. Instead of demanding the music to be turned up and the party pies be brought out, they call for something else. The people demand that God’s word be read to them! They show their renewed hunger for hearing God’s word. One of the curses the prophet Amos had pronounced was that:
The time is surely coming, says the Lord GOD,
when I will send a famine on the land;
not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the LORD. Amos 8:11
The people are responding to that hunger. The demand that God’s word be read to them, and the show they’re expecting him to speak. They cry out ‘Amen, Amen,’ and they worship the Lord as Ezra prepares to read.
This is the surprising thing. Instead of jumping straight to the food and drink, the people celebrate by reading God’s word. They realize that even though the Wall is finished, the work has just begun. The goal isn’t just a walled city, but a rebuilt nation full of spiritually mature people. If the people aren’t obedient, if they aren’t dedicated to God, it doesn’t matter how solid the new walls are. The city, the nation, has to be built on solid foundations, and that’s God’s word. They’ve got a renewed desire to study the scriptures. So they don’t want a party filled with food, drink and music, they want a bible-study party! What a great way of celebrating something, to turn around and get stuck into God’s word!
Nehemiah knew all this, so he’s planned ahead. He organized for the people to come back and he’s enlisted the help of Ezra. Ezra’s a lot like Nehemiah. He’s also returned to Jerusalem, though to oversee the rebuilding of the temple. Ezra’s a scribe and a priest, devoted to reading God’s word and explaining it to people, so he’s the right man for the job. Ezra ascends the tower Nehemiah’s had specially built for the occasion, surrounded by leaders from the community.
Then he begins the mother of all bible studies. Ezra begins reading sometime in the morning from the Law of Moses, and he keeps going for six or seven hours! Hands up who here’s ready for half a day of reading? I once saw someone start looking at their watch two minutes into a five minute homily, but here the people are listening intently the whole time. But it’s not just about hearing the word read out. It’s about renewing their understanding. So a number of the Levites are scattered amongst the crowd to explain it to them. A little bit is read, and then the explain it. They help interpret God’s word so that everyone can understand it. Well, after six hours of this Ezra & Nehemiah notice the people are weeping. Not as you might imagine because they think the reading’s never going to end and they just want it to stop. No, it’s because as their understanding is being renewed so too are their hearts. Ezra’s been reading from the Law of Moses, the account of how God had rescued his people from Egypt. They’ve been reminded of how God made a covenant with his people at Mt. Sinai, promising to bless them, to be with them, to give them land of Israel. They’re being reminded of the goodness and greatness of God.
And they’ve been hearing how God wanted his people to live in response. The people are weeping because they understand that they, and their forebears, have failed to respond in the right way. They’re tears of grief, of frustration and failure. At the end of the books of Moses, in chapter 30 of Deuteronomy, they would have heard how Moses had gathered the people together just as they were about to enter the promised land. There Moses reminded them of all of God’s deeds, and he charges them not to forget the covenant, to choose life over death. As they’ve heard this read, the people in Nehemiah’s day realize they’ve made the wrong choice in the past. They’ve failed to be obedient to God. They’ve been a sinful people and that’s why they’ve been more acquainted with God’s curses than his blessings. As their understanding of the holiness and goodness of God has been renewed, their hearts have been renewed too. They’ve been reminded of how much God loves them, and of how they’ve failed to love him in return. So they begin to weep and to wail. I wonder if you’ve ever been so struck by your own sense of sin that you’ve found yourself weeping?
But Ezra and Nehemiah call the people to respond differently. They tell them not to weep but to celebrate! They want the people to see the law in its totality. That it’s a message of grace and salvation! That as much as he’s holy and just, God is also generous and merciful. Again at the end of Deuteronomy, Moses promised that even after they’d abandoned God, if the people were to turn back to him, God would restore them again. More than bringing them back to the land and restoring the city, as the people in Nehemiah’s day were beginning to experience, God promised that: 6Moreover, the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, in order that you may live. (Deut. 30:6)
This is the same message that God had spoken through prophets like Ezekiel and Jeremiah, who during the exile proclaimed:
31The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. 33But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the LORD,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. (Jeremiah 31:31-34)
Ezra and Nehemiah command the people stop weeping and to rejoice, because God has chosen to forgive them. They proclaim a great feast to celebrate this. The people are to go home, eat the fat and drink the sweet wine. They’re to toss another shrimp on the barbie, to gather everyone together to celebrate! It’s a celebration no one should miss out on, because God has been gracious to all. So even those who don’t have anything are provided for. Everyone should rejoice with renewed joy, because of God’s grace and kindness.
In this Nehemiah points forward to Jesus, the one who fulfills these things. The feast Nehemiah pronounces is a mere shadow of the great banquet we’re told that is set in heaven for those who follow Christ. For, it’s only because of Jesus’ death on the Cross that we’re forgiven by God, that our sins are wiped away and remembered no more. It’s Jesus blood that’s inaugurated the new covenant that God promised. And it’s because of this that God has given us his Spirit, writing his law upon our hearts. More than all he’d done in the Exodus, in Nehemiah’s day or in all of Israel’s history, God demonstrates his love and mercy in Jesus. And through Jesus, God enables us to love him with all our heart and soul in return. It’s through Jesus that we live.
We shouldn’t neglect the great seriousness of sin and like the people we should weep with remorse at our failings. Every week we confess our sins together and it’s something we do sincerely. But just as Nehemiah instructed the people, we never leave it there. Every week we celebrate the forgiveness we have in Jesus. Of course, this isn’t something we should just leave to do on Sunday. Every day we should be renewing ourselves before God. Every day we should be renewing our understanding of his word, renewing our hearts before him, renewing our joy in his grace.
The people didn’t just stop now that their hearts, and their bellies, were full. On the next day they came back for more, or at least their leaders did. They committed themselves to studying God’s word. And as they discovered more of how God wanted them to live, they acted with renewed devotion. So in the second half of chapter 8, when they learnt about the Festival of Booths, a national remembrance of the time in the wilderness, the people set about celebrating it for the first time in years. After this, at the end of the month, all the people gathered together again. They have another long bible study and spend time worshipping God together. Ezra leads the nation in a great prayer of confession, which you can read in chapter 9.
Then the people get out their pens and sign a covenant. They promise God and each other, to walk in God’s ways and to obey him. They renew their devotion to God and their desire to live for him, no matter what the cost. And they’ve come to understand it will be costly. They commit to not entering into politically or financially advantageous marriages with foreigners. To not working on the Sabbath and honouring the year of Jubilee. They promise to give up their first-born sons and animals to the Lord, knowing it will cost to redeem them. And they commit to tithing, giving their hard gotten gains to support the priests and temple workers.
All of these would have been costly moves for the people to make. The wall might be finished, but the Jerusalem’s still in ruins. Nehemiah 7:4 says that while the wall was finished and the city was wide and large, the population was still small and there weren’t many houses in the city. They’ve still got a long way to go to rebuild the city, the economy and the nation. The people are still struggling to get back on their feet, and yet they commit to these things, out of their renewed devotion to God.
There’s a lot we can learn from Nehemiah. The day after the building at Station St. is finished, you can lock in an all day bible study! What Nehemiah teaches us is that the building’s not the end. Nehemiah came to Jerusalem to rebuild a wall. But as we’ve seen over the last few weeks, it wasn’t really about the bricks and mortar.
The book of Nehemiah is all about God renewing his people.
It’s a call for us to dedicate ourselves to prayer, as Nehemiah did.
It’s a challenge for us to get on with building God’s kingdom.
It’s an encouragement for us to persevere in our faith, despite the opposition we face.
It’s a warning to deal fairly and justly with one another.
And it’s an appeal for us to follow the people’s example in daily renewing our understanding of who God is and what he’s done for us. It calls us to daily renew our joy in his salvation.
And to daily devote ourselves to following him.
I wonder if you’ll all stand. We’re not going to pull out pens and sign a contract to this effect, but we are going to pray, asking God to help us in this endeavor. And then we’re going to say the Creed together, reminding ourselves of the God we believe in and what he’s done for us.
Let’s pray:
Almighty God, We thank you for revealing yourself to us, And we praise you for all the ways you have blessed us. As we weep over our sins and failings, Turn our tears into rejoicing, As we celebrate the forgiveness we have in your Son. Renew us, O God, in every way, Help us to pray and to read your word, And to devote ourselves to following you every single day. For we ask it in your Son’s name, Amen.
