Justice

“What does the Lord require of you but to do justice…?” – Micah 6:8

“But let justice roll down like waters.” – Amos 5:24

About two months ago, I was asked to join a social justice and health equity committee at Stanford. This committee was formed as the result of medical students pushing for concepts of anti-racism and social justice to be integrated into the medical school curriculum. At one of the first meetings, students directly confronted professors about racist and stereotyping content contained in lectures and tests. It was shocking to me to see students being so vulnerable, bold, and feeling empowered enough to engage Deans in the medical school that were 30-40 years older, and had the power potentially to impact their career trajectories.

I reflected on this afterwards and remarked to Esther that we would have never even imagined 15-20 years ago during our training calling out professors for their actions and demanding curriculum reform. But somehow, we are in a moment of history, when calls for social justice are louder than ever. It has been inspiring to hear student members of our committee—those with disabilities, who identify as queer, and those from cultures that been discriminated against—call out those with power and privilege from a place of complacency and comfortability to confront these problems within the curriculum that are traumatizing our students. 

But, I also find myself somewhat uncomfortable with the current predominant justice narrative that all power structures should be overturned so that society subverts the power of dominant groups in favor of those that are oppressed. In this postmodern framework, justice is primarily about those who have been historically without power seeking the authority and allyship to overturn inequitable institutions and assuming power.

As Tim Keller puts it “...power must be mapped through the means of ‘intersectionality.’ The categories are race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity (and sometimes others). If you are white, male, straight, cisgender then you have the highest amount of power. If you are none of these at all, you are the most marginalized and oppressed–and there are numerous categories in the middle. Most importantly, each category toward the powerless end of the spectrum has a greater moral authority and a greater ability to see the way truly things are. Only powerlessness and oppression brings moral high ground and true knowledge. Therefore those with more privilege must not enter into any debate—they have no right or ability to advise the oppressed, blinded as they are by their social location. They simply must give up their power.”

Tim Keller points out that there are several issues with this postmodern framework of social justice, including its logical incoherence, the undermining of our common humanity, and its denial of our common sinfulness. But the two ways I feel that the postmodern framework misses the mark in offering a pathway to biblical justice is 1) it offers a highly self-righteous performative identity and 2) it makes true forgiveness, peace, and reconciliation between groups impossible. 

Keller then goes on to speak about biblical justice and other types of social justice frameworks which you can read about here. But I would like to highlight a quote from Keller that discusses what true justice looks like. It is found in the life and character of Jesus. “When God came to earth in Jesus Christ he came as a poor man, to a family at the bottom of the social order. He experienced torture and death at the hands of religious and government elites using their power unjustly to oppress. So in Jesus we see God laying aside his privilege and power—his ‘glory’—in order to identify with the weak and helpless (Philippians 2:5-8). And yet, through the endurance of violence and human injustice he paid the rightful penalty of humanity’s sin to divine justice (Isaiah 53:5). Then he was raised to even greater honor and also authority to rule (Philippians 2:5:9-11). Jesus takes authority, but only after losing it in service to the weak and helpless.”

The means for achieving justice from a postmodern framework has primarily been through asserting force, protesting for political change, and guilt assignment. All of these have their places for achieving our goal of having an equitable society. But these methods do not ultimately create heart change and inner transformation. Jesus models the way for biblical justice: a humble man who has all power and authority coming to dwell among the poor and uneducated - transforming lives, governments, and culture by modeling humility, compassion, and healing the sick. This is compelling biblical justice that changes not only our behaviors, but our hearts, and makes true forgiveness, peace, and reconciliation between groups possible.

Names

“And the chief of the eunuchs gave them names: Daniel he called Belteshazzar, Hananiah he called Shadrach, Mishael he called Meshach, and Azariah he called Abednego.” – Daniel 1:7

“Bel bows down; Nebo stoops; their idols are on beasts and livestock; these things you carry are borne as burdens on weary beasts.” – Isaiah 46:1

In a way, the story of what captivity meant to Daniel and his friends are all in this one verse. Daniel means “God my judge”: a reminder both of the God who sees everything he does, and of Daniel’s vocation as a prophet who would proclaim God’s judgment to his people. Belteshazzar means “Bel’s prince.” Bel was the principal divinity worshipped in Babylon; to be considered his prince was a flattering distinction for the youthful Daniel. Your God is out of the picture now, he is being told. You have been selected as the cream of the crop, the prince of Bel himself; that is who you are.

There is an erasing of Yahweh in the other name changes. Hananiah, which means “favored by Jehovah,” is changed to Shadrach, which means “inspired by the Sun-god.” Mishael, which means “who is what God is?” is changed to Meshach, which means “who is what the goddess Shak is?” Azariah, which means “whom Jehovah helps,” is changed to Abednego, “servant of Nebo.” Nebo likely referred to the planet Mercury, worshipped by the Babylonians and in the name of king Nebuchadnezzar himself. 

Both sets of names assume that our identity is inseparable from who we worship. That we all serve something. That we all need the kind of favor, help and wonder that can only come from something outside of ourselves. But the longing and the purpose have been rewritten: not as coming from and looking to Yahweh, but as it relates to the alluring Babylonian pantheon of the cultural majority. Is this so different from what we do, from the messages we hear? We have our own gods of career, children, appearance, achievement, and so on. 

But as Isaiah says, these gods become burdens. They bear us down, like weary beasts. What promises freedom only brings us into captivity. “Listen to me,” God says. “I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save” (Isaiah 46:4). Daniel and his friends will not forget this, and neither should we.

The Shield of Faith

“In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one.” – Ephesians 6:16

Martyn Lloyd-Jones points out that there is a shift here. The first three pieces of armor are more passive and preparatory: you put them on and keep them on. But the last three pieces suggest immediate activity. “The soldier may be sitting down in his room in the barracks,” he writes, “and taking a period of rest, but he still keeps on his girdle of truth, his breastplate and his sandals. Then suddenly an alarm is given that the enemy is already attacking, and he immediately takes hold of his shield and his sword and puts on his helmet and rushes out.”

Understanding what this shield is makes it immediately obvious one would not carry it about all the time. This was not the clypeus, a smaller, round shield about 2.5 feet in diameter. This was the scutum, an oblong shield shaped like a door, with a convex surface, measuring about 2.5 by 4 feet. It was large enough to cover not only the entire body, but all other parts of armor. It was a hand’s breadth in thickness, made of two wooden planks glued together with the outer surface covered first with canvas, then with flame-retardant calf skin. Metal edged the top, bottom, and center front so that most stones and arrows would glance off. Often before battle, the entire shield would be immersed in water to make it further resistant to fire.

What is our shield? It is our faith. Faith is not hoping or wishing. It is not believing something is true even though it may not be. It is believing in an object so true that, even if we may not see or sense or feel it all the time, we are willing to live it out. When missionary John Paton was translating Scripture for islanders in the South Pacific, he found there was no word in their language for faith. One day he was working in his hut when a local came running in and flopped in a chair. He said to Paton, “It’s so good to rest my whole weight in this chair.” Paton decided he had found the word to use in his translation. Faith is resting your whole weight in God. It’s like that scene in Onward when the main character walks across the chasm upon an invisible bridge. His belief was only as true as his willingness to put one foot in front of the other, as true as his willingness to rest his whole weight upon it.

Roman soldiers often used the scutum in formation, holding their shields together to create a wall of shields on all sides. Here is a wondrous truth that we individualistic Westerners often miss: Paul is talking to a plural group of people. The “you” in 6:11 (“Put on the whole armor of God, that you…”) is plural. Why does Paul tell a plural group of people to put on singular pieces of armor? Perhaps because we plural people make up one singular body in the church. Perhaps because the armor all comes from one person, Jesus Christ, the God who is girded with truth, has feet that brings good news, and puts on righteousness as a breastplate (Isaiah 11, 52, 59). In writing this, Paul was looking not only to the Roman soldiers who were beside him during his house arrest, but these Old Testament images, fulfilled now in Christ and the church who embodies him. We are to actively take up our shields together, to lift them up against all the weapons of our enemy.

The Belt of Truth

“Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth…” – Ephesians 6:14

In Greek, “having fastened on the belt of truth” is only two words, perizonnymi alethia, which means “girded with truth.” The word “belt” actually isn’t there, but it’s the closest modern corollary. In those times, the girdle on a Roman soldier was a “breech-like apron which hung under the armor, which was made of sewn leather for protecting the thighs, fastening articles of clothing, tucking in long skirts of a robe for greater freedom of movement.” It was fastened around the waist with a belt which held the sword; sometimes two belts were worn crossed, one for a sword and one for a dagger.

The belt and apron were the most intimate articles of armor: closest to the body, largely unseen. they had to be put on first. They functioned less for their own sake than to help provide scaffolding for the other parts of the armor: a place to store weapons, to fasten or tuck in clothing.

Isaiah 11 says in reference to Jesus: “He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor… Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins.” Here, the belt indicates qualities that are most inherent to, most centered in, the character of Jesus; the qualities by which he sees and judges the world around him.

Truth is like that for us. We fight against the schemes of the devil, the father of lies; the first thing we must do is be centered in the truth. We must see and judge the world by that truth, not by what our eyes necessarily see, or our ears necessarily hear. Truth is the place from whence we can draw our offensive weapons. Truth is what gives us freedom of movement; “the truth will set you free” (John 8). You probably couldn’t tell by outward glance whether a soldier had on his girdle and belt: but as soon as the fighting started, you could tell by the weapons he drew, by his nimbleness of movement, whether he had remembered to fasten those inner layers. So it is with us: we must begin by fastening on the belt of truth.

Polluted Garments

“We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.” – Isaiah 64:6

I heard somewhere that the words “polluted garment” here actually mean “dirty menstruous cloths”—and if you look it up, that’s true. It’s like the translators couldn’t quite bring themselves to write that out in the English, so they went for something a little less shocking.

Recently I came across a book by Clay Jones in which he suggests that questions like “why does God allow suffering?” and “why do good things happen to bad people?” reveal an inadequate grasp of several aspects of theology, one of them a realization of how bad people really are, of what the fallen, sinful nature really means. It made me realize that I do tend to think of people as basically nice and good. It’s easy to separate ourselves from perpetrators of evil. But one has to come to grips with the fact that many of those involved in evil, or who stood by while allowing evil to happen, were ordinary people. Elie Wiesel observed of Auschwitz administrator Adolf Eichmann: he was “an ordinary man. He slept well, he ate well. He was an exemplary father, a considerate husband… I was shaken by his normal appearance and behavior.” As Langdon Gilkey writes, our niceness is so often “the thin polish of easy morality.” Even when we seem to be doing what is righteous, it’s often motivated by self-interest. We don’t engage in extramarital affairs, for example, primarily because we fear getting caught, while Jesus says that even lustful thoughts are adulterous. Jones writes, “We may think those who restrict their adultery to their minds are good, but they’re not. The world is full of such ‘good people.’ Ultimately, evil is a matter of the heart… Bad things aren’t happening to good people because there are no good people.” As R.C. Sproul quips, “Why do bad things happen to good people? Well, that only happened once, and He volunteered.”

This isn’t some brand of shameful pessimism; it’s simply an accurate view of our sinful nature. This verse is pretty unequivocal: all of us are unclean. It casts out in pretty graphic terms the idea that there is any such thing as a righteousness of our own. This must be grasped before we can comprehend what salvation means. We tend to think of ourselves as better than we ought, and then of salvation as less crucial and glorious than it really is. Martyn Lloyd-Jones writes, “Most of our troubles are due to the fact that we are guilty of a double failure; we fail on the one hand to realize the depth of sin, and on the other hand we fail to realize the greatness and the height and the glory of our salvation.” Or (to continue the torrent of quotes) as C. S. Lewis writes, “Christianity now has to preach the diagnosis—in itself very bad news—before it can win a hearing for the cure.”

God Remembers

“Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.” – Isaiah 49:15

Breastfeeding has irrevocably changed how I read this verse. With each baby, I went through a period of painful engorgement that I distinctly recall thinking was worse than giving birth without anesthesia. Even after that eased, I was always physically uncomfortable, or at least unavoidably aware, when it was time to nurse. The body is pretty amazing if you think about it. It was literally not biologically possible for me to forget my nursing child. 

But there was an emotional tie as well. I would feel the milk come in when I heard my baby crying, or actually any baby crying, even if it was in between a feeding cycle. And there was so much more to the experience than simply the meeting of a physical need: there was the closeness and warmth, the little fist clutching my shirt, the dopey milk-high grins afterwards, the satisfying burps (and poops). There was the haven of time away, together, from the rest of life, the two of us in our own little world. I remember wondering if it was possible to hold someone for forty-five minutes every three hours, and not love them.

I remember how it felt too to have to pump at work. With our first baby, I was an office-less resident, hauling about pump, bottles, tubing, ice packs to every clinic and operating room I rotated through. There wasn’t any precedent for residents having babies in my program, and I remember rushing around in between cases and patients, trying to ferret out some kind of private space (with an outlet) to pump. Even at work, I could not leave breastfeeding behind.

It’s difficult to read this verse without those memories rushing back. No—biologically, emotionally, logistically—no, it is not easy to forget one’s nursing child. What other reassurance do I need, that God always sees and remembers me, in my fiercest and most vulnerable needs and laments, whether I feel it or not? Through every exile, through every tragedy and injustice, God will not forget us.

Be Our Arm

“Be our arm every morning.” – Isaiah 33:2

“Your right hand upholds me.” – Psalm 63:8

“The general rule in nature is that live things are soft within and rigid without. We vertebrates are living dangerously, and we vertebrates are positively piteous, like so many peeled trees… I am sitting under a sycamore tree: I am soft-shell and peeled to the least puff of wind or smack of grit.” – Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Some days I wake up with the realization that I’m going to need some strength to get through the day. It used to be I felt like this in the face of predictably challenging events, but nowadays the feeling could happen anytime. It’s like I wake up feeling “soft-shell and peeled,” realizing how fragile indeed I am, how susceptible to my own moods and lack of reserves. How limited I am at being able to actually live into the eternal hope and joy I know myself to possess. Sometimes the chasm between knowing and feeling seems untraversable.

I’ve never had to be led about by the arm, though I’ve seen many patients come into my clinic that way. They have a different kind of gait: usually slower, as if taking it one step at a time in their minds. When you lean on someone’s arm, it starts off like that, going into the day one step at a time. The person who lends you their arm bears your weight and the weight of whatever you carry. They give you a sense of direction, not miles ahead, but far enough so you know where to put your foot down next. And unlike a cane or walking stick, there’s a kind of companionship knowing someone is beside you. It’s like that line near the end of Jane Eyre: “Then he stretched his hand out to be led. I took that dear hand, held it a moment to my lips, and then let it pass round my shoulder: being so much lower of stature than he, I served both for his prop and guide. We entered the wood, and wended homeward.” 

How do you get God’s strength when you don’t feel it, or feel like it? You ask. Like Isaiah, you ask. And you make some kind of decision to trust, to reach out, and not think too hard, and go forward one step at a time.

Parents As Prophets

“Then the Lord said, ‘As my servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot for three years as a sign and a portent against Egypt and Cush…” – Isaiah 20:3

It was hard being a prophet. Apparently the job description included giving up clothing and shoes for three years as an object lesson. The prophets brought the intangible, easy-to-brush-off realities of God to the people around them in an extremely palpable, concrete way, even if it caused them extreme discomfort and embarrassment.

Paul Tripp likes to say that the one word that describes parents the most is “ambassador.” Children don’t belong to us. They are God’s possession (Psalm 127:3) for his purpose; we are God’s agents in their lives. “The word that the Bible uses for this intermediary position,” Tripp writes, “is ‘ambassador’… The only thing an ambassador does, if he’s interested in keeping his job, is to faithfully represent the message, methods and character of the leader who has sent him.”

As an ambassador, you find your sense of identity as a parent from Jesus, not from your children. Your work as a parent is not to turn your kids into something, but to represent God and realize you have no power to change them. Your work is motivated not by what you want them to be, but by the potential of what grace could cause them to be. As an ambassador, success is not about working towards a specific catalog of horizontal outcomes, but about being faithful; it’s not about what you’ve produced but what you have done. As an ambassador, you care about your children breaking God’s law, not about the hassle or embarrassment they’ve brought you.

It’s not unlike being an Isaiah, personifying intangible spiritual truths so that they can be seen, heard, touched by the people God has put in your care. It involves an abandonment of your own agendas and preferences at some level. It involves having your own encounters with God. At heart, it involves hearing “whom shall I send?” and responding as Isaiah did: “Here I am! Send me” (6:8).

Fear Rightly

“Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.” – Isaiah 8:12-13

Dave and I watched Contagion over the weekend, which was a bit nostalgic as we last saw it in a theater nearly ten years ago. I remember we went to see it because Dave was considering whether to work as an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer, the role played by Kate Winslett in the movie (the movie was not the reason he didn’t take the job). Little did we know then that the shots of empty airport lobbies, corporate offices, and gyms would be a reality today. Unsurprisingly, it has been the most-streamed content from HBO every day for the past two weeks. I particularly liked one teenager’s reaction to the quarantine: “am I supposed to lose my spring and my summer too? Can someone invent a shot that stops time?”

The movie does tend to leave one more paranoid about catching a virus, and it reminded me how little we still really know about who is infected, who is not, and how safe it is to resume various activities. Everyone has different risk thresholds: some people sit apart chatting in backyards; others still rarely leave the house and wipe down all their groceries. This remains a time when fear can run like an undercurrent through our lives: if not fear of the virus, then fear of the unknown, fear of our inability to control or plan more, fear of the continued monotony of our days.

When God warns Isaiah to live differently from the people around him, he doesn’t say Isaiah should be different in morality, in his career or in his loves. God says Isaiah should be different in what he fears. What we fear matters. What we fear drives what we think about, what we do, how we feel—fear is, in a way, a kind of worship. It indicates where we direct our energies and resources; it reflects what we turn ourselves towards.

God deserves our fear. He is not only our loving Father but our just Judge. Peter says in the passage preached last Sunday: “And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile” (1 Peter 1:17). Peter alludes in this section to the Passover in Egypt, and I think about how the Israelites must have felt, walking under those doorframes smeared with blood, holding their firstborn sons just a bit tighter. Their hearts were probably pounding. The fact that God saves us through Jesus’ blood makes the fact that he judges unto death no less terrifying. If we’re going to dread anything, dread God; forget not his holiness. We should fear rightly so we may live rightly. We should fear rightly so we may align our expectations and hopes rightly. As Isaiah replies, “I will wait for the Lord… and I will hope in him” (8:17).

The Love of Loves in the Song of Songs

“Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved, truly delightful.” – Song of Solomon 1:16

One rabbi wrote that the Song of Solomon is “a lock for which the key had been lost.” Reading this book does evoke a singular longing. The romantic love depicted here has a balance and depth that our world so rarely attains. The language is sexually provocative, but never spiritually impure, something most of us don’t know much about in a culture which, as Phil Ryken writes, “impatiently pushes past the erotic to experience the pornographic.” Admiration is made of not only the physical but the non-physical: the bride extols his “name,” which at that time referred to reputation and character. We see a love that is strikingly exclusive, yet evolves within the context of a faith community (“we will exult and rejoice,” 1:4). We hear from a woman who is unafraid to be the first to speak and to state her desires, yet asks the man to initiate (“Let him kiss me… Draw me after you,” 1:2, 4). 

And while these songs can be read literally, it is impossible to miss the allusions to God’s love for us. The book is set in a garden (4:16) and in Jerusalem (1:5, 3:5), following the geographical story arc of the Bible, which begins in Eden and ends in the New Jerusalem. The bridegroom emerges “from the wilderness like columns of smoke” (3:6), as God did. Isaiah tells us that “your Maker is your husband” (Isaiah 54:5); Paul that the mystery of marriage “refers to Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:32). As Ryken puts it (in the book from which this post gets its title), “The Bible repeatedly uses marital imagery to describe God’s love relationship with his people. The story of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden is the trailer for an epic romance that ends with the Son of God marrying his beautiful bride, the church. The Song of Songs is the soundtrack for that story. Its love is not merely human but also divine.”

I confess I don’t know exactly how this works. I just know the key has not been lost. It is found in Jesus. One day our union with him will be something that rewrites all the broken love songs and tawdry romance novels of our world, that unlocks the best fairy tale ever told. This book is here for a reason. It is okay to look our desires in the eye, to look through them to Jesus, the one who says to us, “Behold, you are beautiful, my love.”

Perennial Streams

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved… Be still, and know that I am God.” – Psalm 46:1-5, 10

One word for river in Hebrew is nachal, a dry valley which runs with torrents of water during the rainy season. It figuratively describes things that emerge with a rush of power, then disappear suddenly, like the pride of nations (Isaiah 66:12), the power of the foe (Psalm 18:4), or torrents of oil that do not please God if the offerer’s heart is not right (Micah 6:7). 

That is not the word used here in Psalm 46:4. The word here is nahar, a perennial stream, a permanent natural watercourse. It appears for the first time in Genesis 2:10, where it describes the river that “went out of Eden to water the garden.” 

What does this nahar-river represent? It could be God the Father, who is our “very present” help in trouble: back then, rivers in the middle of cities helped fortify it against attacks, or helped irrigate its crops. It could be Jesus, the living water (John 4:10, 7:37). It could be the Holy Spirit, the Helper who is always in our midst (John 16:7). Perhaps it is all of the above: God’s triune presence and the life he gives us. The picture I always get is from Revelation 22:1, where John sees a heavenly city with “the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city”—a dazzling new remaking of that first river in Eden.

If there is any time in our generation when the world feels tumultuously displaced, it is now. My feelings chart up and down, like a river-bed sometimes dry, sometimes torrential. It seems like nothing is quite for sure in our immediate earthly future. But the Psalm holds all that roar and foam in contrast with the quieter, ever-present stream of God’s presence, which provides refuge like a moat protecting a besieged city, which provides strength like waters irrigating the ground. Which reminds us of the heavenly city in which our ultimate citizenship and hopes reside. Don’t be afraid, this song tells us. Be still, and know that God is God. He is here, always present, like that quiet river whose streams make glad its city.

Bad Endings

“Remember them, O my God, because they have desecrated the priesthood and the covenant of the priesthood and the Levites… Remember me, O my God, for good.” – Nehemiah 13:29, 31b

“Well-constructed plots, therefore, should neither begin nor end at an arbitrary point.” - Aristotle

We have come in Nehemiah 13 to the end, chronologically speaking, of the historical events of the Old Testament, and it’s a real downer. This is evident on even a superficial read: there is a glorious climax with the temple and wall of Jerusalem rebuilt, the law rediscovered and covenant restored—the story of Ezra-Nehemiah (which were intended to be read as a single book and presented as such in the oldest manuscripts) should really have ended there. But in the final chapter, we learn that Nehemiah returns from a work trip to find that the people have already broken the covenant. They have desecrated and forsaken the temple and the Levites, profaned the Sabbath and intermarried. Worst yet, Nehemiah appears to lose it, cursing the people, beating them and tearing out their hair.

But the disappointment runs deeper. To see this, we have to go back to the beginning. Ezra 1:1 tells us it all began “that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled.” When you place Ezra-Nehemiah against the backdrop of Jeremiah 25-33, you realize there is an overarching theme against which the story is told. It is seen in this phrase that occurs over and over in Jeremiah, translated “reverse the plight” or “restore the fortunes” (30:3, 18; 31:23; 32:44; 33:7, 11)—the prophecy and promise that God will bring everything bad back to how it was supposed to be. How he will truly restore his people. And in Ezra-Nehemiah, we see this in the restoration of place, building, wall, worship. But Jeremiah also promises that God will make a new covenant that includes writing his law on the hearts of his people who can then truly know and obey him (31:31-34), and it is here that the story in Ezra-Nehemiah falls short. The people remain addicted to covenant-breaking. In fact, the words “remember them” in judgement and “remember me” in mercy echoes the prayers of the exiles in captivity. They may be back in Jerusalem, but they are still captives.

The devotional I happened to read with the kids this morning was entitled “Already… But Not Yet!” Sally Lloyd-Jones writes, “We are living in between Already and Not Yet. Jesus has already rescued us from the punishment of sin. We are forgiven and free! But the world is still broken. We still sin. We still die. Things still aren’t the way they are meant to be. One day—but not yet—Jesus is coming back again. Not as a baby this time, but as a King of the whole world. And then he will mend his broken world.”

Why does the historical story of the Old Testament end on such an abysmal note? Because the answer is not Ezra, or Nehemiah, just as it was not Moses or David or Josiah. It was not the inherent will or self-control of the people. They all fell short; we all fall short. The answer is Jesus. And even now, knowing so much more than the Israelites did then, we still live like them in a not-yet, in a place that requires faith and a wait of unknown duration. In this place, we cling to the promise we know to be true, that one day Jesus will return and all will be restored as it was meant to be.

The Shadow Of Death

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” – Psalm 23:4

I am struck today by the phrase “the shadow of death,” which in Hebrew is one word, tsalmaveth, a compound word created from tacking together tsel (shadow) and maveth (death). Death-shadow. Not death itself, but the threat of death, the certainty of death, the darkness and grip of death. In reality we all live with the certainty of physical death, though the vast majority of us don’t think much about it at all, at least until we were forced to by this pandemic. It would be funny if it weren’t so morbid, the way death can be seen looming these days in every cough and on every doorknob. 

But there are all kinds of other deaths too, from sin and its addictions, from spiritual attack or situational threats, and the pandemic, like any trial, exposes these too. David says living in the shadow is like a journey through a valley, a narrow gorge with walls looming high. Not much light gets in those kinds of places. If there’s a bend in the path, you can’t see far ahead. If you’re in a battle, you’re exposed and vulnerable. The horizon is lost.

The natural response is fear. But David says, I won’t be afraid. Not, I am not afraid. It’s as if he’s willing himself into the truth, speaking it over himself: not that the valley will end. But that God is with him in it. A shepherd’s rod and staff were used to defend and protect, to retrieve, to manage and direct. They carried personal authority and significance. The comfort David has is not paltry; it is as real and reliable as the rod and staff he held in his own hands all those days in his youth.

And we have an even greater comfort. Isaiah 9 says, “The people who have walked in darkness (chosek) have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness (tsalmaveth), on them has light shone.” A light shines in the death-shadow! This light is Jesus, of whom John writes, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” This God-with-us Jesus came to resurrect us to new life and free us forever from death.

If Psalm 22 is a song of affliction, and Psalm 24 the tale of a victorious monarch, then Psalm 23 is the bridge between them, the path we walk between suffering and triumph. Much of it may be unclear. But the sovereign God, who taught a young shepherd boy lessons he would later carry into the dark valleys of his life, is as actively present with us here as he ever was before. 

A Whole Heart

“But the high places were not taken out of Israel. Nevertheless, the heart of Asa was wholly true all his days.” – 2 Chronicles 15:17

“For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him.” – 2 Chronicles 16:9

One Mystery Science video I watched recently with the kids talked about how we get metals from the earth: it’s not as simple as digging them up. Most metals exist in such close combination with other elements that these mineral “ores” must undergo a process called “smelting” to be extracted. Smelting involves heat. It takes temperatures thousands of degrees hotter than an oven to separate the metal from its ore. 

With each successive king in Judah’s history, it’s easy to ask the same question our kids used to ask about everyone: “is he good or bad?” But we often find it’s not that straightforward. Kings may tear down some altars but not others. They may govern wisely but marry foolishly. They may start off well but make a poor decision, as we see with King Asa, who renewed a covenant to follow God wholeheartedly, but then turned to seek the help of the Syrians rather than God when difficulty came. The same word is used for “wholly” and “blameless” in these two verses: shalem, related to the familiar shalom. God desires that our hearts are shalem towards him, are blameless and true in the sense of having no other ultimate love, no other ultimate object of worship and desire and help. 

There is a shift between the end of chapter fifteen and the beginning of chapter sixteen, and it is caused by one thing: war. It is external trial that brings out the condition of King Asa’s heart. “I have refined you,” says God, “but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction” (Isaiah 48:10). I picture my heart strewn with ores: mixed motives, desires, and loves running like veins through the geography of my mind and soul. This pandemic is like one big smelting furnace, an act of extractive metallurgy upon the core of my being. Every challenge and trial makes me ask, what am I really looking to for help? What do I really believe is the point of my day? What is my calling really about in this time? God is searching endlessly for one precious thing, more precious than the purest gold: a heart that is whole towards him. To that heart, he says, I will give strong support. That is a promise worth holding on to. “In this you rejoice,” writes Peter, “though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:6-7).

Overlooking Offense

“Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense.” – Proverbs 19:11

Being around the same people at home for extended periods of time has its own challenges. Introverts have lost routines for solitude, extroverts have lost social gatherings. We’ve all lost physical outlets like gym classes and team sports. And there are a million small ways we annoy each other. We’ve gotten to the point where, if the kids can last two hours without someone crying, screaming, or fighting, they get to put a marble in the jar (“is this teaching emotional suppression?” I asked my friend. “Nah,” she replied. “I call it emotional regulation.”). A full jar earns them a movie night, and even though this has resulted in some interesting behaviors (“just wait ten minutes before you cry—we’re almost at the two-hour mark!”), rare are the days we make it all the way through without some kind of emotional outburst.

Sometimes increased proximity unearths issues worth talking about. But part of living together is learning how to overlook an offense. That verb literally means “to let pass by,” as if you are standing on a bridge, watching water flow by under you. Overlooking is not passive: it is not refusing to respond, or burying your feelings inside. Overlooking is actively acknowledging an offense exists, and then consciously deciding to let it go, let it flow down that stream out of view. Not holding it against someone. 

This verse says to do so is our glory: this word means ornament, and is often used to describe outward adornment, like jeweled stones (Exodus 28:2, Ezekiel 23:26), anklets and headbands (Isaiah 3:18), or crowns (Proverbs 4:9, Isaiah 62:3, Ezekiel 23:42). To overlook an offense is not weakness. It is our splendor, something which adds visibly to our beauty. It shapes our characters and gives us an inner beauty that shines out. But in another sense, when we do this we walk in Christlikeness, putting on the very glory of a God who himself is our adornment: “In that day the Lord of hosts will be a crown of glory, and a diadem of beauty, to the remnant of his people” (Isaiah 28:5).

Overlooking an offense does not come without cost. It can take emotional reserve, mental energy, time and effort. But this is how we learn to be slow to anger, to respond with sense rather than react without thought. And in the end, it can become something of great beauty.

Repentance

“But David’s heart struck him after he had numbered the people. And David said to the Lord, ‘I have sinned greatly in what I have done.’” – 2 Samuel 24:10

“Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” – Martin Luther, first of the Ninety-Five Theses

We hear about not just one, but two episodes of explicit sin in David’s life, and both times, his response is striking. After Nathan confronts him about the episode with Bathsheba, David’s first and only words are, “I have sinned against the Lord” (2 Samuel 12:13). He says the same first three words to God after doing the census. He does not make excuses. He does not blame others, or the demands of leadership. He does not point to norms within the surrounding culture. He doesn’t use passive language, or reframe his sin in nicer terms. He sees his sin nearly exclusively in the vertical dimension.

Repentance can be self-centered or God-centered. Self-centered repentance happens when we are sorry for the sin because of its consequences to us. Our main aim is to avoid punishment, to keep God happy so he will continue to give us what we want. The repentance itself becomes a form of self-atonement; the self-oriented misery or self-flagellation we experience becomes a reason we deserve to be forgiven. This kind of repentance becomes harder and harder as we come to rely more and more upon our own moral goodness for salvation and change.

God-centered repentance is sorry for the sin because it displeases and dishonors God. Its aim is to avoid anything contrary to God’s heart, anything that would keep us from tapping fully into the joy of our union with Christ. The repentance itself becomes a form of grief: and like the promise “blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted,” there is close on its heels an experience of grace, a feeling that forgiveness is not earned through our own suffering, but received through Christ’s suffering. This kind of repentance happens more and more in our lives, in an ongoing and dynamic cycle: the more we see our sins, the more we experience grace, and the more aware of that precious grace we are, the more we’re able to drop our denials and self-defenses to admit the true dimensions of our sin.

When it says “David’s heart struck him,” the verb used is nakah, meaning “to slay or kill.” This is no mild word. This is not intellectual regret, or a calculating correction. David felt slain by his own heart. He was completely smitten by the realization of his sin, and he doesn’t go speak to Joab or the people: he speaks to God, against whom only he has sinned (Psalm 51:4). We see this word again in verse 17, when the angel strikes the people as a consequence of sin, and David offers himself instead. God doesn’t take him up on that, but years later there is one man who is “stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted” (Isaiah 53:4) for his people. We also read on the same day these words from Peter: “Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus” (Acts 3:19-20). May we experience God-centered repentance that leads to true change and times of refreshing within God’s presence.

Jesus The Gardener

“Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, who are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’” – John 20:15

The first person who sees Jesus in his resurrected body supposes him to be the gardener. I have always loved the flavor of ordinariness this brings: Mary was in a garden. It was early. She wasn’t expecting anything. Who else would it be that time of morning? There was nothing particularly glamorous about how Jesus looked, perhaps, either then or ever before. And I find myself loving him for all that: that he is the kind of person one would assume gets his fingers into the dirt. That he looks like someone who labors, who would be up when most people aren’t. That he meets us in the most ordinary ways in our day and even in our suffering.

And, of course, what Mary assumes is profound. A few days before his crucifixion, Jesus said, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). He went on to die, and “in the place where he was crucified there was a garden… and they laid Jesus there” (John 20:41-42). He then came alive as the firstfruits of the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15) to become the gardener, cultivating and making the way for new life.

In a way, the whole Bible is an epic garden story. As Sinclair Ferguson puts it, “Adam was to ‘garden’ the whole earth for the glory of His Father. But he failed. Created to make the dust fruitful, he himself became part of the dust. The Garden of Eden became the wilderness of this world.” The one who was called to keep the garden instead brought the curse of thorns. But as the second Adam, the second gardener, Jesus restores us to life both now and ultimately in the new creation: for when John sees the new earth coming down from heaven, it looks like a garden, with the tree of life in its center (Revelation 22).

And so, it turns out, Mary was not that far off. In the throes of her grief, reaching out through her tears, she uttered words that were truer than she realized. There, alive, walking through the garden that early morning, was the true Gardener, the fulfiller of every hoped-in promise, every longing for life. “Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle” (Isaiah 55). He is the tender to whom we turn, and then the one who sends us out in turn to garden the world.

Speaking The Glory

“Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him. Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.” – John 12:41-43

What is God’s glory? We bandy the phrase about as if it’s common knowledge, yet when you look it up, you get enigmatic phrases like “the infinite excellency of the Divine essence.” Herman Bavinck says: “The ‘glory of the Lord’ is the splendor and brilliance that is inseparably associated with all of God’s attributes and his self-revelation in nature and grace, the glorious form in which he everywhere appears to his creatures.” God’s glory is the infinite, indescribable perfection and glory of all of his attributes. He is not only loving, but glorious in his loving; not only just, but glorious in his justice. 

Just before this passage, John quotes Isaiah chapter 6, in which we read: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his—” holiness, surely? But no—“glory!” God’s glory is his inherently great and beautiful holiness, but it is also the going-public of his holiness, the way he makes it manifest, the way he puts it on display for us to comprehend. There is an interior-exterior dynamic at play, which Bavinck’s definition also gets at. And that interplay exists too in our true response to God’s glory: it is not enough to see it and believe it. We must confess and display it. As Jonathan Edwards wrote, “Sometimes [glory] is used to signify what is internal, inherent, or in the possession of the person: and sometimes for emanation, exhibition, or communication of this internal glory.”

John makes a contrast here. Both Isaiah and “many even of the authorities” saw God’s glory: Isaiah saw God on his throne, the seraphim, the smoke, the shaking (Isaiah 6). The “many” saw Jesus (“we have seen his glory,” John 1:14), who is literally “the glory that comes from God.” Yet while Isaiah “said” and “spoke,” the “many” did not confess. Why? The word for “glory,” doxa, means on the simplest level “opinion, view.” They cared more about the opinion of others than they did about the opinion of God. They cared more about how others viewed them than they did about Jesus himself.

The Pharisees were the largest, most important group of Jews at that time, who controlled the synagogue and the perceived way to God. How often do we silently believe in our hearts, but fail to confess, to live it outwardly in some way, because we don’t want to lose a certain kind of community or credibility? We may hesitate to admit a sin addiction to another person, or let people at work know what we believe, or live counter-culturally if we’re the only ones doing it. Confession, especially around here, can come at a cost. Love for the glory of man runs deep in us. It takes a heart-experience of the glory of God to transform us. It takes being touched with the burning coal, with Jesus who truly takes away our sins. May we be people who not only want to shine out the being of God but experience His delight in us when we do so. 

Firm And Steady Hearts

“He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord. His heart is steady; he will not be afraid.” – Psalm 112:7-8

The condition of the righteous man’s heart is described here with two similar words. The word translated “firm” is Hebrew kuwn, used over 200 times in the Old Testament, meaning literally “to stand upright,” establish, set up. The word translated “steady” is Hebrew camak, a rarer word, meaning “to place or lay upon something, so that it may rest upon or be supported by it.” If you trace the 49 times it occurs in the Bible, for a long time you read about the laying of hands, by a priest on an animal, by a leader to his successor. You read about Samson, leaning with all his weight onto pillars on either side. Finally, you read about how the psalmists lean on God, who sustains (3:5) and upholds (37:17, 51:12, 54:4, 145:14). And this gem in Isaiah 26:3: “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed [camak] on you, because he trusts in you.”

It’s almost as if the second word is an elaboration of the first. This man’s heart is established, not by his own doing or strength, but because he is leaning on God. There is an implication here that we live in a world teeming with the threat of bad news, and the natural thing is to let fear seep in, to be unstable in the interior world of our thoughts, feelings, being. The fear of bad news is often at the root of our anxiety, our inability to wait, our withdrawal, our confusion. What would your life look like if you were never afraid of bad news?

That would be more than mere imperturbability: it would be a perfect peace. But look carefully: it is God who keeps us in perfect peace: our part is to keep our mind stayed on him. When you lean on something, you put all your hopes on it. It is the priest putting all his hopes on the animal sacrifice to atone for the sins of his people. It is Moses committing his hopes for his people onto Joshua. It is Samson placing one last hope at the end of his life onto two pillars. It is the living out of trust. What we lean on is what we actually trust.

Psalm 112 is an acrostic poem, each line beginning with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. There is a kind of liturgy the author follows, in tracing through the familiar, unchanging pattern of the alphabet the truths he knows about God and how the man who fears him is blessed. I’ve been sorting through a lot of news lately, some of it bad. I feel the inner landscape of my thoughts and feelings shifting all the time. But into the change shines these verses, like an anchor of light dawning in the darkness (verse 4). There are a lot of things we can’t lean on, not really, in this world: our jobs, children, health, parents, possessions, minds, talent. But we can lean on God. And He can keep us in perfect peace.

Left-Handed Salvation

“The Lord raised up for them a deliverer, Ehud, the song of Gera, the Benjamite, a left-handed man.” – Judges 3:15

After Othniel, none of the judges named in this book seem like who you’d expect to be a leader. Deborah is a woman, Gideon the least in a house of the weakest clan, and Ehud is left-handed. At that time, the right hand was a symbol of power and ability: God swears by his right hand, has pleasures at his right hand, and the Chosen One sits at his right hand (Isaiah 62:8-9; Psalm 16:11, 110:1). In Hebrew, Judges 3:15 literally says Ehud was “unable to use his right hand,” leading some scholars to speculate that he had some kind of paralysis or disability. No one would expect a left-handed man to be dangerous. They would assume that if he could not wield a weapon with his right hand, he couldn’t wield one at all—and that is why he was admitted to the king’s presence both publicly and privately. No one thought he could be a threat; he was completely beneath their notice.

Paul tells us in the first chapter of 1 Corinthians that God does not choose the worldly-wise or powerful. He does not choose those of privileged birth. God chooses the foolish, the weak, the low and despised. Why is this? 

The temptation for the Israelites at that time was not outright rejection of God so much as adding him to a pantheon of gods. The prevailing polytheistic culture objected not to the existence of God, but to his absolute sovereignty. When it came to various Canaanite gods, you generally did something to please a certain god so that they would give you something in response. But God is making it clear that he does not work as idols do. He chooses the unexpected, and works through them in strikingly different but undeniably powerful ways, to show that he is not a vending machine or formula. He is not one of many. He cannot be manipulated. And what he wants is not merely our tribute but our hearts, our total surrender to him alone. 

David Jackman writes: “Let us remember that Israel’s flirtation with other gods came from their over-domestication of the living Lord. It was because they thought they had God sewn up, in their pockets… [His] unbreakable promises led them to presume upon his mercy to the point of indulgence… they thought they had trained God. That is always the essence of idolatry… [Then] God teaches his rebellious people their total dependence on omnipotence by breaking out of their predictable boxes to use methods and men that no one could have imagined."

Jesus came like the left-handed Ehud: “he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him… we esteemed him not” (Isaiah 53:2-3). He was beneath our notice. And through him God shows us that salvation comes left-handed. Not in the way we would think or the world would laud, but in a way that shows us he is a God like no other.