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.

Take Heart

“When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope of our being saved was at last abandoned… Paul stood up among them and said… “I urge you to take heart… For this very night there stood before me an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I worship, and he said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand before Caesar. And behold, God has granted you all those who sail with you.’ So take heart, men, for I have faith in God that it will be exactly as I have been told.” – Acts 27:21-25

“Take heart, my friend, we'll go together / this uncertain road that lies ahead / our faithful God has always gone before us / and He will lead the way once again” – Fernando Ortega

The situation was pretty bad, and somehow Luke’s use of the first person makes it that much more real: they were in a violent storm, with darkness for days. Quarantined in the midst of a force beyond their control, having jettisoned all non-essential cargo and tackle. Hope was gone. Yet when Paul speaks, he uses twice a word that only occurs a total of three times in the entire New Testament: euthymio, to “take heart, be of good cheer, be joyful and merry.” It’s also used in James 5:13: “Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise.” Paul was not only willing to speak about God to nonbelievers, to let go of any grudge that his warnings about the journey were ignored, to admit feeling afraid himself—he was willing to stare hopeless people in the face and say, twice, cheer up.

There’s a tendency to think, well, if an angel appeared to me, it would be easier to cheer up. Yet this angelic visit did not preclude further suffering. And despite hearing about it, several were driven by fear and self-protection in the face of their conditions (Acts 27:30). Belief is difficult. Faith may feel like a choice. We need to be told, take heart. Be people who sing praise. 

The transition to homeschooling has been an adjustment. We’ve come up with a schedule that adopts much of what the kids have in their typical pre-K, kinder, second- and fifth-grade schedules, like marble jars, choice time, morning calendars, weekly jobs, and (my favorite) “charging time” for the teacher. We do math, reading and writing, watch science and exercise videos. But my favorite time is actually the first fifteen minutes of the day, when we read a short devotional (from Thoughts To Make Your Heart Sing as that happened to be nearby) and have ten minutes of silent drawing or journaling. Because Elijah’s kinder teacher played a morning song as the day starts, we open that time by singing something simple, like “Rise and shine and give God the glory…” or a short song we learned in BSF, “Good morning, God. This is your day. I am your child. Show me your way.”

It’s hard to know how to be cheerful when the world seems to be crumbling around us. But the songs help. I come to the table most mornings with a bit of dread, not sure how the day will go, whether my emotional reserves will last, but then we sing those little melodies, and I look around at these four faces around the table, and I think, even this moment is a gift. We would not be having it were it not for the pandemic going on around us. It’s like I can hear Paul’s voice, saying, take heart. Take heart, for I have faith in God.

Selfies And Psalms

“Praise the Lord! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens!” – Psalm 150:1

The selfie camera on my old phone was broken for the better part of a year, which I considered theologically profound, so I didn’t bother to fix it. Eventually I upgraded my phone, though, and rediscovered how positively odd and revolutionary it is to not only be completely aware of how I look to others, but be able to manipulate that image. No wonder people get so obsessed over their best selfie angle. No wonder an entire generation has been ushered into the “selfie age,” where we broadcast ourselves, desire personal fame, and have what David Brooks has termed “an unusual level of self-interest” and an “enlarged sense of self.” 

The Bible tells a completely different story. As Sally Lloyd-Jones writes in The Jesus Storybook Bible, “The Bible isn’t mainly about me and what I should be doing. It’s about God and what he has done.” And Psalm 150, this last of the psalms, speaks to that story. Take just one word: “heavens.” This is Greek raqiya, which means “to be clear, to be brilliant, to shine,” and it stretches both back to the beginning and forward into all eternity. In Genesis 1, this is the word for the expanse that God made: “And God said, ‘Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters… And God made the expanse… and God called the expanse Heaven.” In Ezekiel 1, this is the word for the expanse that is God’s eternal dwelling and the seat of his throne: “Over the heads of the living creatures there was the likeness of an expanse, shining like awe-inspiring crystal, spread out above their heads… And above the expanse over their heads there was the likeness of a throne, in appearance like sapphire.” In Daniel 12, this is the word for the brilliance of the wise: “And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above.”

This is a story that begins and ends with a God who creates and dwells in expanses that are the very embodiment and shining forth of his glory and power. And the first thing we must do is take our eyes off our screens and ourselves, and look up, at that expanse which calls to us. Because, amazingly, we are in the story. Psalm 150 is really describing our own future, we who will one day shine like the expanse above. As Tim Keller writes, “If we could praise God perfectly, we would love him completely and then our joy would be full. The new heavens and the new earth are perfect because everyone and everything is glorifying God fully and therefore enjoying him forever. Psalm 150 gives us a glimpse of that unimaginable future. So praise him everywhere (verse 1) for everything (verse 2) in every way (verses 3–5). ‘Let everything that has breath praise the Lord’ (verse 6).”

Longing For Love

“And she conceived again and bore a son, and said, ‘This time I will praise the Lord.’ Therefore she called his name Judah. Then she ceased bearing.” – Genesis 29:35

Names seem important in Leah’s life. We are introduced to her by name in Genesis 29:16: “The name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel.” While “Rachel” is from the Hebrew word for ewe, perhaps anticipating her job as a shepherdess, “Leah” is from the Hebrew la’ah, meaning “weary; to tire, be exhausted.” Doesn’t seem like the most favorable name for a child. The next verse literally says, “Rachel had a good figure, and on top of that was beautiful,” which suggests by contrast that Leah’s eye weakness was a cosmetic one. She grows up in this context, is aware she is not desired at her wedding, sees her husband trying to get another wife for seven years, and thereafter is the less-favored wife.

But God sees Leah, and we see this progression in the names she gives her sons:

Reuben, Hebrew Re’uwben, from ra’ah (see!) and ben (son), “because the Lord has looked upon my affliction; for now my husband will love me”

Simeon, Hebrew Shim-own, from shama (hear), “because the Lord has heard that I am hated, he has given me this son also”

Levi, Hebrew Leviy, from lavah (to twine, attach), “now this time my husband will be attached to me, because I have borne him three sons”

Judah, Hebrew Yehuwdah, from yadah (to praise, to confess), “this time I will praise the Lord”

We see here a kind of conversation between Leah and God. God initiates by opening Leah’s womb. Leah realizes God has seen her. She realizes God has heard her. She is able to name her suffering, how she feels afflicted and hated. But she still throughout longs for love from her husband. God does not stop speaking to her—he gives her son, after son, after son, after son, until we hear her response: I will praise the Lord. The word yadah is translated elsewhere both “give thanks” and “confess.” It literally means “to throw, cast,” and can have the connotation of extended hands. I picture Leah here, hands extended as she holds her fourth son, this word of confession and praise rising up in response to God’s fourth answer to her. Somehow, along the way, she changed.

Ruth Haley Barton writes in Sacred Rhythms that our longings are the truest thing about us. I see unmet longings for love all around me: longing for romantic love, for love from a father or mother or friend. Longing for union, longing to be taken care of, longing to not feel lonely. So much of the spiritual journey is in naming our longings and finding them met in God’s presence. Leah’s journey is all of ours. 

God, of course, continues the conversation, for it is through Judah’s line that Jesus comes. As Sally Lloyd-Jones writes in The Jesus Storybook Bible: “This Prince would love God’s people. They wouldn’t need to be beautiful for him to love them. He would love them with all of his heart. And they would be beautiful because he loved them. Like Leah.”

Nakedness And Clothing

“Something strange was happening. They had always been naked—but now they felt naked, and wrong, and didn’t want anyone to see them. So they hid.” – Jesus Storybook Bible

“And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skin and clothed them.” – Genesis 3:21

I brought Eric’s soccer clothes for him to change into after school yesterday, and as I was wondering where I could find him a place to change, I actually thought for a second, maybe I’ll just change him outside under a tree; I saw some other mom doing that before realizing he would never be okay with that—and it hit me, wow, I’m at that stage now where all of the kids would want privacy while changing. Oddly, it seemed like a kind of milestone.

A consciousness of nakedness isn’t something we’re born with, but it’s something we all acquire, which is interesting if you think about it. I wonder if infants wonder why big people go around with pieces of fabric hanging off their bodies all the time. Reading Genesis this time, it struck me that the very last thing written before Satan appears is “and the man and his wife were both naked and not ashamed” (Gen 2:25), and the very first thing that happens after they ate the fruit was “the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths” (Gen 3:7). Quite a pointed contrast framing the fall.

What does this awareness of nakedness mean? We know from Genesis 2:25 that it had to be the opposite of “not ashamed”—shame. A feeling not only that we did something wrong, but that something is wrong with us. Perhaps there was a sense in which Adam and Eve felt ashamed not only of themselves, but unsafe before the other who had not protected them but contributed to their sin. And it’s interesting, isn’t it, that being aware of nakedness by definition means needing to cover it? 

Thus the fig leaves—and most of us around here have seen fig trees enough to know that while it wasn’t a bad first attempt, those leaves weren’t going to last very long. But the first thing God does after the curse is to clothe them with skins, presumably through the first animal sacrifice. Can you imagine that? Adam and Eve, perhaps watching blood shed for the first time, seeing the death God had warned would happen the very day they ate the fruit, but seeing God do it so that he could then take the skin from the death to cover their nakedness. Banned from the garden, but walking out smelling and seeing and feeling God’s provision, and a promise, whether they knew it then or not: one day another will die to cover your shame, because your own efforts are never enough.

I happened to be memorizing verse 35 yesterday in my way through Romans 8: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?” Nothing, not even our nakedness, can separate us from the love of God.