Today's Scripture Reading (November 10, 2023): Nehemiah 1
We seem to
want everything to happen now. When we quote Jeremiah, "I know the plans I
have for you," we are thinking about tomorrow, not seventy years down the
road. We want God to move now as well as in the lives of our children or grandchildren.
We are selfish. And a lot of our society proves it as we create problems that
our children will have to fix.
Jeremiah, in
610 B.C.E., prophesied that the Children of Israel would be sent into exile but
that God would bring them back. In 588 B.C.E., Jeremiah wrote to the exiles who
had already been taken to Babylon: "I know the plans I have for you. Plans
to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future"
(Jeremiah 29:11). In 586, Jerusalem fell, and the Temple was destroyed. In 559
B.C.E., Cyrus came to power in Persia. Around 545, Isaiah prophesies that God
has sent Cyrus to do his work. In 539, Cyrus defeated the descendants of the
Babylonian empire, and in 538, Cyrus decreed that the Temple would be rebuilt.
Nehemiah's
story begins somewhere around 445 B.C.E., almost a hundred years after Cyrus took
power away from the Babylonians. The Book of Nehemiah begins 15 years after the Book of Ezra
ends, nearly 100 years after the first captives returned to the Promised Land
and some 150 years after Jerusalem was destroyed. Even after this long time,
the walls of the city of Jerusalem were still in rubble.
Nehemiah receives his report from
Jerusalem, and he weeps. He was expecting something different, that there would
have been more progress in Jerusalem over the past century than there had been.
Nehemiah probably isn't that much different than we are. He wants the task of
the restoration of Jerusalem to be complete and not a process that has barely
been started. Instead, as he weeps, he prays to his God. And God seems to
understand the idea of process. We want solutions immediately, but God wants us
to understand the importance of the journey.
God invites Nehemiah to be the next
step on the journey. He is the cupbearer to King Artaxerxes. The cupbearer was
an essential advisor of the King. He was always at his side. But Nehemiah
understood both the importance and the miracle of the process. What was
happening in Jerusalem was a process that needed to continue, and Nehemiah felt
that he needed to be part of that continuing journey.
You are part of the process of
Christianity. God has called you and placed you exactly where you need to be to
accomplish his will. God still has a plan, but it might not be one that will be
completed tomorrow. God's plan culminates in the return of Jesus for the second
time. Until then, it is our journey with Jesus that matters. And the miracle of
the process into which Jesus continues to invite us.
Like Jeremiah, I know the plans that
God has for you. And if you ever lose sight of it, remember that you are critical
to God's plans, just as Israel was essential to what God wanted to accomplish.
And while God might be playing the long game, he is with us every step of the
way, keeping all his promises. And one of those promises is "And surely I
am with you always, to the very end of the age" (Matthew 28:20b).
God invited Nehemiah to be an essential part of the journey.
The next step in the restoration of Jerusalem was now in Nehemiah's court, just
as the next step in healing our societies is now in ours.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Nehemiah
2
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