More than Survivors
Nehemiah
The wall.
Say that to different people from varying countries around the world and you will get a wide variety of responses.
To a person from China, there’s just one wall, the Great Wall. Completed 300 years before the birth of Christ, the wall is 4500 miles long, 25 feet wide, and 15 – 30 feet tall. It is the only man made structure that is visible to the naked eye from shuttles orbiting the earth. Most everyone who goes to China makes sure the see The Wall.
In Berlin, Germany, The Wall is something totally different. There the words conjure up images of the Berlin Wall. The only wall every built by a government with the purpose of keeping their people in, rather than invaders out. The wall was built on August 13 1961, and stood until November 9, 1989. When it stood, it symbolized the oppression of nearly and entire continent, a physical, concrete manifestation of an invisible iron curtain. And when it fell, it symbolized the end of that tyranny. I have stood next to a section of the Berlin Wall in Washington DC, at the Ronald Reagan Office Building. It was an almost surreal event. There stood a piece of cement wall that had been the focal point of so much of my youth, and now it is a museum piece – a piece of history rather than a focus of headlines.
In the United States, The Wall evokes yet another image. One hundred and forty vertical stones slabs, stretching 494 feet, as much as 10 feet tall in the center. Mirror smooth black slabs engraved with the names of 58,132 American soldiers dead or missing as a result of the war in Viet Nam. If you’ve ever visited the Viet Nam War Memorial, you have witnessed the cathedral-like silence that muffles the surrounding buzz until all you are conscious of is the beating of your heart, and the growing lump in your throat. It is a sober reminder of the great price tag of our freedom. The Wall gives us a place to remember a war that many would like to forget.
If you talk to a person from Israel about “The Wall” and they will immediately be transported in their minds to a section of the Old City of Jerusalem where Orthodox Jews, with their beards, black coats and curling side-locks rhythmically rock back and forth, praying, confessing sins, grieving over the pain of the past, and asking the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob for His blessing and deliverance. It is called The Western Wall.
The western wall is the only portion of the temple that is still intact. Not Herod's Temple, from when Jesus walked these streets, that one was destroyed, “not one stone left on the other,” just as Jesus said. This wall is from the original temple of Solomon – we’re talking 967 BC! This was the original temple on the mount in Jerusalem, the materials were gathered by King David, and the building itself was left to Solomon.
The Western Wall is a physical, stone and mortar reminder of the sacred traditions and history of the Jewish people. For a people who have over the centuries been deprived of their homeland more than they have been there, it is one of the most meaningful contacts with the past. Jews very seldom in their history have had sacred, native soil under foot, so this wall is of pivotal importance.
The Wall.
Who would have thought that stone, mortar of concrete could stir up so much emotion in people?
There are walls in Jerusalem that are even older than the Western Wall of the Temple. In the Old City, there are places where the original walls of the city, as laid out by King David, can still be seen. The wall around Israel’s capital city was a stone fortress of significance. It distinguished the City of God. This was the city that sat atop the hills of Judea. Here was the city where David’s Son Solomon built the temple that housed the Ark of the Covenant, the reminder of God’s promise to His people. Here was the city that God chose to have as His dwelling place on earth. On one of these hills, centuries before, Abraham had offered up his son Isaac. This wall was the one that separated the City of God from the rest of the world.
But the walls that were set up to protect Jerusalem from invaders could not hold off the judgment of God. Israel’s history as a nation is marked with rebellion and rejection of God, and prophets warned that God would punish His people by sending in people from the North and East to conquer them. In 587 BC, the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem. While some of the invaders stayed in Jerusalem, great numbers of Jews were taken off to Babylon. After 70 years, the Persians defeated the Babylonians, and some of the Jews were permitted to return to Jerusalem, but after two generations, there was not a lot of excitement about going back to a city that had been sacked and ruled by a bunch of foreigners.
Another 80 years later, now 150 years after the fall of Jerusalem, and just 40 years after the events we talked about last week with Esther, God spoke to a Jewish man by the name of Nehemiah, and his story is going to be the focus of our discussion today. I am reading from the first chapter of Nehemiah’s diary that we have recorded in the Bible, verses 1-4 and then chapter 2, verses 11-18. (Page 329 in the congregation Bibles)
[Read Text]
I’ve tried to think about what it must have been like for Nehemiah. I remember going back to West Virginia after the old house of my grandparents – the place that had been the only constant through my life - was abandoned and was literally falling down. A tree had fallen through the roof, rain and weather had taken their toll, and it was being eroded away by neglect and emptiness. It was funny, but as long as someone lived in it, it seemed strong, but as soon as it sat empty, it began to deteriorate. It was as if it just gave up. The emotions of that day are still strong – and that was just an old house.
Jerusalem’s badly damaged city walls were a great cause of grief for Nehemiah. When he heard the news, he wept. And when he got permission from the king to travel to Jerusalem and see for himself, his heart was so moved with emotion that he knew he had to do something. So Nehemiah began to do the work of restoring the walls.
Why? Because in the ancient world, walls were necessary to provide protection from enemies. The walls of Jerusalem had to be repaired. The identity of the people of God had become fuzzy. Years of exile and intermarriage had taken its toll.
You know, even though we are centuries removed from the Jerusalem of Nehemiah’s day, God’s people once again find themselves in need of walls. The influence of the surrounding contemporary society has toppled the distinctions that once separated God’s people from the world. Take marriage, for example. It was not that long ago that Christians were those who remained married regardless of the circumstances, in stark contrast to unbelievers who divorced with regularity. Now days, one out of two marriages ends in divorce, and the rate is no different for Christians from non-Christians.
The walls of moral conscience have been broken as well. Without the walls of Biblical standards, a flood of our godless culture has swept into the church, causing us to turn our back on Godly living. In some major denominations, Biblical values like sexual purity and the sanctity of human life have been washed away. Practicing homosexuals are ordained, and abortion is seen as a valid means of birth control. The walls that separate the church and the world seem nonexistent. What few pebbles remain are seen as archaic oddities suitable for a museum, not real life.
The walls that once separated a weekly Sabbath from the rest of the week have also eroded and crumbled. Christians are no longer characterized by the unique way they spend the first day of the week. In my own lifetime I remember stores and gas stations closed on Sundays, and I’m not that old. Really, I’m not!! Today, Sunday is just as likely for a soccer match, band concert or basketball practice as any other day. Christians and non-Christians alike find reasons to make Sunday just another day. A couple of years ago a beer company came up with a slogan that said, “Weekends are made for Michelob,” as opposed to spending time with God and family. And in many ways they were right – modern weekends are made for watching sports from golf to football to Nascar, and the church alter has been replaced by the alter of the television with liturgy of chants, cheers and celebration that has replaced the joy of worship in our hearts.
As in Nehemiah’s day, when the walls are gone, the identity of the people breaks down, and the advancing influence of the surrounding culture invades and destroys. In all honesty, are the weekends of Christians and non-Christians really all that different these days? Other than maybe an hour or two on Sunday morning, what sets us apart from the world? And how is it that while we would never break the commandments of “Thou shalt not kill,” and, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” why is it that we find it so comfortable to break the one that commands us to have a Sabbath day?
So how do the walls of Jerusalem and the keeping of the Sabbath interplay? Well, for the Jewish community, the identity of their nation was as much, if not more, maintained by the walls of Sabbath as they ever were by the walls of a city. God called on them to build a wall around a piece of time, and more accurately a piece of their heart and soul, and to spend that time in quiet reflection, worship and teaching. It is this wall that has kept the people of God intact for 7,000 years, not a wall of stone. While the physical walls of Jerusalem have been ruins for centuries, even millennia, the spiritual walls of the Sabbath have kept the people separated unto God. Jewish writers say that their world is “re-souled” every Sabbath day. In other words, the spiritual emphasis grows, and the cares and responsibilities and disappointments of the world begin to shrink.
That is what we are called to do this week in our study. To resolve to re-soul. People who are more than survivors have a portion of their lives walled off as a place of God.
Nehemiah was such a person. He was not satisfied with the work of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. After getting permission, supplies and people to do the work, Nehemiah oversaw the reconstruction of the walls. It was difficult, even dangerous work, because the surrounding people did not like the idea of the Jews having an identity again, but it was accomplished through hard work and a lot of prayer. But Nehemiah noticed after the rebuilding was done that the spiritual walls were still broken. In chapter 13 of his diary he writes, “In those days I saw the men of Judah pressing wine, and bringing in grain, figs and grapes into the city on the Sabbath day.” So he rebuked the people, and he locked the gates at sundown on Friday, and kept them locked until sundown Saturday, all through the Sabbath. He reinstituted the Sabbath in the city of Jerusalem, and called the people back to obedience. He recognized that the physical rebuilding of the city was only a part of the battle – they needed to re-soul as well as re-build.
Now, I don’t expect us to go out and picket the grocery stores in town to force them to close on Sunday. And I don’t want you to unplug your television on Sunday morning and leave it off until Monday – necessarily (though that might not be a bad idea). But I do want us to give some thought to some ways we can begin to rebuild the wall of intimacy with God in our lives and the lives of our families. How can we separate out some blocks of times for the specific purpose of re-souling?
In the adult journals you will find some ideas. On page 39, we read this:
Maybe you connect with God best when walking outdoors and enjoying the beauty of His creation. Perhaps a gathering of Christian friends or family restores you. You might choose to spend extra time reading the Bible or a devotional book. Even a good novel or book of poetry may refresh your spirit. Some people restore by doing. So consider acts of mercy, such as visiting a shut-in or helping at a homeless shelter. If your nature is more contemplative, you might take time for extended prayer and reflection.
What part of your weekend will you build a wall around to resoul?
On page 40 and 41 of the journal, there is a “wall” of sorts. When you have decided on a day and a time to do some re-souling activity, write it on the “blocks” on the page. Over the course of a year, we have 50 opportunities to lay another brick in the wall, as it were, and slowly begin to build up that wall of separation for our time with God.
The Wall.
When Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the walls of the city of David, the identity of the Jewish people could have easily been lost, but it was not because the spiritual walls survived. In our world today, the spiritual walls are the ones under attack, and I am calling on each of us to be like Nehemiah, and to rebuild those spiritual walls, one stone at a time. It will not be easy. The surrounding culture will not like the idea of a Christian with a strong identity and serious purpose, but it is the only way we can preserve and pass on our Christian heritage for the generations to come.
Rebuild the walls. Resoul you self each week. And may God bless us in that work as He did Nehemiah in his.