Chapter 21 :: Rebuilding the Walls

As I read through the chapter this morning here are some of the things that ran through my brain:

• If Artaxerxes is the new King of Persia, who is his mother? He has a very favorable view of the God of the Israelites, so it feels like Esther may have made an impression on him, but I don’t know if she is his mother or not.
• I noticed that Ezra is a descendant of Aaron. You remember Aaron, right? Moses’s brother, the Levite. He set everything up for worshiping God in the first tabernacle – the one they carried from camp to camp in the desert.
• I like that Phinehas is mentioned too. I like Phinehas. See Numbers 25 for his story.
• I really liked the interaction between King Artexerxes and Ezra. There appears to be respect from both sides and I think that is cool.
• Ezra completes the temple, but the city of Jerusalem is unprotected. The walls are still in ruins and leaves everything susceptible to pillage. God charges Nehemiah with the rebuilding of the walls.
• I remembered all of the “Rebuilding the Walls” messages throughout my life – encouragement during building campaigns, ways when pastors wanted to get more money from people to build.
• I also remembered the leadership lessons learned from Nehemiah – the man got things done.
• I noticed that Nehemiah seems to be the first since Joshua to open up the Law and read/explain it to the people. I wonder how much it was like what I get to do on Sundays. Seems like they had a “revival” going on with the daily gathering.
• I like seeing Malachi’s name because I know that is the last book in the Old Testament. I believe the whole bible is the word of God and has the right to command my belief and my action, but I love the New Testament. It’s what we’ve been waiting for. Feeling the lull and longing for a better story than what we’ve been reading for me, allows me to peek into the lives of the Israelites who spent centuries waiting…without knowing the ending like I do. That must have sucked.
• Malachi pulls no punches, but doesn’t leave anyone hopeless. I am caught by the way the Israelites were called out by him.
• The showed contempt for the name of God by offering second-rate offerings – not giving their best. God wants my best, not my leftovers, but I still cut corners and try to offer leftovers.
• They robbed God by holding back their tithes. They were required to give 1/10th of their income to the temple storehouse so those with need could get fed. This reminded me of pastors who want us to give to the storehouse, only to discover that the “storehouse” is really their 10,000 sq. ft. mansion with a private jet parked at a local airport. Not sure this is really what Malachi was hoping for here.
• They spoke arrogantly against the Lord by saying things like, “What good does it do me to serve God faithfully when I can’t make ends meet, when those who don’t even try seem to have it made?” Ouch…been there, done that.
• He leaves them with a bit of hope that a day is coming when God will change everything…then silence…for 400 years…nothing…nada…zippo…ssshhhh.

Here are a few thoughts that will stick with me from Esther (Chapter 20 of The Story):

• People roll the dice, but it’s God who determines how the dice fall.
• No matter how distant God may seem, he is still in control and writing his Upper Story of faithful promises and redemption.
• NO MATTER WHAT THE SITUATION, FOLLOWERS OF JESUS CAN KNOW THAT GOD IS WORKING BEHIND THE SCENES SO THE DICE ULTIMATELY FALL IN OUR FAVOR.
• There is now no condemnation for those in Christ.
• In all things, we are more than conquerers through Jesus. Neither death nor life…neither the present nor the future…neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.
• I can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens me.

A famous line in the bible comes when Mordecai, Esther’s “father”(actually a cousin), says to the queen, “And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” At this point Esther had not revealed her Jewish identity and doing so would put her at risk of death with all of the other Jews. She was seeking counsel on her next move.

Living this journey knowing that at whatever position we find ourselves, we may be in that position “for such a time as this,” gives us a great perspective. If things are going well, God may have a larger story “for such a time as this.” If things are going poorly, hang in there because God just might be doing something through you during “such a time as this.” We know the now, He knows tomorrow. None of us wants to go through dry, difficult times and all of us want the windfalls to last forever, but we just don’t know what tomorrow holds and things could change. There is great hope in that alone, but there is an even greater hope.

The hope that sustains are the promises of God. These promises set the horizon line of our hope. They give us direction. God promised to keep the Hebrews alive, and at the risk of annihilation, he writes an Upper Story, where a young Jewish girl becomes Queen of Persia, and only she can turn the events already set in motion. God had a plan for Hadassah…he has a plan for you…he has a plan for me. No matter the circumstances today, good or bad, he has a place for you in his Upper Story, if you’ll just join him.

This Sunday, we will wrap up the story of Esther and really connect it to our daily lives. It’s a great day to invite neighbors, coworkers or friends to the gathering. To hear the story is to be invited into the story.

Here is the trailer for the movie…it opens with Samuel confronting Saul for sparing the life of Agag when the Jews conquered the Amalekites…

It must be sweeps month!

Several years ago, I remember reading a story about Paul in the book of Acts. In this story, Paul is describing our God to the Greeks who referred to Him as the “unknown god.” Check out what he says in Acts 17:24…

“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.”

So, God does not need a building. The temple, though built for his presence, was not built for him. The temple was built for the people. Max Lucado refers to the temple as “a picture of God’s powerful, passion of proximity.” God’s ultimate desire was to be with his people, but the people needed a reminder of this passion. The people needed a picture to see until Jesus would come and show us this powerful, passion of proximity in human form. After Jesus, the Holy Spirit took up residence within the hearts of God’s people.

To equate our church buildings with the temple of Jerusalem cheapens the work Jesus did on the cross. Jesus moved the presence of God from a building to a people for the first time since the glory days of the Garden of Eden. The reverence of the tent was replaced by the reverence of the temple which is now reverenced in the hearts of God’s adopted children. I’ll take that exchange any day.

This is part of the reason why we talk often of being like Jesus where we live, work and play. Because our hearts house the very presence of Jesus, he is with us wherever we go. Our responsibility of reverence is to reflect an accurate image Jesus to the people around us. This does not mean we have to be perfect, but that we respond to our (and others’) imperfection the way Jesus responded to imperfection. There is a difference between looking like Jesus at church and looking like Jesus everywhere else.

Think about the location of the temple. It was not placed in the middle of office buildings designed to blend in with the surrounding settings. It wasn’t placed out in the middle of the wilderness as some sort of retreat center for spiritual pilgrims. Right in the middle of the largest and most influential city in all of ancient Israel. An in Jerusalem, it was placed up high right in the middle of the city. Everyone could see it and it served as a constant reminder to everyone that God wanted to dwell in their midst. Unfortunately, it also carried a more sober reminder…

The temple proved to remind the people of their sin and the chasm that still existed between the average person and God himself. Not everyone had access into the most holy place within the temple. The sin of the people kept them at a distance. We know from the rest of the Upper Story, that this arrangement hints at the change that will be brought when Jesus comes. He would be the ultimate sacrifice and remove the need for a priest to moderate our relationship with God. With the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, we are given access to God in the most holy of all places – our hearts. The rebuilding of the physical temple in Jerusalem is a step toward that end.

How is your life different today because you have access to God yourself and you don’t have to rely on a priest to mediate your conversations? Are you comfortable with this truth or does it make you nervous? Did your religious heritage teach you something different?

In the Lower Story, this doesn’t make a lot of sense, but the Upper Story reasoning is clear:  God will uses whatever means “so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting men may know there is none besides me. I am the LORD, and there is no other” (Isaiah 45:6).

His name and his renown is the desire of the souls of those who follow him. We are “building” a church in western League City so that every man, every woman and every child would know that there is none besides the Lord. Our mission is to be a people on mission with the Great Commission – to see people come to trust their lives into the hands and leadership of the one we follow – Jesus. We must be clear about this or else all kinds of things will distract us, just as they did the Israelites.

• In the very first paragraph of the chapter, we read “the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus, the king of Persia.” I love this because it provides substance to our prayers for our leaders, no matter what God they choose to serve. At first glance I thought that the Cyrus might be a believer, but I don’t think so. He is respectful of “the Lord, the God of heaven” no doubt, but he refers to him as “their God.” I wonder what he thought by the end of his reign.
• How incredible must it have felt to those Jews who were actually returning to a place they remembered, the place where they grew up and the place they saw destroyed. I have never had an experience like this, but I imagine it was somewhat emotional for them.
• Haggai and Zechariah both bring messages of hope and courage for the people as they embark on their new journey home to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. Wrapped up in their prophecy is always the hint of what will happen when the Messiah comes. Knowing a bit of the story of Jesus helps here. In Jesus, the temple structure of God’s presence is done away with and replaced by the Holy Spirit living in temples not made by human hands, but fashioned by the reformed hearts of humanity. This is good stuff.
• I laughed when Tettanai came to question the authority by which they were rebuilding the temple and in the end the expense for the building came from his budget. Think he wished he had kept his mouth shut?
• My first glance has me a little confused as to some dates – namely the reign of King Darius. If he was the King when Daniel was in the lion’s den in 539 and the temple is completed in the 6th year of the reign of King Darius, that seems to put completion of the temple in at least 533, right? But we read that completion was March 12, 516, which is 23 years after Daniel’s episode. For me this doesn’t change the story, but it does force me to ask the question, “What gives?” I’ll let you know what I find out.
• So the temple in Jerusalem is rebuilt, but many Jews don’t return. Why not? What’s happening with the Northern Kingdom exiles? Is there still bad blood between the Northern and Southern people?

While much of the book of Daniel is rooted in prophetic foresight and language, there are a few stories at the beginning that offer great hope for anyone attempting to live a holy life in the midst of an unholy culture. Whether the story of Daniel and his friends, at 15 or 16 years of age refusing to eat from the royal table in Babylon, the story of his friends in the fiery furnace in chapter three or the sleepover with the lions Daniel had when he was close to 90 years old, it’s clear that Daniel understood the tension of living a holy life in an unholy culture.

In all three of these stories, God reaches into their calamity and rescues them. God is not distant from them watching and wondering if they will survive, but he is actively involved and cares about their daily lives. What amazes me about this God is that it’s the same today. We may not be thrown into fiery furnaces or lion’s dens, but God is our “ever-present help in times of trouble” (Psalm 46:1) and promises to be with us always, even to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20). In Psalm 121, the psalmist writes these words…

I look up to the mountains; does my strength come from mountains? No, my strength comes from GOD, who made heaven, and earth, and mountains. He won’t let you stumble, your Guardian God won’t fall asleep. Not on your life! Israel’s Guardian will never doze or sleep. GOD’S your Guardian, right at your side to protect you— Shielding you from sunstroke, sheltering you from moon stroke. GOD guards you from every evil, he guards your very life. He guards you when you leave and when you return, he guards you now, he guards you always.  

If you feel like you are in a furnace right now, maybe you just need a little encouragement to keep moving. Don’t stop. No matter how bad, know that you are not alone. I realize that there may be some really good worship songs that might help you during this time, but I’m a country music fan and one of my favorite country psalmists is a man named Rodney Atkins and here’s what he might say to you today…

I have good memories of these stories. Probably the most familiar passage in Chapter 18 is a verse of prophecy/promise from Jeremiah 29:11:

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.

This may be the championing verse of scripture for what we refer to as the “prosperity gospel” – the idea that God wants to bless all believers financial success and physical health. After all, if God’s plan for us is to prosper us, it must be financially and physically right? Maybe.

The problem with taking a verse meant for one group of people and assuming it to be true to you, is that when it doesn’t happen the way you expect, you have to believe that something is wrong with you because God never breaks his promise. So if your company decides to lay off 1000 employees because of despicable practices of the CEO, something is wrong with your faith if you are one of the 1000. If you wake up tomorrow and you have cancer and three months to live, something is wrong with your faith because God wants to prosper you physically. This produces some very damaging results for those who end up like the apostles who were put to death for their faith, for Paul who was imprisoned numerous times for his faithfulness to God, for Mother Theresa who lived in poverty but served the poor and broken in poverty. For Sam, who lost his job in the downtrodden market last year. For Jane, who woke up one morning to discover a tumor on her brain.

Now, I believe that God does want to prosper us and not harm us, but not in the way that we Americans limit prosperity. Many people in our world would love to live at our “poverty level” in America. When my neighbor discovers a mysterious disease and he does not know the future, it feels a bit odd to quote this verse to him in the middle of his four-bedroom house with two vehicles in the driveway.

When reading the bible, on first glance, I want to my default questions to be “Who is promise to? What were they expecting? What actually happened for them?” Then once those questions are answered, I can move to how I can apply this to my life.

The promise above was written to Jews living in exile – having been banished from their country to Babylon. They had to feel like their God had deserted them. They had watched friends die and be left for dead. They were struggling under oppressive conditions in Babylon with a lot of harm and no hope or future. God steps in and sends these words…

“When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”

This is a small portion of a larger letter for the people at that time, but imagine the hope that was whispered in their ears with these words. Hope when all is hopeless. A future where there seems to be no tomorrow. A commitment to being his people where they live currently leads to this kind of hope. They weren’t to sit around and do nothing while waiting for this promise. Read the whole thing…it’s pretty incredible.

Sorry for the tangent today, but this is something prevalent in our culture and I’ve seen the damage that our prosperity promises have caused for people. To be sure, as any father does, God wants the best for his children. But don’t confine our “best” to our definition of success here. God has bigger plans that that.