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The City of Song in the Shadow of Empire
Philip Sasser – Nehemiah 11-13:3
Text Read: Nehemiah 12:27-43
This morning we will be covering a little over two chapters: Nehemiah 11, 12, and the first three verses of chapter 13.
What we see in Nehemiah 11 is the repopulation of Jerusalem where lots are cast and various families volunteer to leave their homes in the towns outside the walls and settle in the city. Nehemiah 12 describes the formal, celebratory dedication of the wall. And in Nehemiah 13:1-3 we have the reading of the law and the exclusion of foreigners from the holy city. You can think of this section in three parts: worshipers are brought in; worship occurs; and idolaters are excluded.
Rather than start at the beginning of our text, though, and march our way through to the end, I want to start at the climax of our passage in Nehemiah 12 (the part we just read) and then see how we got there. Some of you engineers probably have memories of being a kid and taking apart a lawn mower engine or clock to see how it worked. Well, we’re going to do something similar. But instead of a lawn mower or a clock, we’ll be taking apart and reverse-engineering an entire city.
In our study of Ezra and Nehemiah this fall, we have seen several dramatic worship scenes. In Ezra 3, in Ezra 6, and in Nehemiah 8 the people of God were assembled, the Word of God was read, and the people responded with confession and praise. Those worship services, themselves, were modeled on the corporate worship assemblies led by Moses, Joshua, David, and Solomon.
In Nehemiah 12, though, a different kind of worship service occurs. Here we see worship break out from the four walls of the temple and the song of the people envelop and permeate the entirety of Jerusalem, turning a city of stone into a city of song.
The book of Nehemiah begins with this description:
The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire.
Chapter 12 shows the great reversal of this situation. What had once been a heap of ruins is rebuilt and Jerusalem is called for the first time, the “holy city.”
It is a truly glorious moment. Like water overrunning a cup, the place of worship and the thanksgiving of the people has overrun the temple and is pouring down its steps, running and filling every corner of the city.
Two choirs are formed and stationed at opposite ends of the city, each one singing praises of thanksgiving to God. The choirs of priests, musicians, singers, men, women, and children each march towards the other until the two choirs are facing each other on the walls across the narrowest part of the city, with the temple sitting between them, their song reaching one another over the rooftop of the temple. The sound of the singing, we are told, was heard far away.
At Jericho, they had marched around a city to annihilate it. Here, they marched around the city to consecrate it.
Perhaps these words from the prophet Isaiah were on their lips that day:
We have a strong city; he sets up salvation as walls and bulwarks (Isaiah 26:1)
Violence shall no more be heard in our land, devastation or destruction within our borders; we shall call our walls Salvation and our gates Praise (Isaiah 60:18).
On your walls, O Jerusalem, we have set watchmen; all the day and all the night they shall never be silent. (Isaiah 62:6)
Or this from Psalm 48
Walk about Zion, go around her,
Number her towers,
Consider well her ramparts,
Go through her citadels,
That you may tell the next generation
That this is God,
Our God forever and ever.
He will guide us forever.
In a sense, what we see here is the people of God reaching toward the promiseof Zion out of the ruins of Jerusalem.
What do I mean by that? Aren’t Jerusalem and Zion the same thing? Well, yes and no. In its most literal sense, Zion was the inner citadel of Jerusalem that David captured from the Jebusites when he conquered the city at the beginning of his reign. But Zion, as that historical, brick and mortar place, is only mentioned on two occasions in our Bibles. Zion as something else – a true myth, a spiritual reality; a future hope but also a present condition – is everywhere in our Bibles: forty-one times in the Psalms it’s mentioned; eighty-two times in the major prophets; thirty-two times in the minor prophets; seven times in the New Testament.
The world began as a garden, but it ends as a city.
It ends with Zion.
And they’re getting a taste of it here. In Nehemiah 12, we see Zion breaking through into the physical place of Jerusalem; God’s people groping out of the rubble of exile toward the promised hope of that perfect city. Isaiah and Jeremiah had prophesied earlier that Zion was coming, that the City of Song would one day be established. And here it was, it was happening. In Nehemiah 12 we see the people of God reach from their very real historical situation and grab hold of the prophetic promise with everything they had.
As glorious as this moment was, however, a shadow remained over the city. On the day of dedication, I doubt that all the rubble had been cleared away; I doubt the mortar had even dried; I know for certain that sin and corruption remained in the people. A nation of millions had been reduced to a remnant. Two thousand miles away, the King of Persia still ruled. The Ark of the Covenant was still lost.
Yet they built and they sang.
I believe our call is similar. Here we are in this brick-and-mortar place, with coffee in our laps and phones under our seats. Here we are in this place where disappointment and discouragement and very real sin is present. Here we are in this place that is surrounded by a great empire of power and prestige and wealth that has set itself against the Lord and against his anointed.
Yet we build and we sing. Our feet may be in Apex but our hands reach to Zion. We build the City of Song here.
How?
Our text shows us:
The City of Song is built in the shadow of empire, with walls, by faithful people, in obedience to God’s word, empowered by the Spirit, for an audience of nations.
They built and sang. We build and we sing.
The City of Song is built in the Shadow of Empire. That shadow exists for Jerusalem in the form of (1) opposition without and (2) discouragement within.
In chapter 12, When Jerusalem’s city walls were dedicated, Babylon still reigned supreme. Artaxerxes remained on his throne.
One of my favorite parts in a book or movie is when there is a hero who is more than meets the eye. Maybe there are some bad guys beating up on someone, and out of the shadows comes this decrepit old man to stop them and the bad guys say, “hey old man, what are you going to do about it?” And then the old man (who’s really a ninja) rolls up his sleeves and beats the snot out of them all. I love it when that happens.
The Bible, itself, even has some moments like that. Not the ninja part, exactly, but the “there’s more here than meets the eye” sense happens all over.
But not in Nehemiah. Think back to chapter 4.
Now when Sanballat heard that we were building the wall, he was angry and greatly enraged, and he jeered at the Jews. And he said in the presence of his brothers and of the army of Samaria, “What are these feeble Jews doing?”...[And] Tobiah the Ammonite was beside him, and he said, “Yes, what they are building - if a fox goes up on it he will break down their stone wall!” (Nehemiah 4:2-3)
If this was a Hollywood movie, this would be the moment where something dramatic would happen to prove Tobia wrong. Maybe this is where he smashes a hammer against the wall and the hammer breaks! But it doesn’t happen like that. Maybe, in fact, because Tobiah was right. I don’t think the Jews were under any illusions about the ultimate strength of the walls.
If Persia had wanted them destroyed, it wasn’t the walls that were going to save them.
And if the world wants the Church under its heel, it’s not the Bill of Rights that’s going to save us.
They were vulnerable.
We are vulnerable.
This reality informs the bleak self-assessment in chapter 9
Behold we are slaves this day; in the land that you gave to our fathers to enjoy its fruit and its good gifts, behold, we are slaves. (Nehemiah 9:36)
Yet in the face of this vulnerability, they built and they sang.
What other shadow hangs over the city of song? They are opposed without and they are discouraged within.
The promise to Abraham was that he was to be the father of many nations, not the runt of many nations; and God had promised that kings would come from him, not slaves. Yet here they are, a nation in decline, a kingdom past its prime, floundering in middle-age with back problems and credit card debt. The golden age is gone. The Queen of Sheba no longer visits.
It could even be argued that what had been achieved by Ezra and Nehemiah hadn’t come from God or even their own hard work, but had come, embarrassingly, from Artaxerxes. No doubt this was part of the taunts that came their way. Who put Nehemiah in charge? Artaxerxes. Who gave them materials and money to rebuild? Artaxerxes. In chapter 11:23-24 we see that even the organization and payment of the temple staff was done according to the Persian king, not an Israelite one.
The light of nations is on the dole, begging pagans for help.
How do they respond? They build and they sing.
Even in the shadow of empire they remained confident in God’s continued relevance to their situation and his care over them. I said a minute ago that Jerusalem didn’t just appear vulnerable to attack and reconquest, but was, in fact, vulnerable. I said that this wasn’t a moment where there was “more than meets the eye” to their situation.
Well, that’s true and it's also not true. From a physical standpoint it's true: the army of Israel, the walls of the city, if faced with an existential threat from the outside, was just as weak as it looked. But here’s where it's not true: despite its very real weakness Zion was breaking through.
Think about how the magnetic fields of the earth cause a compass needle to always point due north. No matter where you are, you pull out your compass and, bang, there’s an arrow pointing north. Well there are different kinds of compasses I think. There are cultural compasses; there are power compasses; there are educational compasses. Maybe your cultural compass points to Paris or New York City; maybe your power compasses point to Beijing or Silicon Valley.
For the Jews in our text, every compass they had pointed to Babylon: culture, prestige, military power. All compasses except one. There was one compass - the compass of God’s delight and presence, mission, and favor; the compass of the steadfast love of the Lord - that pointed straight at Jerusalem. And that compass was all that mattered.
Jerusalem appeared small and unimpressive from the outside because Jerusalem was small and unimpressive from the outside. But because the people of God in praise to God resided there, they understood the reality that Jerusalem as Zion was the center and capital of the world. As CS Lewis wrote in The Last Battle, some places are larger on the inside than the outside. The Jerusalem of the exiles was one such place. This church is one such place.
The generation of Nehemiah was a nation past its prime, yet a life of worship and faith remained for them the essential project of their lives. That might be true for some of us: a disastrous first marriage, a criminal record, or a string of dead-end jobs has lowered the ceiling on what you may ever be able to accomplish in life or ministry, yet you should consider a life of faithful worship to be your choicest treasure.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Alfred Lord Tennyson, "Ulysees"
Let’s reframe Tenyson’s great poem for our purposes. Your best days might be behind you. So what? Sing and build.
Strive to accomplish the work of the Lord in the time that you have. Seek him while he may be found. Yield not to
either the temptations of the flesh or the discouragements of life.
Build the City of Song even in the shadow of empire.
The City of Song in the Shadow of Empire is built with walls. Why? Because (1) we are called to be separate and (2) we are called to be watchful
At its most basic level, the walls separate. There is an inside and an outside to the City of Song. Who’s in? Who’s out? We see at the beginning of chapter 13 that there were very real consequences to this. When the people heard the law, they separated from Israel all those of foreign descent. And that separation is not only an Old Testament reality. The New Testament Church is also to be separate.
Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, ‘I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing. (2 Corinthians 6:14-17)
What walls does our City of Song have? How do we go out from the midst of the world around us and have no partnership with lawlessness, no fellowship with darkness, no concourse with Belial, no portion with an unbeliever? This isn’t your fundamentalist pastor from forty years ago saying this, this is the Word of God speaking right now. Be separate from them, the Lord says. Touch no unclean thing.
Building walls isn’t enough. The walls must be manned, too. We are to watch.
Remember Isaiah 62:
On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen; all the day and all the night they shall never be silent.
Well, here we are, watchmen, up on the walls. Let’s look to the epistles to receive our orders.
Watch...with vigorous, enduring, love.
Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be in love. (1 Cor. 16:13-14)
Watch... yourself.
Keep watch on yourself, lest you be tempted. (Galatians 6:1)
Watch...one another.
Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for. (2 John 1:8)
Watch...for the devil.
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:8)
[Tell the story from West with the Night, ending with this quote: “I see that you are running without much thought in your head and the lion is running behind you with many thoughts in his head, and I scream for everybody to come very fast.”]
Watch...for enemies within.
I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. (Romans 16:17)
Watch...your doctrine.
Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. (1 Timothy 4:16)
[Discuss the benefit and gift that is the Trinity Confession of Faith.]
Watch...under your Watching Leaders.
Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. (Hebrews 13:17)
This watchfulness is a community activity. We remind one another of the boundaries of our city. We walk the walls together. Here's an odd little historical practice that I learned of recently, called “Beating the Bounds.” I think it could be instructive. Listen to this:
Before the borders of England’s parishes were definitively mapped, people learned the boundaries of their community by foot. Every year, a few days before the feast of the Ascension, the members of each parish would come together to walk the edge of their common lands.
The practice was called “beating the bounds,” and the purpose was to create a shared mental map of the parish, to ensure that neighboring communities couldn’t encroach on their land. They carried flags, sang songs, read homilies, and used slender willow-branches to swat the landmarks that separated one parish from another.
It was the responsibility of the older members of the community to remember the boundaries, and the responsibility of the younger ones to learn them, so that they could be preserved for another generation. Pain was used as an aid to memory, and the form of attack was determined by the landscape. If they came to a stream, the children’s heads might be dunked in it; if the boundary ran against a wall, they might be encouraged to race along it, so that they would fall into the brambles on either side. If they came across a ditch, they might be encouraged to jump across it, so that they would slip in the mud. And when they came to a boundary-stone, the children would be flipped upside down, to have their heads knocked against it. In some spots, though, more pleasant memories would be created, by pausing for a glass of beer or a snack of bread and cheese. Finally, they would finish with a party on the village green.
The most practical reason for this tradition was to create a living record of the parish’s boundaries, which could serve as evidence in disputes. In one case, for instance, a 75-year-old man testified that he knew exactly where the eastern boundary of the parish lay, because he had been thrown into a heap of nettles there sixty years ago, when he was a boy. Simply asserting that he remembered the boundary would not have stood up in court; it was the vivid, visceral nature of this memory, its connection to a dramatic experience, that helped his parish win the case.
I love this: the old vividly teaching the young the sacred boundaries and perilous borders of our ancient faith; the creation of a “shared mental map” of the pathways of our God; regular snacks and occasional punishment. That’s children’s ministry! And as someone who spent his childhood in this church, I can say that I relate very much to the experience of those children - especially the ones turned upside down and knocked against the rocks!
The City of Song in the Shadow of Empire is built with walls by faithful people. Again, faithful people. Not impressive people.
Let’s start with the main characters of these books. Ezra and Nehemiah are a different sort of hero than we're used to seeing. They aren’t larger than life. Ezra is a faithful, wise, intelligent teacher. Nehemiah is a faithful, wise, intelligent civil ruler. I’ve never met someone like Abraham, Moses, or David. But guess what, I’ve known people like Ezra and Nehemiah. In fact, I go to church with people like Ezra and Nehemiah. We want heroes so badly. We want platform personalities and famous Christians to represent us to the world or fight our battles for us. Sometimes God gifts his Church with figures like that, but not usually.
In addition to Ezra and Nehemiah, we have long lists of absolutelyessential nobodies. The book of Nehemiah is full of names that mean nothing to us. Let those names roll around in your mouth. They are tombs to unknown soldiers of the Lord, stand-ins for the millions of normal, faithful, Christians who have lived quiet lives of obedient praise to God for thousands of years. Those names are our names. And though the faces and struggles and joys of those people have been lost to us, just as our faces and struggles and joys will one day be lost, they are not lost to God.
Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name. (Malachi 3:16)
And even if their names are lost to us, it is the work and sacrifice of regular Christians throughout history that has made the world what it is. The Victorian novelist George Eliot concludes her masterpiece “Middlemarch” with this:
The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who live faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
They made personal sacrifices
Until now we have largely neglected what happens in Nehemiah 11. There are a lot of names. But why are the names there? What did those people do? Chapter 11 lists all of the families who agreed to leave their homes in the surrounding towns and villages and move into Jerusalem. In chapter 12 we see that all of Israel - whether or not they lived in Jerusalem - committed to providing financially for the keepers of the temple (12:47).
You may be thinking - “Philip, I love God, I believe the gospel, I read my Bible, I teach my kids, I worship him sincerely, but the picture I see in chapter 12, this exuberant ecstasy, this singing on city walls, or lifting my hands in church feels like a million miles away from where I am.” Maybe that’s because of your personality. Maybe it’s the season that you’re in.
Well, I want you to know that I hear you. And also that I have good news for you.
Earlier I described Nehemiah’s generation as reaching toward the promiseof Zion out of the ruins of Jerusalem. I described us in a similar way as those whose feet are in Apex but whose hands reach to Zion.
The practical, sacrificial, orientation of our lives around the things of God, around this church, is a crucial way in which we reach toward Zion. Showing up, not just on Sunday mornings, but to the sort of optional things, is how we pull a little bit of Zion down to Apex. Writing checks is how we pull a little bit of Zion down to Apex. Signing-up for meals or hospitality or service projects is how the City of Song is built.
Consider your ways. Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the Lord. You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? Declares the Lord of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house. (Haggai 1:7-9)
In the same way that worship has spilled out of the temple into the city streets, so the worship of God has spilled out from the priestly caste to include all people, including women and children.
And they offered great sacrifices that day and rejoiced, for God had made them rejoice with great joy; the women and children also rejoiced. (Nehemiah 12:43)
Among all the hundreds of things we want for our children, I believe that this text instructs us, as parents, to expect, work, and pray for our children to be worshipers.
And to expect, work, and pray for them to rejoice in the Lord with great joy.
And to expect, work, and pray for an age-appropriate, yet sincere depth of feeling in their engagement with the things of God.
We want children who make the good confession, but we also want children who rejoice on the city walls.
Would that we raised them to be Christians in whose veins the blood of Christ runs still warm - raw, feasting, bleeding, laughing Christians. When wild dogs are domesticated their ears droop. May our children’s souls never droop by being domesticated to the world’s ways - for the pathways of God lie in untamed places and are made for an untamed people. People whose souls thirst for the living God and who desire above all else to behold the beauty of the Lord and to enquire in his temple.
Here’s a sort of funny take on what I’m talking about. It’s from a Flannery O’Connor novel:
The old man had always impressed on him his good fortune in not being sent to school. The Lord had seen fit to guarantee the purity of his upbringing, to preserve him from contamination, to preserve him as His elect servant, trained by a prophet for prophesy. While other children his age were herded together in a room to cut out paper pumpkins under the direction of a woman, he was left free for the pursuit of wisdom, the companions of his spirit Abel and Enoch and Noah and Job, Abraham and Moses, King David and Solomon, and all the prophets, from Elijah who escaped death, to John whose severed head struck terror from a dish.
Flannery O'Connor, "The Violent Bear it Away"
Now the thing I love about this is not so much the jibes at paper pumpkins, but the high seriousness of purpose with which the old man raises the boy. Do we consider Enoch, Job, and Solomon the companions of their souls? Or are we content to let Spotify and Disney+ provide them with their souls’ companions? Worship is no less demanded of them than of you; their worship is no less precious to God than yours.
I fear that some of us have been so wary of hypocrisy or heavy-handedness that we’re not so much in danger of failing to practice what we preach as failing to preach what we practice.
We should take seriously our children’s worship and impress on them this truth: God wants their heart. All of it. May they give it to him and see if he doesn’t fill it beyond all hope or reckoning.
Scattered around our text we have various references to the ordinary days of worship. It’s important to remember that while worship does include feast days and high holy days, those days are the exceptions.
There was a command from the king concerning them, and a fixed provision for the singers, as every day required. (Nehemiah 11:23)
[They stood to] praise and to give thanks, according to the commandment of David the man of God, watch by watch. (Nehemiah 12:24)
And all Israel in the days of Zerubbabel and in the days of Nehemiah gave the daily portions for the singers and the gatekeepers. (Nehemiah 12:47).
Compare the preparation of a wedding to the preparation of a marriage. For a wedding, all your efforts are given so that one single day goes off perfectly. And then you go home and collapse on the couch with rice in your hair and wine on your shirt. To prepare for a marriage, though, you are carefully planning not just for one day, but for years: where will we live, work, and send our kids to school?
The consecration of the wall has elements of both the wedding and the marriage. We’ve focused a lot this morning on the “wedding” features. But let's not overlook the long-haul preparation that is involved here, too. Church life isn’t one perfectly executed wedding party, it’s a marriage; there are 52 Sundays a year; 26 home group meetings a year; 26 youth group meetings a year; prayer meetings; men’s meetings; women’s meetings; service projects; discipleship classes; and untold numbers of meal trains, acts of mercy, and hospitality occurring. These are ordinary days mostly. Yet they require care, endurance, consideration, and diligent work to execute faithfully.
“If a man has any greatness in him, it comes to light, not in one flamboyant hour, but in the leger of his daily work.”
The same is true of worship. If a man has any great love for God, it comes to light, not in one flamboyant worship service, but in the leger of weekly work and worship in the City of Song.
The City of Song in the Shadow of Empire is built with walls, by faithful people, in obedience to the Word. Specifically, it is obeyed in the fact that they worshiped according to David’s law and they lived according to Moses’ law.
In two different places in these chapters there are references to the manner of worship under King David. In 12:36 we are told that the instruments that were used were the musical instruments of “David, the man of God.” And in verses 45 and 46 we are told that:
[The people of God] performed the service of their God and the service of purification, as did the singers and gatekeepers, according to the command of David and his son Solomon. For long ago in the days of David and Asaph there were directors of the singers and there were songs of praise and thanksgiving to God. (Nehemiah 12:45-46)
And it is not only here that this occurs. Throughout the history of Israel, periods of reformation and revival always featured a moment like this, when the people would re-discover the old ways, the old instruments, the old system of laws and rules for how worship was to be done.
I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed this, but there is a certain arch to the lifespan of music groups: early on in their career, their first album or two, the group is scrappy and raw and authentic; then they become successful and rich and the production value goes up and they start having big light shows and ill-advised crossover projects; then the backlash happens and they go back to the original template: raw and scrappy. They call it “going back to their roots.”
While not a perfect analogy, something like that happens throughout Israel’s history, too. In Josh. 8:31 (re Moses); 1 Chron 15:13 -15 (re Moses); 2 Chron. 29:25 (re David, Gad, and Nathan, but giving ultimate attribution to God who commanded those men in the directory of worship); Ezra 6:18 (re Moses); and Ezra 3:10 (re David).
They go back to their roots. Except, in this case, it's not a stylistic correction to excess, it's a recovery and recommitment to God’s commands that invariably result in God’s blessing on his people. The Israelites worshiped according to the Word. We worship according to the Word. The theological term for this is the “Regulative Principle” of worship. Here’s what our Confession of Faith says:
The acceptable way of worshiping the true God is instituted by him alone, and is so limited by his own revealed will that he may not be worshiped according to the imagination and devices of men nor the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representations, or any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scriptures. (Trinity Confession of Faith 24.1)
Chapter 13 of our text begins like this:
On that day they read from the Book of Moses in the hearing of the people, And in it was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God.…As soon as the people heard the law, they separated from Israel all those of foreign descent. (Nehemiah 13:1-3)
I won’t spend a lot of time on this section, since this topic has been addressed in some of the earlier sermons in the series. I will make just one note, however. For most of us, obedience is not a matter of knowing, it’s a matter of doing. But this section reminds us that there can be times in the life of a denomination, church, or individual where obedience is a matter of discovery. And we should read our Bibles with that in mind.
We’re getting ready to begin a sermon series on 1 Corinthians. No doubt our hearts will be pricked with reminders of old truths. But our hearts may be pricked in new places, too. I hope it is. We should think of those sermons as they are: a reception of God’s law that is binding on us. There are some wild and wooly parts there: marriage and divorce, tongues, prophecy, head coverings, church discipline. How will we receive it? With thanksgiving, submission, and repentance? Or with equivocations and excuses?
The City of Song in the Shadow of Empire is built with walls, by faithful people, in obedience to the Word, empowered by the Holy Spirit.
I said earlier that the worship services that we see in Ezra and Nehemiah are intentionally modeled on those we see in Exodus at the consecration of the Mosaic tabernacle and again in 2 Chronicles at the consecration of Solomon’s temple. The people gathered, worship was performed, and then what? Well, in Exodus and in 2 Chronicles the shekinah glory of God in the form of fire and of a cloud - the visible representation of Yahweh’s presence with them and acceptance of them - descended over the place where the ark was kept. But what do we see in Ezra and Nehemiah? The temple was completed, the people gathered, worship was performed and then…nothing - no cloud, no fire.
What must that have been like for the people of God? How might they have responded? With a crisis of faith? Would they have doubted all the old stories they had heard? “There was never any cloud. There was never fire from heaven. It was all a fairy tale.” That could have been one response. Maybe another response was despair, assuming that their generation had been abandoned, not simply disciplined, by God. That God would never again be with them like he had been in Moses’ or David’s or Solomon’s day.
Young people, maybe you struggle with disbelief, either in the Bible itself, or in the testimony of your parents or grandparents. Older people, maybe you struggle with discouragement. You attend the same kind of church as you used to; you read the same Bible; you pray the same prayers; you sing the same songs and yet you sense that something has changed. Something is less than it once was. Are your remaining decades destined to be spent longing for earlier days? I believe that the testimony of the Holy Spirit’s work in Ezra and Nehemiah, and specifically in these chapters, has something to teach both groups.
First, the evidence is clear both in Ezra and Nehemiah and in the contemporary prophetic literature of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi that the presence of God and empowering of his Spirit had not abandoned them forever. Different? Yes. Less, even? Maybe. But gone? No. We’ll look at two verses, one from Haggai and one from Zechariah to show this.
Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the Lord. Work, for I am with you, declares the Lord of hosts, according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. (Haggai 2:4)
Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts. (Zech. 4:6)
Now my preference is for all three of those: might, power, and Spirit. And sometimes that happens. In the days of Moses and David and Solomon, that happened. But not in Zechariah’s day. Nor, I believe, in ours.
Let’s consider the kind of supernatural events that we encounter in Ezra and Nehemiah. What do we see? Avenging angels wiping out whole armies? No. Seas parting? No. Bread falling from the sky? Lepers cleansed? Water turned to wine? No, no, no. God was at work in a thousand different ways, but not really in the ways we typically think of God acting in scripture.
We just saw evidence that the Holy Spirit was with this generation. But, if so, how?
The supernatural is there, but it happens in subtler ways: unbelieving rulers inexplicably allowing ministry to occur; funding coming from bizarre and unlooked for places; rivalry and opposition dissipating in the face of diligent faithfulness; human hearts shaped and inspired by the work of the Holy Spirit; the Word speaking and convicting; God’s general blessing. The miracles that occur in these books, in other words, are the miracles that occur in our lives.
I want to highlight particularly, though, the way in which the Spirit was present with this generation through the giving of his Word.
We’ll look at three passages.
You gave your good Spirit to instruct them. Nehemiah 9:20.
Many years you bore with them and warned them by your Spirit through your prophets. Nehemiah 9:30
They made their hearts diamond-hard lest they should hear the law and the words that the Lord of hosts had sent by his Spirit. Zech. 7:12
It is in these generations that the deep study of scripture present in the synagogue tradition that we encounter in the New Testament is established and formalized. As certain manifestations of the Spirit receded from view, the people of God leaned hard into what remained: the Word. For the next five hundred years, scripture became preeminent in the community.
We can learn something from that. We all go through spiritual dry spells. Maybe last year was a really sweet time of prayer and fellowship with the Lord but recently you have felt lethargic or distant from God. Read his Word. Cherish it. Press into it and cling to it. He is speaking to you there.
The Spirit of God is present; he is present through his Word; but for what end? To obey with joy.First obedience.
We just saw how obedience to the word - whether in how we worship or in how we live - an essential component of building the City of Song in the Shadow of Empire. But here’s the problem: without the Holy Spirit it’s impossible to do it. Sure, maybe for a few months or even years, with a lot of will-power and peer pressure and reward structures, a group of people can muscle their way into some kind of community.
Hippy communes are really great for about six months. But I’m not talking about a hippy commune, I’m talking about a church. And I’m not talking about a year or two on a collective farm in Vermont, I’m talking about a lifetime…in the suburbs…with me! That takes a miracle! That takes the Holy Spirit.
We just saw a minute ago in Haggai the call to build the house of the Lord, to forsake your paneled homes and your hobbies and to dedicate your lives to the Lord. But look at how that’s done.
Then rose up the heads of the fathers’ houses of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and the Levites, everyone whose spirit God had stirred to go up to rebuild the house of the Lord that is in Jerusalem. (Ezra 1:5)
See that connection: Haggai prophecies to the people (via the Spirit) and the people obey (via the Spirit).
The Lord stirred up the spirit of all the remnant of the People. And they came and worked on the house of the Lord of hosts, their God. (Haggai 1:14)
As John Bunyon memorably wrote:
Run, John, run, the law commands,
but gives us neither feet nor hands.
Far better news the gospel brings:
it bids us fly and gives us wings.
John Bunyan
The Spirit of God is present through his Word so that we might obey with joy!
For God had made them rejoice with great joy. (Nehemiah 12:43)
In his sermon on Nehemiah 8, Brad did a great job teaching us on how joy fits into our worship. Because there are other things we need to get to, I won’t belabor this point beyond simply noting that we see it here again - the people of God are a happy people - and also that God is given the credit for giving them joy. “God made them rejoice.” Joy is a command, but it’s also a gift. When we have it, we should give God thanks for it. When we lack it, we should pray that God would give the gift of joy in any circumstance and not just pray for the kind of circumstances that tend to make us joyful.
The City of Song in the Shadow of Empire is built with walls, by faithful people, in obedience to the Word, empowered by the Spirit, for an audience of nations.
And they offered great sacrifices that day and rejoiced, for God had made them rejoice with great joy; the women and children also rejoiced. And the joy of Jerusalem was heard far away. (Nehemiah 12:43)
The singing was heard far away. I want to address those who hear the rejoicing in this place and yet are far off. Not far off physically. You’re here in this place, but your heart and soul are a million miles away. To you, I would say, the song that emanates from the Church of God and from his Word and from the ordinary lives of his people is an invitation. .
Eph. 2 addresses Christians who were once, like you are now, far off. I’m going to change the language slightly so that you can feel the sense of what the Apostle Paul is saying here:
Remember that you are at this time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel (the City of Song) and a stranger to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who are far off are invited to come near by the blood of Christ.
A month ago I took my two youngest children to Umstead Park in Raleigh. Umstead Park has twenty miles of trails in it, but for the last 33 years of my life I have only walked one trail, the Company Mill Loop. My mom used to take me there when I was a kid. The trail starts at a big picnic shelter and then goes down a hill and crosses a little creek then goes up and down a few times, crosses another little creek, goes up and down a few more times, and then crosses a big creek, Reedy Creek. There’s an old crumbled down mill there and an old mill stone and some rocks to climb. When I took Laurel and Graham last month, there was a group of Hispanic folks gathering in the shelter at the trailhead. They were bringing in food and laughing and starting a fire in the big fireplace. Maybe it was someone’s birthday or anniversary. We walked past them and smiled and had our little hike; we sat by the creek and ate our sandwiches and climbed the rocks and then hiked back. As we were coming to the end of the hike, we started to hear something in the distance, up above us. We heard singing. It wasn’t “Happy Birthday”. There were no instruments. There were no microphones. It wasn’t even english. It was voices in another language singing with wide open harmonies, a slow but happy tune. On Saturdays in the fall, the trail is packed. There are college students and couples and runners with dogs. And all these people are around us and we’re hearing the singing up above and I’m wondering, “Do they hear this? Do they love this like I do?”. It was so simple yet beautiful you wanted to stop people and point up the hill with excitement. The singing got louder as we hiked up the hill, then we saw them: the group that had been gathering in the shelter was still there.
They had built a fire and had a meal. And now they were singing. I couldn’t understand a word they were saying but I knew exactly what it meant. There’s only one kind of people who sing like that. They sing in churches and in park shelters and in jail cells and in living rooms and on city walls while Babylon rules from afar. I couldn’t sing with them that day, but I’ll meet them again. I’d recognize that song anywhere. When we got in the car I asked Laurel what her favorite part was. The singing, she said.
Friend, you are far off. But come into the shelter and sing and be welcomed.
The City of Song is built in the shadow of empires, with walls, by faithful people, in obedience to God’s word, empowered by the Spirit, for an audience of nations.
While one of the intentions of this sermon has been to highlight the many similarities between our time and Nehemiah’s, I want to conclude by noting a significant difference.
Even though it is clear that God was present with his people through his Word and Spirit, something had been irretrievably lost, too. Specifically: the ark of the covenant and the corresponding cloud of glory that had accompanied the placing of the ark within the temple by Solomon and that had accompanied the placing of the ark within the Tent of Meeting by Moses.
In Exodus 25, God had commanded Moses to construct the ark as the special place of his habitation with his people. It was made of acacia wood, overlaid with gold, and contained the tablets of the law, Aaron’s budding staff, and a bowl of manna. On top of the Ark, between engraved cherubim with outstretched wings, was the mercy seat where the blood of the lamb was sprinkled once a year to atone for the sins of the people. It was from above the mercy seat that God had chosen to speak to Moses.
To touch it was death.
To lose it was worse than death.
And they had lost it: their greatest treasure; the tangible place of Yahweh’s sublime and terrible presence where perfect righteousness, in the form of the tablets of the law, was covered by perfect mercy, in the form of the propitiating, sacrificial, atoning blood.
Jeremiah had prophesied that there would come a time when the ark of the covenant would no longer come to mind or be remembered or missed. But I do not believe that Ezra and Nehemiah’s generation was that time. I believe that in those days it came to mind often. I believe they wept for it.
Now, I don’t want us to think about the ark in some sort of weird, totemistic, superstitious way, where if they could just find the ark then all their problems would go away. I simply mean that in the Old Testament, God had chosen to be present in a special way through the ark and that in times of great sin, the loss of the ark was one way in which God chose to discipline his people. I believe there are grounds for arguing that the generations of Ezra and Nehemiah endured this kind of discipline because God had, in fact, disciplined Israel exactly like this once before.
Listen to 1 Samuel chapter 4 about the time when the Philistines had captured the Ark of the Covenant in the generations before the great Davidic kingdom was established.
Now [Eli’s] daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, was pregnant, and about to give birth. And when she heard the news that the ark of God was captured, and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she bowed and gave birth, for her pains came upon her. And about the time of her death the women attending her said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, for you have borne a son.’ But she did not answer or pay attention. And she named the child Ichabod, saying, ‘The glory has departed from Israel!’ because the ark of God had been captured and because of her father-in-law and her husband. And she said, ‘The glory has departed from Israel, for the ark of God has been captured.’ (1 Samuel 4:19-22)
What she said was true. The glory had departed from Israel. It was not until David recovered the ark years later that it would return again. But for that hundred year period of time, Eli’s daughter-in-law had prophesied rightly: the glory had departed.
When Jerusalem was sacked and the Israelites exiled to Babylon four hundred years later, the ark was lost again. And this time it was never recovered. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah take place, in a sense, in a period similar to the dark time that Israel had experienced between the death of Eli and the ascendency of David. Temple worship continued; God’s Spirit was present, yet a great gaping hole was felt.
We have rightly celebrated the rebuilding of the temple under Ezra. But here’s something to consider: without the ark, the Holy of Holies in Ezra’s rebuilt temple may have been simply an empty room. A place no longer of meetingwith God but of waitingfor God.
The absence of the shekinah glory, the absence of a dramatic revelation of God’s presence at the consecration of the rebuilt temple, indicates a qualitative difference in how God chose to dwell and reveal himself to his people after the exile. Like a marriage after infidelity, the return to the way things once were is long and painful.
The generation of Ezra and Nehemiah died and another rose up, and then another. Century followed century. A remnant was preserved. The worship of God continued. His Spirit continued to speak through his Word. But was God ever again in their midst as he had once been? During those long years, I wonder if they ever thought: “if only the Ark of the Covenant had not been lost, things would be different.”
If such a thing could be restored, would God perhaps again dwell in their midst? Would the shekinah glory return? Would fire and the cloud again descend upon the City of Song and consecrate the people’s praise?
The women attending the birth of Eli’s grandson told that tragic mother: “Do not be afraid, for you have borne a son.” But there was no peace in that birth, only fear. There was no life at that birth, only death. There was no glory at that birth, only darkness. The ark had been lost. The glory had departed.
It would take another birth, another son, for the ark to return. It would take another birth, another son, for the glory to shine again.
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. (Luke 2:8-11)
The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us and we beheld his glory. (John 1:14)
The ark has not been found, it has been born.
The tablets of the law kept in the ark? In Christ, perfectly embodied and fulfilled.
The bowl of manna kept in the ark? In Christ, the Bread of Life, perfectly embodied and fulfilled.
Aaron’s budding staff kept in the ark? In Christ, the true and perpetual priesthood, perfectly embodied and fulfilled.
The blood on the mercy seat? In Christ, perfectly embodied and fulfilled.
And the Cherubim, no longer engraved in gold, but real and awesome - hovering, brooding, singing over a mercy seat of fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains, repeating the sounding joy:
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
Beloved, take great hope and confidence from this, that God, in Christ, dwells with us and will never forsake us. He has become flesh and tabernacled among us. We have beheld his glory. He is our temple, he is our defense. The City of Song, no longer in the Shadow of Empire, but in the Light of His Glory Forever. Amen.
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