Nehemiah and Advent!

 


(This is from my letter to my congregation today, 22 December 2021)

As I mentioned last week, the Sunday evening sermon series will be on Nehemiah, and I’m calling it “Rebuilding after a Hot Mess: Seeking the Welfare of God’s People.” Therefore, I’m already diving into Nehemiah and spending lots of time with him. And reading Nehemiah during Advent has made an interesting connection that I’m sharing with you. 

The memoirs of Nehemiah are full of accounts of trouble. There’s trouble from outside the church, stirred up by fellows like Sanballat and Tobiah (2:9-10; chapters 4 and 6; 13:4-9). And there’s a heap of trouble inside the church with economic injustice and gracelessness (Chapter 5), talking heads (prophets) who foment fear and encourage Nehemiah to make bad decisions based on fear (6:10-14), and a compromising leadership (6:15-19; 13:4-9 and 29). God’s people have come out of a hot mess (captivity and exile) and are in another hot mess! 

And Nehemiah meets this hot mess, specifically the trouble from outside the church, on the first day he arrives in Jerusalem (2:9-10). What Nehemiah meets are people from outside the church who are greatly displeased “that someone has come to seek the welfare of the people of Israel” (2:10). That statement is where we get the subtitle to our Sunday evening sermon series. Nehemiah (his name means “The LORD comforts”!) had come to dwell in broken down Jerusalem to seek the welfare of God’s people. 

Now, that assertion that Nehemiah had come to seek the welfare of God’s people while they were oppressed and impoverished, to seek the welfare of God’s people where they lived all impoverished and oppressed, got me to thinking Advent and Christmas thoughts! The Greater Nehemiah, the One in whom we receive the comfort of the Father of mercies and God of all comforts (2 Corinthians 1:3-5) has come to us in our own hot mess! He has come and tabernacled amongst us, set up his tent among our shambles and shacks. He has inserted himself into our being oppressed and impoverished. He has come to us to seek the welfare of God’s people! And so, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord (…). Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased” (Luke 2:10-11, 14)! 

Advent draws us upward and onward to anticipate the LORD who comforts, the Greater Nehemiah, coming in the flesh to seek the welfare of his people! “O come, O come, Immanuel, and ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear. Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.” To expectantly await the Greater Nehemiah coming in person into our hot mess to rebuild what has been decimated and shore up the welfare of God’s people. “Thou who art God beyond all praising, all for love’s sake becamest man; stooping so low, but sinners raising, heav’nward by thine eternal plan. Thou who art God beyond all praising, all for love’s sake, becamest man.”

Rejoice, beloved brothers and sisters! The Greater Nehemiah is coming to seek the welfare of God’s people, even in their hot mess! 

Pastor Mike

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