Scripture Passage
The two choirs that were giving thanks…played and sang loudly under the direction of Jezrahiah the choir director. (Nehemiah 12:40, 42 NLT)
Observation
Yesterday I complained of “slim pickin’s”—a paucity of inspiring thoughts arising as I read the Scriptures. Today seems the opposite. (Yeah, I know—might have a lot more to do with me than with the Scriptures, huh?) What a great couple of passages, ripe with “jumping off” points for consideration! Working backwards from the end to the beginning…
Malachi is always an intriguing book. Basically, God has some charges to bring against his people, but to me, the response of the people is as telling as the charges. Every challenge God brings gets answered with “What?!? How?!? Who?!? Us?!?” Israel acts like an egocentric toddler (or teenager, perhaps)—too busy defensively arguing their innocence that they did *nothing* to give any real consideration to the Lord’s rebuke.
Nehemiah’s strong actions in light of (1) intermarriage among the people (again), (2) the abuse of the Sabbath, and (3) Tobiah’s use of sacred space as a personal mini-storage makes me smile. I’ll just say it—we like the strong leadership we read about in the Bible, but we’d never tolerate such actions in today’s church. We expect our pastors/leaders to hold their tongues and watch their tempers. The truth is, I think demanding such false perfection costs the church more than she gains. Every winning team lets the coach demand the best, even if he sometimes rants and raves to get it.
Mostly, though, I love the way the people celebrate the dedication of the Temple. Some of that’s because I love music—and I love the thought of antiphonal choirs circling the city until they meet in what had to be a rockin’ expression of praise to Jehovah! God deserves to be celebrated with all we’ve got—and it sounds like He received the praise on that day that He’s worthy of every day.
That celebration is a good reminder for me, too. I’m not too good at celebrating. I can critique what went wrong all day long, but it’s pretty rare for me to jump for joy with how well something went. This dedication of the city walls of Jerusalem challenges me (as have some other conversations and exhortations lately) to look for milestones to celebrate. Life isn’t all about correcting what’s imperfect—sometimes it ought to be about celebrating what’s good.
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1 comment:
Pastor, They got it right again. Isn't it great when God gets the only thing he ever really asked for from us? I read daily how we fail God by making his worship something other than what he wants. But evry now and then we get it right. Sometimes (like David) we have to try two or three times to get there. But sometimes like Josiah or Hezekiah or Nehemiah we bring God the offering he truly desires. and Yes it's unique in that it contains music and praise and surrender. I just had a thought, remember how when we were first graders our teachers used to pass out insturments and have us march around the room making noise? Hmmmmm? Martin
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