Nehemiah 8:1-3,5-6,8-10 Luke 4:14-21
When we first went into COVID quarantine, back in March of 2020 we thought it would be for a couple of weeks. That was only the beginning of our COVID delusions.
The season of Lent passed. Then Easter passed. I remember telling people we were going to come back by Pentecost with a blow-out celebration, for the sake of all the things we had missed. We would wave palm branches, set out Easter lilies, and have red balloons to represent the flames of Pentecost. We would hug each other and sing all the hymns we had missed, with gusto.
But then Pentecost came and went…and we were still waiting.
A whole year passed before we came back together in the sanctuary for worship. And it wasn’t the massive, multipurpose celebration I had envisioned.
We were few in number. We were carefully spaced. We were masked and sanitized, and we did not sing. Even now, almost another year on, we are masked. Our attendance numbers wax and wane with the COVID numbers. It’s touch and go, you might say.
COVID has made a lasting imprint. We have been through seasons of grief, seasons of joy, and sometimes layers of both at the same time.
Yes, it is possible to feel both grief and joy at the same time.
The Old Testament books of Ezra and Nehemiah tell the story of Israel’s return home from exile. Ezra, the priest, and Nehemiah, the governor, provided the leadership for the restoration of Israel.
If you read through these two books you will see that there was so much that needed to be done, and their leadership was essential. The temple had to be rebuilt from the ground up.
When the people of Israel began to return from their exile, there was no temple. It had been utterly destroyed years earlier by their enemies. So the people gathered together at the ruins of the temple, built an altar on top of the foundation of the old one, and made their offerings to God. It was a start.
And later they began to rebuild the temple. They gathered together at their place of worship to lay a new foundation. They made a ceremony of it. The priests were there, wearing their vestments. There were trumpets and cymbals and praises sung to God. The people rejoiced loudly. Some of them, the older ones who remembered how things used to be, they wept.
And the rejoicing was so loud, and the weeping was so loud that together they just made a loud noise. No one could distinguish the grief from the joy. This was a season for both.
Still many more years passed before the temple-building began in earnest. But they finally did get it done and they celebrated the dedication of the temple with lavish offerings.
However, they still did not use the Torah in their worship. The Torah includes what we know as the first five books of scripture: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. These books contain the law of God for the people of God; it was most likely assembled from oral traditions during the time of exile.
Ezra was a scribe, skilled in the law, and he had a burning desire to teach the law to the people of Israel. And when he returned to Jerusalem from exile, he had a mission: to teach the people of Israel their law, restoring greater order, purpose, and meaning to Israel.
Sometime later, Nehemiah also returned to Jerusalem from exile. He led the efforts to rebuild the city around the temple, including rebuilding the walls that would protect them from outside attacks. They pursued this work through many difficulties: violent attacks, famine, and internal disputes that had to be resolved. And finally, when they completed the wall, the people gathered together again in celebration – tens of thousands of people. Ezra stood before them, unrolled the scroll, and began to read the books of the law to them.
Ezra read and the people listened. There were others who provided interpretation, to give the sense of it, as the text says, and the people listened. And the people wept.
Were these tears of joy? Were they weeping because, hearing the law, they became painfully aware of their sin? Was this simply a cathartic moment, a release of pent up emotion from so many years of suffering?
Maybe all of it. Perhaps the people wept for all these reasons, and for the same reasons the elders wept at the dedication of the temple foundation. They grieved because there was no returning to the past.
There was no going back to what had felt normal and right and good. And that can be a very hard thing to accept – for anyone.
Ezra and Nehemiah said to the people, “This day is holy to the Lord. Do not mourn or weep. The joy of the Lord is your strength.” Eventually, they did quiet themselves, and they went on to celebrate the appointed festival. They rejoiced, they cared for one another, especially those most vulnerable members. But was there still a lingering sense of grief, even in their joy? Almost certainly.
I spend some time with this story today because I believe it resonates with our own circumstances. There are points of intersection between the post-exilic time for Israel and the post-quarantine time in which we are living now. And, pray to God, a post-COVID-19 time that is yet to come.
The restoration of Israel did not come all at once. It took years. Leadership came and went. Work started and stopped. Disputes broke out and had to be resolved.
The people did not always keep their eye on the ball, as people do tend to get distracted from their goals and purpose. But eventually they made it, all the way. And still, it was a bittersweet moment. Because it was not the same.
It never is.
There are lessons for us in this story from ancient Israel. Our COVID ordeal has been easy compared to what Israel suffered, and so we might take some comfort in knowing that people of God have endured great difficulties and did not lose faith; they did not lose their way.
After Ezra and Nehemiah urge the people to dry their tears, they say, “Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
And then the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions to those for whom nothing was prepared – that is, the neediest among them. Food and drink and hope for those who had none. And they made great rejoicing because they had understood the words of scripture that had been declared to them.
If these are the essential things, and I believe they are, then I want to assure you we, too, can manage just fine. Offer praises to God, in the congregation and in our homes. Hear and attend to the word read, and interpreted to give the sense of it, as Nehemiah says. Care for one another, and most particularly for the neediest among us.
Several hundred years after Nehemiah, when the community of faith were gathered again, at the synagogue, Jesus was invited to read scripture. He read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah these words:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” As was also the custom, he interpreted, or gave the sense of the text, as Nehemiah says. And for Jesus, the sense of it was to say: this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. Or, in other words, this is what I am here for –
to bring good news to the poor. This scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing, and continues to be fulfilled, by the power of the Spirit, through Christ’s church.
Whenever, wherever, and however the community of the faithful gather together around God’s word;
Whenever, wherever, and however the community is feeding and caring for the least of God’s children;
The word is being fulfilled.
Thanks be to God. We all need the good news. May we also be the good news.
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Photo by Mario Dobelmann on Unsplash
